Ten years after Fight Night Champion was released, rumors are claiming EA’s Fight Night franchise is getting a revival and a new game has already been greenlit. However, according to Video Games Chronicle, their sources also said the game’s development has been put on hold until the next EA Sports UFC game has been completed.
The new Fight Night game is codenamed Moneyball and is in the early stages of development. EA’s intention was to develop the game alongside EA Sports UFC 5 but this changed when EA Canada encountered difficulties with gathering enough staff to develop both games in tandem, according to an internal studio e-mail. It would have meant splitting their senior staff between the two projects and the studio was unwilling to do so because this would compromise the quality of both games.
Now the decision has been made to halt development on Fight Night “for the time being” and “solely focus on delivering migration and UFC 5 at high quality”. The studio is “very excited about UFC 5” and the game is currently due to be released towards the end of 2022. EA is yet to comment on this rumor. They’re also yet to officially announce EA Sports UFC 5, although job listings posted on LinkedIn back in September had hinted at a new UFC game in development at EA Vancouver.
Fans have been demanding the return of the franchise for a long time. Fight Night Champion, the last game Fight Night game to be released, hit the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and iOS back in 2011. At the start of last year, boxing promoter Eddie Hearn said he had reached out to EA about bringing back the franchise and was told “we’re looking at it“. This is the closest to any sort of confirmation we’ve had that this is indeed the case.
[Source: Video Games Chronicle]
