The details regarding EA's first foray into UFC-branded MMA are still a bit murky, but we do know a good deal about the fighters who will take part in the action as well as some of the systems that will power the gameplay. Since the game will be shipping sometime in “late spring” (my bet is late May or early June), we'll have to start hearing more substantive details about it sooner or later, but recent impressions and media over the past couple of weeks give us a slightly clearer picture of what to expect.
 

The roster for EA Sports UFC will consist of over 100 fighters, covering all current divisions (including women's bantamweight). All champions are present and accounted for, with the one caveat that the welterweight division doesn't currently have a champ. From the roster reveals being done by EA, I think most fighters actually look incredibly realistic, with a few oddities here and there. It's nice to see that the details are at least reflected on all fighters even if their faces are slightly off in some respects. Ultimately, though, the real proof will be in how each fighter moves around the octagon. Here's the full list of fighters announced so far:

Heavyweight

Cain Velasquez
Mark Hunt
Frank Mir
Minotauro Nogueira

Light Heavyweight

Jon Jones
Rashad Evans
Forrest Griffin
Alexander Gustafsson
Chuck Liddell
Chael Sonnen

Middleweight

Chris Weidman
Michael Bisping
Cung Le
Costas Philippou
Anderson Silva
Wanderlei Silva

Welterweight

Johny Hendricks
Rory MacDonald
Georges St-Pierre

Lightweight

Anthony Pettis
Donald Cerrone
Ben Henderson
Joe Lauzon

Featherweight

Jose Aldo
Chan Sung Jung
Ricardo Lamas
Cub Swanson

Bantamweight

Renan Barao
Dominick Cruz
Mike Easton
Urijah Faber
Erik Perez
Brad Pickett

Flyweight

Demetrious Johnson
Scott Jorgensen

Women's Bantamweight

Ronda Rousey
Miesha Tate
 

The creative director on EA Sports UFC, Brian Hayes, has a background in fighting games, as he comes from a tenure of development on the Fight Night series. Hayes has said, however, that him and his team are learning Brazilian jiu-jitsu in order to understand the sport of MMA on a more direct level. I would hope that between their knowledge of the Fight Night series and this hands-on learning of MMA (as well as any ex-THQ folks that may be helping on this new game) that the EA brand of UFC products will hit the ground running and then improve year over year.

The key pillars for the game seem to be: fighter realism, proper movement, realistic exertion and fighter gameplans. Some of this philosophy can be seen in the Gamescom reveal video, where Alexander Gustafsson and Jon Jones trade strikes and grapple on the canvas. Some of the movement was a bit on the exaggerated side of the ledger, but overall, the detail is still quite incredible. There's now proper exertion on fighters as they grapple and go for submissions, and combatants will actually make contact because of vastly improved collision detection. The “full-body deformation” means fights should, in theory, look closer and more intense than any previous UFC games.

Recent previews have also talked up the MMA, which is supposed to influence fighter strategies later in fights. The idea is that a fighter would have a gameplan and then deviate from the plan if things were going wrong. EA doesn't appear to have this feature fully implemented yet, so it's hard to get a sense of what it will really look like.

The striking, as seen in the video above as well as what I saw at E3 (and what has been shown hands-on recently), definitely features a lot more weight than previous MMA products, and the footwork is actually relative to body movement, preventing the sliding found in previous games. Recent hands-on previews describe the striking interface as being similar to THQ's UFC games, with face buttons used for strikes, bumpers for modifiers and triggers for takedowns. EA is also touting the non-linear damage that the game will employ, which means that unique strikes can cause specific damage and that there won't be a set pattern to how damage occurs.

I think it's great that EA is borrowing the striking from the THQ-branded games, as the face buttons and modifiers, while complicated, allow a certain level of timing and precision that can be hard to find on the thumbsticks. Counter-punching and swaying away from strikes had a certain rhythm under that system as well. Also, with footwork that now reflects actual MMA movement, fighters will plant their feet and redistribute their weight, which will hopefully translate into much more realistic flow. I do hope that the reactions to strikes are a bit toned down from what was shown in the Gamescom trailer, as every punch seemed to send the fighters reeling. That's fine for some big shots and counter-strikes, but there should be a balance.

The grappling system is a streamlined version of what the THQ games offered, and it's probably closer to the EA Sports MMA style of ground game. Players advance on the ground by moving the thumbstick in a direction where they want to advance on their opponent — half guard, side control, full mount, etc. The opponent will also try and point their stick in the same direction to block the transition attempt, but an aggressor can feint going one way and then complete a stick movement to another transition, bypassing the defender's block.

The fact that EA is still including feints and indicating animations (a hand on a knee, for example) to show where the transition could go is useful, but we'll have to see how “spammy” this feels once two human players are transitioning and blocking. If stamina is represented accurately, then this system will likely be a solid iteration on what's come before. Still, we need to see what the transition animations look like and how quickly they can take place. I'm hoping for something a little less robotic than the ground transitions in the THQ games.
 

The submission element of EA Sports UFC looks to further the minigame concept of UFC Undisputed 3, but with a slightly simplified execution, as in the grappling described above. To initiate a submission, a user holds the bumper modifier and then executes a thumbstick transition. At that point, the defender is trying to escape from little “gates” on the screen by pointing their thumbstick in that direction. The attacker tries to match these movements to prevent the escape. Once in a while a direction will flash, allowing the attacker to get to the next stage of the submission if they press that direction quickly enough. If the attacker completes several stages of this, the submission will get locked in further and eventually completed.

I never find minigames to be the best solution for stuff like this, but it's probably a band-aid fix for this version of the game. It would be neat if there were visual indications within the animations to help you decide which way to lean or something, but I know that's probably a ways off. My main hope is that EA prevents certain submission wizards from just endlessly transitioning between submissions and not sapping their stamina. It's a tough balance, but as long as they give both participants a chance, it will probably serve the game well.

There hasn't been much to go in terms of career mode information, but EA is supposedly trying to leverage as many fighters as they can to tell some kind of meaningful career story, whether that's through video messages or training sessions. NBA 2K14's career mode instantly comes to mind, as the UFC backdrop would be ripe for all sorts of silly vignettes, sponsorships, press conferences, contract signings, rivalries and long-term storylines. We'll see what actually falls into place, but I'd expect some content along those lines.

The developers have said that certain fighters will have enhanced abilities if you're going to fight them in the career mode, so you might find that a Dan Henderson or a Johny Hendricks are more devastating than normal with their fists. This seems like a cool way of differentiating each fighter and making you change up your gameplan. It's almost mythologizing the fighters a little bit, which is interesting.

We don't know much about online features for this game, but built-in streaming support and game DVR functionality should add some much-need social aspects into the action. Also, based on EA's reputation in most of their other sports games, I'd suspect that the online matches should play a lot smoother than what was available in the THQ games, which I never found particularly great.

Since EA has talked up the MMAi concept a lot, I have a sneaking suspicion that the game may also feature “drivatar”-esque AI rivals that you can download for all of your friends. It would be neat if an AI version of your friend slowly got more detailed the more you used a given fighter — as in, if you used Jon Jones for 20 fights, the AI of “your” Jon Jones would be more distinct.
 

Outlook

EA Sports UFC is certainly looking like it will deliver a visual punch, much like NBA 2K14, but hopefully the gameplay systems are fully realized enough to support all of that sizzle. The fact that the cage-fighting and standing grappling hasn't really been shown to press is a bit worrying (same with the non-existent MMAi), but luckily there are a few months left before this one ships.