Available for PS4, Ace Combat 7: Skies of Unknown sees players controlling Trigger, a fighter pilot serving his penance while Osea and Erusea wage war. Launched in 2019, Bandai Namco’s air combat title has sold over seven million copies and earned critical acclaim. If you’re the least bit interested in Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve, then it’s absolutely worth playing Ace Combat 7 first.

Subnautica: Below Zero is somewhat less mandatory before the next game enters early access this year. Coming to PS4 and PS5 subscribers, it offers new characters, biomes, creatures, and mechanics, such as surface exploration. Not as acclaimed as the original, but it’s still one of the better survival crafting adventures out there.

The same goes for ULTROS on PS4 and PS5, at least in the sci-fi side-scrolling department. With trippy visuals courtesy of El Huervo (Hotline Miami) and an incredible soundtrack, it’s an adventure unlike most. And if realistic boxing is your poison, Undisputed, available exclusively for PS5, could be worthwhile. With over 70 fighters and dozens of Attributes and Traits to master, there’s a lot to keep you busy.

As reported by GamesIndustry, Undisputed has now sold over a million units worldwide across all platforms. The game launched in full earlier this month, after having been in early access on Steam for over a year and a half.

Steel City Interactive CEO Ash Habib has also revealed that the game has exceeded published Deep Silver’s internal sales forecasts.

“There hasn’t been a boxing game in 12 to 13 years,” he said. “The way we’ve done Early Access and built our community, and the numbers we were seeing… I was hoping for a pretty good launch.

“But this is my very first time. I have no benchmarks to compare this against. I could act like a spoiled brat and go ‘a million’s a million, what does that even mean?’ But in real terms, I know it’s a pretty incredible achievement for an indie studio’s first title. And we’ve gone above our forecasts that the publisher had.”

In our review of Undisputed, we awarded it a score of 7/10, saying, “Undisputed delivers impressive graphical detail and an extensive fighter roster that will satisfy boxing fans. The moment to moment boxing mechanics feel fun while leaning into the sim territory with the game’s sixty different punches. While the modes within Undisputed don’t warrant the asking price of $59.99, the character options, fighting mechanics, and deep roster are enough to satisfy fans of the genre.” Read the full review through here.

Undisputed is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

"Fighters have a lot of detail to them and the lighting and sweat look great."

It’s in the graphical presentation where one begins to really feel the decade-long advancement in technology since the last licensed boxing game. These are the best graphics for a boxing game yet, which admittedly isn’t saying much since the last licensed boxing game was in 2011. Still, the realism that Steel City managed to portray here with the Unity engine is rather astounding. The 70-plus roster of fighters all look like their real-life counterparts. They didn’t just perfect the tattoos likenesses of cover athletes like Canelo Alverez, but perfectly captured every detail of Connor Benn’s fully covered body tattoos. Fighters drip with sweat as the fights progresses and the lighting displayed within the game’s 20-plus venues is exquisite. There’s no two ways about it, Undisputed features the most realistic graphics in any boxing game to date, capturing the likeness of the comprehensive roster of fighters in great detail.

Just as important as graphics are the animations, and I’m pleased to say that Undisputed excels in this department just as well. It’s not easy to capture body-to-body contact with complex arm motions without embarrassing clipping and frame warping breaking the immersion. Thankfully, almost every motion in Undisputed looks natural, with combo punches and fleeting footwork avoiding the uncanny valley. Fighters appropriately angle their body when doing an uppercut and pivot their feet realistically when stepping into a heavy KO-intentioned punch. Whether you’re switching up different stances in combos or blocking with straight jabs, the motions manage to look natural and realistic.

"Legendary fighters display their signature stances and quirky movements, though lesser-known fighters aren’t given such personalized animations."

While the full roster of fighters don’t all feature their unique stances and quirks, many of the notable fighters do. Unfortunately, a fighter’s unique style doesn’t translate over to their entrance or post-fight behavior. For example, Oleksandr Usyk doesn’t kneel down in his corner before fights, instead standing around with the stock animations the rest of the fighters have when not engaged in the ring. All in all, the graphics and animations are the highlight of this entire experience for me, managing to feel and look every bit as authentic and visceral as a professional boxing bout should be.

