EA’s Fight Night reboot development “on pause” until after UFC 5
EAA new Fight Night revival game is reportedly in development at EA, but development has been paused in favor of other projects.
A new report from VGC states that a Fight Night revival is in the works, but that development of the game has been paused by EA so that the studio can finish working on the next UFC title. It is also reported that Fight Night is still in the early stages of development, so we’re unlikely to see it for a few years.
The report states that the Fight Night revival is codenamed ‘Moneyball’, and that an internal email has surfaced asking the developers to focus their attention on the next UFC game, which is set to release in late 2022.
EAInternal Fight Night revival email at EA
The email was from EA Canada and reveals that the company’s reason for pausing development was to not split senior creatives between two combat sports games. This suggests that EA wants to make sure all their top developers can work on both projects to ensure the quality of each.
It reads, “we want to eliminate the split focus that several members of our leadership team have had in the past while so we can solely focus on delivering migration and UFC 5 at high quality.”
The Fight Night revival will be the first game in the series since 2011, as the expansion of the MMA sphere led to EA focusing their attention on the likes of UFC and Bellator.
EA has refused to respond to what they consider “rumors and speculation,” meaning details on the Fight Night revival are likely to remain scarce for some time.
Eddie Hearn encourages EA to revive Fight Night
Both Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua were included as pre-order bonuses for UFC 4. Fury’s former promoter, Eddie Hearn, has claimed that he pitched a new Fight Night game to EA during a live video stream.
He said, “I’ve got this little Fight Night idea which I’ve pitched to EA Sports. It’s not just a virtual game, it’s much more complicated than that.”
Hearn went on to say, “I had a call the other day with EA Sports and I keep telling them that every time I mention Fight Night on social media it goes mad. I think the return of EA Sports Fight Night would be huge.”