Undisputed - Review

It has been 14 long years since the release of Fight Night Champion and boxing and video game fans have been left waiting all this time for a new realistic simulation style boxing game to drop and challenge EA Sports for the title. The national anthems have been sung, the fighters have walked to the ring and they are ready to rumble with the release of Undisputed developed by Steel City Interactive, Undisputed was originally released into Early Access on Steam back in January 2023 but has now released on both PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, will it deliver an uppercut to its only veteran competitor or is it punching below the belt?

I have been a boxing fan since my early teenage years, back when the likes of Barry Michael and Lester Ellis ruled Australian boxing, yes I am old, so it’s no surprise I picked up Undisputed when it first released into early access last year on Steam, I played around with the game for a bit and I definitely thought it had potential, but since I prefer playing sports games on console rather than PC I decided to wait until Undisputed was released on console before fully diving into the game.

Undisputed features the biggest roster ever included in a boxing game with over 70 fighters, both male and female, such as Tyson Fury, Roy Jones Jr, Canelo Alvarez, Katie Taylor and Clarissa Shields, along with these fighters the game has over 60 individual types and styles of punches along with slipping, weaving, dodging, blocking, stamina management, a revolutionary footwork system and individual fighter traits. There has been a great deal of love and care applied here to make sure Undisputed is as authentic a boxing game as possible and this is sure to please fans of the sport.

I definitely recommend completing the tutorial before jumping into the game itself, it will take you through how to throw different types of punches, how to use footwork correctly, educate you on how to use your defence correctly and how to manage your stamina. There are two types of control schemes you can use with the major difference being with one you throw punches with the right analogue stick and in the other option you throw punches with the face buttons on your controller. I much preferred throwing punches with the face buttons as using the analogue stick felt clunky and it felt like there was lag or delay before the move I performed on the stick was executed in the game, your results may vary, give both options a go and you fill quickly find what suits you best.

Undisputed has several options when it comes to game modes, Quick Fight which allows you to pick your fighters, venue, number of rounds and ruleset and fight against the CPU or play local co-op, Create mode which will allow you to create your own boxer and customise their looks, tattoos, movement, fight style, traits, attributes and outfits, Career Mode allows you to use your own created boxer and take them through the amateur ranks and eventually become a professional and take on some of the greatest boxers in the world, Prize Fights are time limited events with a unique scoring system you can think of these as scenarios where you fill jump into famous fights at a certain period of time and try and turn rewrite history, Online Mode allows you to go head to head against other players to prove you are the best in the ring and try to ascend the online rankings.

The career mode is where the meat of the game lies, and will see you taking your boxer through an amateur tournament, which is a great way to get a feel for the game, and then you will progress on to your professional career which will involve trying to set up deals for fights, going through a number of choices to boost your stats during the lead up to the fight by picking training activities and picking a manager, cutman and coach, there no training mini games here which is a shame as in boxing games I quite enjoy trying to score high during training mini games in order to get a maximum boost to my boxers ability. You can negotiate when picking a fight contract though and try to maximise the percentage of the purse your boxer will take home as well as which arena the fight will take place in, during training weeks you will also need to keep an eye on your boxers ‘fight sharpness’ and weight and try to keep these within optimal range by choosing activities that will raise your fight sharpness or help you to lose weight, you can also elect to partake in promotional activities that will raise your fame level allowing you to book better fights, all of these activities do feel rather soulless without mini games to accompany them but at least they do deliver some immersion by ensuring that you need to pick activities wisely to keep your fighter in top shape going into fights.

As you win fights in career mode you will receive exp used to upgrade your fighter and money for each fight which you can use to hire better coaches, trainers and cutmen for your team. It would be nice if you could use some of the money you had made to purchase things like new gear for your boxer such as trunks, robes and gloves that you could use during the game but sadly this type of progression system does not exist in Undisputed which at times makes the grind to get to the top feel a bit pointless, in fact you can’t even choose your walk out music or wear a robe to the ring during career mode, it’s a shame as little details like this would be easy to implement and would add a lot more immersion to this mode. While career mode is serviceable it suffers from a lack of depth that I fear will make the mode become boring after taking a few boxers through the ranks.