There’s more to a game than graphics though, and it’s in the modes where Undisputed may disappoint some players. The game’s modes are made up of Quick Match, Career, Prize Fights, and Online Ranked and Unranked. Prize Fights are weekly rotational special fights intended to challenge the player in interesting ways. I wish you earned something to transfer to your Career Modes after successfully winning a Prize Fight, but the only reward is your place on a leaderboard, as well as bragging rights and some trophies/achievements upon a particularly skillful performance.

"Career Mode gives you full reigns over a fighter’s management and statistical parameters, including licensed fighters and your custom character."

Undisputed doesn’t attempt to fill the shoes of Fight Night regarding its Career Mode. The Career Mode here lacks any story or presentation value outside of the spectacle of the fights themselves, rather supplying a sim-like experience progressing and managing your fighting career. Everything is text-based with no voice acting or immersive training mini-games like most other sports titles have. Once I realized what this Career Mode wasn’t trying to be, I quite enjoyed what it had to offer, regardless of its shortcomings.

"The character creator is delightfully expansive, allowing a full range of facial customization and stat allocation"

Meanwhile, Undisputed’s character creator is surprisingly versatile, allowing for a wide range of body types and facial features. Just take a look at the stuff I created as an example of the horrors or beauties you can craft. The game provides a generous offering of body part sliders as well as a solid selection of different hair styles. It’s safe to say fans won’t be disappointed with the character creator here. As expected, you can allocate all the different stats as you see fit to your character, as well as give them a stance, gloves, shorts, taunts, and walkout music. The selection of gloves, shorts, and shoes is pathetic, offering under 10 selections for each, so hopefully the studio patches a wider variety post-launch.

Once you’ve created your character within Career Mode and overcome the beginner tournament, it’s time to hire your three staff members to prepare for some real fights. You’re given a salary for winning fights, which will need to be carefully managed buy paying staff and medical expenses. Staff with superior stats cost more to sign, just as Gyms that offer higher stat bonuses during training are pricier. I found this financial balancing act pretty fun, scratching that managerial itch that other games’ Franchise Mode gives. Not only do you level up your own fighter after bouts in the ring, but your manager’s stats as well.

"Training sessions allow you to improve fight sharpness, weight, energy, and a host of stats before an upcoming fight."

I also enjoy the balancing between between my fighter’s weight management and fight sharpness during week simulations. You’ll often have to wait a couple weeks or months before you’re sharp enough or within the weight limit to join a fight , adding an extra pinch of sim salt to the game. Even worse is when you get badly injured with a KO. Waiting times are longer for injuries, or you can opt to pay a medical fee for your staff to patch you up immediately, if they’re good enough that is; my cutman was cheap but ineffective, so they failed to heal me, costing me much-needed money in the process. Although the presentation values are non-existent within these Career Mode activities, management sim players will appreciate the balancing act that comes with the money, training, and staff aspects of Undisputed.

"Injuries will occur to various body parts if you aren’t careful during a fight, requiring costly fees to patch up."

I’m especially amused at the potential to build yourself into a losing career if these aspects are managed poorly early on. It can feel like an uphill battle paying medical fees for those poorly timed blocks that got you cut up in the last fight, making your choices within Career feel all the more impactful and urgent. That said, there’s no heightened bout presentation within Career Mode, even when you win a belt. It’s the same commentary team and intro/outro cutscenes from other modes in the game, making Career Mode feel less special and worthwhile than it could have been.

Unfortunately, the servers weren’t available for me to play any matches within the game’s Online Modes, as I played during the limited pre-launch window and not the beta period earlier in the year. Those who’ve played the beta have had mixed experiences with matchmaking, citing occasional lag and ghost punches as problem areas. But this is a review of the current iteration of the game and not the beta, so I have no comment to give on the state of the Online servers at this time. The online modes themselves allow for quick matches, tournaments, and ranked matches; you can even use your horrific created characters to scare other players into a coma if you so desire.

"You can sway your head backwards to narrowly avoid heavy punches."

