EA Sports UFC 5 Review – A Thin Bloody Veneer

As I’ve said in the past, the UFC is the black sheep of the EA Sports roster, arriving only once every second year without as much hype as the publisher’s other franchises. True to form, this year’s EA Sports UFC 5 was announced only a few weeks before its release date and the game is separating itself from the rest of the EA pack with a bloody M-rated presentation.

Does EA Sports UFC 5 represent the hard-hitting makeover the franchise has been needing? Or has developer EA Vancouver just applied a bloody coat of paint over the series’ old problems? Tape up those fists because it’s time to enter the Octagon yet again.

The first thing you’ll likely notice when you jump into EA Sports UFC 5 is how good the game looks this time around. EA Vancouver has switched to the Frostbite Engine, and the upgrade is fairly dramatic. From the craggy granite mug of Islam Makhachev, to the cold eyes of Jon Jones, to the mean girl scowl of Amanda Nunes, almost everybody looks remarkably true to life. It isn’t just the faces that look great either, as muscles, cloth, and hair all react and contort in realistic ways.

Perhaps most impressive is the new injury system, which sees fighters pouring buckets of the red stuff in ways that look straight off of UFC television. The injury system isn’t just there for grossout purposes, though. It also enhances gameplay, as you and your opponent’s bruising and cuts provide an instant, intuitive way to gauge how well you’re doing in the fight. There are still some presentation issues – animations could be further updated, with fighters occasionally looking like rubbery Stretch Armstrong dolls, and visual glitches aren’t uncommon. That said, UFC 5 is, overall, a major graphical glow-up.

Casting our glance beyond appearances, EA Sports UFC 5 sadly doesn’t deliver many upgrades to the series’ core action. The four face buttons are your right and left punches and kicks, and they can be modified by combining them with the shoulder buttons. There is a wide variety of attacks you can unleash, from standard jabs, hooks, calf kicks, and clinch attacks to more dramatic flying knees and spin kicks. Combine your attacks with proper spacing, blocking, and head movement, and even the toughest opponents will be sweating you. The standup game really hasn’t changed much in UFC 5, but it’s still visceral and approachable with plenty of room for mastery.

As for the grappling game, like in UFC 4, players can again choose Grapple Assist, which allows you to choose simple commands (Get Up, Ground and Pound, Submission) with the left analog stick when on the mat, with the game’s AI choosing the best transitions. If that’s not your style, you can still opt for manual grappling controls, or better yet, choose the “Hybrid” option, which allows you to choose your transitions with the right stick or fall back on Grapple Assist if you get overwhelmed. The big change in UFC 5 is that when you go for a submission, you no longer have to win a finicky minigame to successfully lock it on. Getting a submission is a simple case of maneuvering your opponent into one. While this removes an element of skill, it’s more realistic – once a UFC fighter gets an opponent in position for a submission, they usually lock it in quickly rather than endlessly struggling for it.

So yeah, EA Sports UFC 5 doesn’t get many points for ambition inside the Octagon, but things were already in a pretty good place in UFC 4, so that’s perhaps excusable, if slightly disappointing. Unfortunately, UFC 5 also suffers from its predecessor’s general lack of content. Career mode is largely a copy-and-paste from the last UFC game, with the focus once again being on the training that happens in between fights. Before each showdown, you’re given several virtual weeks to prepare, during which you can spar, watch tape on your opponent, learn new moves from other fighters, and engage in PR stunts and petty Twitter feuds. Your character grows and develops based on what kind of sparring sessions you choose to engage in and the moves you unleash during fights, allowing you to craft your fighter in an organic way. Career mode works well enough, but it’s dry, repetitive, and hard to commit to, given how little has changed.

The only major new mode is Fight Week, which presents a series of time-limited fights, many of them based on well-known showdowns (players will potentially be able to tackle the cards of real-life UFC events in the future). Winning the fights earns you in-game currency, cosmetics, and even “Alter Ego” skins for fighters. Fight Week will hopefully keep UFC 5 feeling somewhat timely, but in the end, the mode is really just a series of fancied-up exhibition fights.

EA Sports UFC 5’s suite of multiplayer modes also expands with Online Career, which is just what it sounds like — you play through a version of Career mode, except with real humans replacing AI opponents. It’s a novel enough idea, but unfortunately, all of UFC 5’s online modes are negatively impacted by connectivity issues right now. While some fights will go down without a hitch, others will be nearly unplayable due to lag, with no real rhyme or reason. I’m not the only one experiencing this, as fans on Reddit and elsewhere with early access to the game are also voicing their frustrations with online play. Hopefully, EA makes moves to improve UFC 5’s online modes, but for now, they’re a bit of a wash.

And that’s about all she wrote. Much like its predecessor, EA Sports UFC 5 lacks many of the modes you expect of a top-tier sports title – no GM mode, no Showcase mode focused on the career of specific fighters, and even some of the fun arcade bonuses from UFC 4 have been cut. There’s also no Ultimate-style card collecting mode either, but I’m not going to mourn that. The game does have microtransactions, but they’re only used for unlocking more create-a-fighter cosmetics and can be fairly easily ignored. UFC 5 delivers a flashy opening flurry, but it just can’t go the distance.

This review was based on a PS5 copy of EA Sports UFC 5 provided by publisher Electronic Arts.  

EA Sports UFC 5

EA Sports UFC 5 doles out impressive blood-soaked Frostbite visuals and a double-dose of M-rated attitude, but don’t let the new swagger sway you. While the action remains satisfying enough, it hasn’t evolved in any significant way, and a lack of compelling content continues to be an issue for the series. UFC 5 may deliver the razzle dazzle, but it needs to work on its fundamentals.

Buy for $69.99 from Amazon

The links above are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, Wccftech.com may earn from qualifying purchases.