The action in the ring is the most important part of a boxing game and sluggish controls can ruin this type of game regardless of how great other components of the game are. I am happy to say this is one part of the game where Undisputed shines, the controls feel fluid and intuitive to use and it feels great to dance and duck and dodge around the ring and then counterpunch when you see an opening in your opponent’s defences, punches have weight and feel great when they impact, especially power punches, and you will have a great time playing through bouts regardless of whether you are a technician or a stand up brawler. The game isn’t easy by any stretch of the imagination and I highly recommend starting on normal difficulty and working your way up from there once you work out how to successfully manage your stamina and how to avoid damage in the ring. Fights are tense and action packed and will test the limits of your stick skills as well as your ability to strategise in regards to how you will approach each fight. The mini game you need to engage in to get your fighter up after he has been knocked out tends to be very frustrating though as you need to hold in the L2 and R2 buttons to keep them in line with the green zone on two meters whilst these meters also move around at different levels, I would much rather just be able to mash a button to have my boxer get up and be ready to fight again, skill issue, I know, but still it would be nice to have this option and I couldn’t find a way in game to enable it.

Presentation wise the game looks great, the UI is pleasant and intuitive, and you can easily know how to get to which screen you want with a quick look at the interface. This carries over to the presentation in fights, the UI shows you how much damage your boxer has taken and their level of stamina at a quick glance, you can turn the in-game UI off though if you prefer to play without these on. In between rounds your corner will give you advice and let you know how you are going, and you will have access to stats to see how you are performing as well as being able to get a look at how badly you have beaten your opponent up. Real life boxing commentators Todd Grisham and Johnny Nelson do a great job addressing the action in the ring however their lines are limited so I can anticipate the commentary becoming stale over time.

Graphically the game is a bit of a mixed bag, the boxers themselves look absolutely fantastic and look amazingly fluid as they bounce around the ring, great attention to detail has been paid to bruises and cuts on the boxers faces as well and watching a boxers face deform and spray blood all over the screen when you hit them feels great, if I had any criticism of the character models it would be their eyes, they do tend to look a bit uncanny valley at times. The arenas are also very well presented and look great as the camera does a fly over before the fight, it gives you a real sense of the scale of the crowd and immerses you in the atmosphere before each fight. The game does fall down in some places though as some textures appear to be way lower resolution than others when it comes to the arenas and the boxers only have a few knockdown animations and all of them look pretty bad, especially when they fall down against the ropes, the ragdoll physics look highly unconvincing so hopefully the developers can do some work in the future to iron some of these kinks out.

Undisputed is not a great boxing game, but it is a good one, it is certainly not ready to take the crown off Fight Night Champion, it does offer an engaging fighting experience, and the developers have certainly nailed the fighting mechanics for the most part. There are some puzzling omissions such as training mini games, the lack of options to purchase new equipment or walk out music during career mode and the lack of ability to be able to download boxers other people have created. If you are a boxing fan there is certainly enough here to justify the purchase price, and you will get hours of entertainment out of the game, its just a shame that the lack of depth in career mode will cause the meatiest part of the game to become repetitive sooner rather than later.

The Score

6.5

Review code provided by Plaion

The Pros

Great boxer models, blood and facial deformation effects. The arenas are great too.

Punches feel like they have weight and sound great when they hit an opponent.

Presentation and commentary are great though due to lack of lines the commentary will become stale over time

The Cons

Career mode lacks depth and could’ve had a lot more options to spend your money on.

Knockdowns don’t look good and get repetitive.

Lack of ability to share and download other peoples created boxers is a puzzling omission.

No story mode.