Finally, let’s talk about the meat and potatoes of any fighting game, the gameplay mechanics. The punches you throw in Undisputed consist of four general types: body, straight, uppercut, and quick jabs. It’s impressive how the studio has expanded these basic punch types into over 60 variations of punches depending on footing, angle, and combos. Part of that variety lies in the ‘strong’ modifier you can apply to any punch using the right trigger, the go-to option when initiating a devastating KO. Like the real sport of boxing, expending a lot of energy in repeated strong punches results in a quicker decline in stamina, which of course gets has its own meter that must be managed throughout the fight. Stamina isn’t the only meter you have to watch, you also have a health and block meter that decline as those parts of your fighter’s body gets hit. The various meters brings me to the many stats that comprise your fighter’s output in Undisputed. Stats are divided into five broad categories, which are then subdivided into three smaller categories each.

I like how, not only can your head and body be damaged over time, but your block as well. This is another little realistic wrinkle that helps adds authenticity to the experience. You really cannot rely too heavily on any one stance unless you want that part to get fatigued early on in the fight. The way the individual parts of your fighter get drained is balanced quite well, encouraging players to stay on their toes switching up their offense and defense to spread around the damage just like the real sport. This attention to detail regarding individual fighter parameters translates to the strategy involved with picking your opponent. For example, if your Career Mode fighter has weak blocking and strong body stats, it may be wise to choose an opponent that doesn’t typically wear out the opponent’s block with rapid jabs.

"Your stamina and health bars deplete as you expend energy and get hit, resulting in sluggish movements and weaker punches over time."

Micromanaging the stamina of your various parameters through a fight provides a fun strategic layer that orients Undisputed as a more sim-based fighting game while allowing for accessibility through difficulty modifiers and the like. That said, some punches do ‘slip through’ and clip through well placed blocks occasionally, making your risk/reward efforts go to waste. I don’t want to make it seem too common for this to happen since it is rare for punches to clip through blocks, but it did occur to me nonetheless and bears mentioning. Another issue that a majority of players, including myself, have noted is how tethered to your opponent your fighter is. You’re always facing in the position of your opponent, which makes bouts feel on-rails sliding along an immovable axis, negating freedom of movement. Sure, you can sway and bob around, but even that comes at the expense of your punches since you cannot input both sways and punches simultaneously. Undisputed comes close to being a truly authentic sim boxing experience, but the inability to punch while swaying or dodging feels particularly limiting.

Pound for pound, Undisputed is a worthy enough boxing game for fans of the genre wanting something to fill the void left by EA’s Fight Night series. It doesn’t supply any of the compelling narrative that EA’s legendary series offered with its Story Mode, but Undisputed provides a fun Career with fun management elements. Undisputed is perhaps most noteworthy for being the most graphically impressive boxing game to date, and with an amazing roster of 70 licensed fighters to boot. Is Undisputed worth the $59.99 asking price? Maybe not, but it’s a solid choice for the boxing game enthusiast and one that will satisfy until a more worthy adversary join the ring.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.

MOVEMENT

Steel City Interactive has been promising the most authentic boxing sim mechanics with Undisputed since day one, and a lot of that will come through how you will control movement. The game will offer players complete control over how they move around the ring, including fine control over footwork and stamina with the Flat Footed Movement and Loose Movement options. That will mean that every step, pivot, and slip will be in your control, as per the developers.

OFFENSE AND DEFENSE

Beyond its movement and footwork mechanics, Undisputed will also tout over 60 different kinds of punches for players to unleash at opponents, from hooks to uppercuts to jabs to much, much more. On the defensive side of things, clever footwork, blocks, and what have you will be crucial to not only evade attacks, but be able to counter incoming moves. How you time your attacks and defensive maneuvers and how you manage your movement around the ring will greatly inform how you perform in a fight.

ROSTER

Undisputed is, at the end of the day, a fighting game, and a fighting game lives and dies by its roster- so what should be expect from the game on that front? At launch, it will feature over 70 playable fighters across 10 weight divisions, which, as per Steel City Interactive, is the most licensed fighters that any major boxing game has ever launched with. On top of that, the roster also casting a wide net in terms of how much of the sport’s history it will cover. Want to play as contemporary champions or a rising star? You can, of course do that, but if you ant to step into the ring as legendary fighters from different eras, you will have that option as well. Additionally, ach boxer’s in-game model has also been created using scanning technology.

