Among the hardest things about rebooting a video game license as big as the UFC's is building a new foundation from the ground-up. Developer EA Canada experienced that hurdle last year. The team, led by executive producer and creative director Brian Hayes, had no choice but to scrap the gameplay and design elements that had been exhaustively molded over three previous generations of games by now-defunct publisher THQ, and begin anew on the latest generation of consoles under a new franchise umbrella.
The result was EA Sports UFC, a game that graphically looked every bit as impressive as could be expected from the same publisher that counts FIFA and Madden NFL among its yearly credits, but one that drew mixed reviews from gamers and critics alike, with many hardcore MMA gamers lamenting a buggy launch product and sparsely populated Career Mode.