The boxing games (as a genre) have been down for the count for very many years now. Ever since EA decided to scrap the Fight Night series after the excellent Fight Night Champion, which came out in 2011, there has been a dearth of boxing games. The closest we’ve come is the VR game Creed: Rise To Glory from 2018. However, many fans of the sport probably yearn back to the days of Fight Night, Knockout Kings or even games like Punch-Out!! and Ready 2 Rumble. So boxing has been a dying sport in the gaming world. Hold my boxing gloves, said Steel City Interactive, and decided to try to raise the genre to nine.
It is quickly noticeable that Undisputed, as the game is called, is created with love for the sport and it will undoubtedly make everyone who has been waiting for a similar game very happy. The game goes into Early Access today and while there may not be all the stars there are still a bunch of famous fighters to choose from. More than 50 boxers should be available during the Early Access period, with more to be added eventually. Among those who currently exist we find Muhammad Ali, Tyson Fury, Oleksander Osyk, Canelo Alvarez, and Deontay Wilder. In addition, the ladies have ten boxers in two different weight classes, including the Norwegian Cecilia Braekhus. All boxers also feel different to play as and against. On the whole, it’s a competent group of boxers that will get even better as it grows. From the start there will also be six different places to box, which in terms of size ranges from small boxing gyms with no audience and no commentators up to a large arena with all the bling such as screens and pyrotechnics. It is still unclear if more arenas will be added, but it is something that the game would feel good about as there is currently only one really big arena.
We got to test the game and while we only had access to regular matches, a career mode and the ability to create your own boxers will be added during the Early Access period. The training mode comes up immediately and gives a good chance to test the system, a system that works really well. It is possible to choose freely between the right joystick and buttons to hit the different shots without having to go into the menu and change. Personally, I think the joystick gives a better feel, but if you prefer the classic four-button style, you can use that too. The boxing feels as tight and hard as it should, but also where strategy is required to win. If you’re like me and you’re a little aggressive with your punches, you could be on your ass before you can blink. It was in the fourth round of a match where I was completely superior in terms of punches landed, but at the same time my fitness started to deteriorate and BAM!… A well placed punch was all it took and there lay my boxer without a chance to get up .
Thinking about fitness is very important in Undisputed. There is a meter that empties for every punch you throw (imagine if you were boxing yourself in real life and punched or punched and punched. Eventually you will get tired and not have the strength to punch) which then fills up again when you don’t punch. But the problem is that pieces of the meter are removed the more tired you get, so the fitness will never be able to reach 100%. In addition, there is a heart rate monitor and the more aggressive you are, the higher your boxer’s heart rate will be and the fitness will be drawn faster. This is especially noticeable on boxers who do not have a very good basic condition. And if you get tired, your punches will be slower and not as hard, while your guard will be weak. It’s a fine line to balance between hitting enough to knock your opponent out and not hitting too much to get tired. Undisputed does a very good job with this strategic choice. To help you, according to the developers, you have over 60 different individual strikes along with defensive strategies such as “slip punches, weave, dodge, and block”.
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You will then be able to test these strategies in matches against the computer offline, in so-called Prize Fights where you try to get as high a score as possible in a ranking in three selected matches (currently it is Froch-Groves, Fury-Wilder and Gatti-Ward ) as well as online against other players. The online modes are standard unranked as well as ranked matches. These mentioned game modes are available from the start and as previously mentioned a career mode will also be added at a later date.
But all of this would have fallen pretty flat if the game didn’t look good. Fortunately, the graphics impress, and not just what most people think of when someone mentions graphics. Sure, the game looks nice with good boxer models and the like, but what makes it even better are the little details. What we usually see in boxing games is a small ladder where it goes from swelling to blood. In Undisputed, there is an impressive detail with gradual reddening if several punches hit the same spot. Hit the right side of the face regularly and that side will get redder and redder. Blood, on the other hand, is not as common, but it happens that they start bleeding too, especially in longer matches. This is a very nice looking game and it has only just entered Early Access.
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Undisputed looks set to be the game fans have been waiting for and is arguably the best boxing game of the last decade. If you have been waiting for this type of game, this is something that is well worth checking out. Undisputed is available on Steam Early Access now and will also be released for Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X/S with the full launch in the future.