STATS

Undisputed is touting meaningful differences in the ways the fighters in its roster will feel to play as, and a lot of that will boil down to their stats. Each fighter has their own range of stats and traits, covering everything from their health, recovery, and stamina to their guarding, agility, the power of each individual hand, mental attributes, and much more. Each fighter will also have their own unique style of fighting that will correspond to their real-world counterpart, so if there’s a specific style of punching or guarding that a certain boxer is known for, you will likely see them operate the same way in Undisputed as well.

CAREER MODE

Undisputed’s main attraction for many is going to be the Career Mode, which will allow you to play as a rising star attempting to climb through the ranks, consistently grab more belts, trounce a series of opponents, and become the undisputed champion. Players will make key choices throughout the mode, including what coaches you want by your side, what sort of fight deals you land, and more, and each will, as you might imagine, impact how your career pans out in unique ways.

MORE CAREER MODE DETAILS

Career Mode will task players with managing their career and finding consistent success over a prolonged period of time, which, of course, will mean having complete control over your training and training camps as well. What kind of camps you choose and the areas that you choose to focus on will be key decisions that will also impact your rise to the top.

MULTIPLAYER

For those looking for a multiplayer experience, Undisputed will have options on that front as well. Players will be able to matchmake with others, with Steel City Interactive confirming that ranked matches and leaderboards will also be available. Meanwhile, those looking for something less competitive, or those looking to simply play against their friends, will have the option to create custom lobbies.

PRIZE FIGHTS

Outside of Career Mode and its aforementioned multiplayer component, Undisputed will also feature an additional mode in the form of Prize Fights. Each fight in this mode will be a limited-time event that will come with unique conditions, from tasking you to fight as a specific fighter to setting specific win conditions, among other things. Prize Fights will be regularly rotated, so players should theoretically have plenty of reason to keep checking back in.

CHARACTER CREATOR

In addition to letting you play as over 70 licensed fighters, Undisputed will let you create your own fighter from scratch. On the cosmetic front, the character creation toolset will let you tweak a number of different aspects of your fighter’s body, face, outfit, and much more. Beyond that, you will also be choosing things such as your punching and fighting styles, preferred stances, blocking style, and dive into the traits and stats governing your character’s attributes.

VENUES

Steel City Interactive has confirmed that Undisputed is going to have six venues in total upon its full release, of which one will be an outdoor venue, while one – Coldwell’s Gym – will be a larger arena. Whether the developer intends to add more venues to the game following its release remains to be seen.

PC REQUIREMENTS

Undisputed’s upcoming full release is, of course, bringing the game to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, but what about those who wish to play it on PC? On minimum settings, the game’s demands are pretty reasonable, requiring either a 3.4GHz i5 7500 or a 3.2GHz Ryzen 5 1600, along with either a GeForce GTX 1660 or a Radeon RX 590, and 8 GB of RAM. Meanwhile, the specs are a tad more demanding on the recommended setup, as you would expect. You will need either a 3.7GHz i7 9700K or a 4.2GHz Ryzen 5 3600, along with either a GeForce RTX 3070, or a GeForce RTX 2070, or a Radeon RX 5700 XT, along with 16 GB of RAM. On either setting, you will also need about 40 GB of free storage space.

Undisputed claims to be the “most authentic” boxing game to date, and will feature a massive roster of more than 70 boxers, including legends like Tyson Fury, Oleksandr Usyk, Katie Taylor, Canelo Alvarez, and Roy Jones Jr.

Undisputed features a combat system that blends the second-to-second quick decision making of the sport with some of the tactics that are often involved in boxing matches. The combat system features quite a few layers, allowing players to control various aspects of their boxers, such as footwork, different movement options, and physics-driven interactions for the over 60 individual punches offered by the game.

Undisputed has been available on PC through Steam Early Access since back in January 2023, and has since gotten continuous support through updates.