If you’ve been following Undisputed from the beginning, the recent news announced by Undisputed Community Manager Fanatico via their official YouTube page is music to your ears:
Let’s not pull any punches and get right into what we have learned.
Release Date
I wasn’t at Gamescom but according to Fanatico, Undisputed’s beta career mode and character creator was apparently on display to test out. The impressions were scarce as most likely Steel City enacted some NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) so this announcement is the first we’re hearing of it. While Steel City hasn’t officially dropped a date, we’re rapidly approaching Fall so a release as early late September could be possible.
Create Your Character Options
One of the keys to a worthwhile player career mode is how many options you have at your disposal when creating your fighter. Besides being able to start your career mode with the licensed fighters, you’ll also be able to create your player from scratch with some pretty interesting features shown throughout the hype trailer.
Everything from facial structure to body fat to tattoos appears to be an available option as does being able to select your “punch set” here. Of course, both men and women are represented equally, although not too many women’s options are on display in the video. Clothing is also customizable and it appears that some licensed boxing gear is available to choose from (Rival gloves are on display).
Career Mode Details
Similar to games like Football Manager, career mode officially kicks off with building your team.
That’s picking a coach (lead trainer) and of course a good cutman/cutwoman and a manager to help book you some fights. These coaches don’t work for free, no matter how talented you might think you are, so there’s an element of finances built into the mode:
Fight Negotiations
Upfront costs and your team’s take will all be there to help split your purse (earnings) — with contracts as well — so there’s going to be some money management and team drama along the way. What would a good career mode be without some in-house drama? These managers will help you pick your fights and negotiate fight contracts to earn the most rewards:
Rematch clauses and promotional cuts all appear to be among the choices you can negotiate, as well something called “Media Activities” that could hint at some fight promotional activities.
Training Camp
The last thing a fighter wants to do is enter the ring unprepared, and by the looks of things Undisputed has a thorough training camp to prepare you. Everything from putting the work in (training) to media obligations appear to be incorporated into Undisputed:
Taking a look at the Training module in more detail you can see there’s a good amount of Training Sessions to select from.While we don’t get too many details, we can see the Punching Bag breakdown that looks to increase your punching power (duh!) but I’d be interested to see at what cost, namely fatigue. One thing of note is that there’s a “Fight Sharpness” meter so it will be of great interest to see how that impacts you in the ring.
Media Opportunities
I briefly alluded to the media opportunities earlier but here we get a better look at what that entails.
Social media posts, TV advertisements, and even fan meet and greets appear to have some of sort boost towards promoting the fight. Again, there’s no indication of risk versus reward, but it’s still early in the news cycle so I’m sure we’ll hear more in the days leading up to the full release.
Dynamic Coaching Instructions
Once the fight begins, your manager will play an important role with the ability to provide you with specific instructions as the AI fighter adapts to your style. I’ve been very critical of the AI since the beta has been released, but this most recent update has the AI fighting much better, specifically when it comes to being aggressive. The adaptive AI that rolled out a few updates ago was far too passive and took entirely too long to get into the fight. As with all things related to a career mode, the AI will make or break this mode.
Belts Included
What would a boxing game be without the belts? From Fanatico we know that the following belts will be included:
- WBO
- WBC
- IBF
- SCI (Steel City Interactive Belt)
You can’t have a boxing game called Undisputed without having some serious belts, so hopefully the major omitted belt (WBA) is added before the official game’s release.
Bottom Line
Steel City’s Undisputed has been much maligned since its initial release despite the semi-regular updates. Critics have lashed out at Steel City’s lack of cracking down on cheaters while also voicing displeasure over when career mode and the rollout to consoles will come. These concerns are absolutely valid but we must keep in mind that Steel City Interactive isn’t a huge gaming company to rival the likes of EA or 2K, and with a relatively small team we must exercise patience. As we can tell from the early bits of information here, SCI has been working hard behind the scenes to give us the offline experience we all want.
