P12:[{"_11":314},[315,316],{"_317":332,"_319":320,"_321":333,"_323":334,"_22":335,"_326":336,"_328":337,"_330":338},{"_317":318,"_319":320,"_321":322,"_323":324,"_22":325,"_326":327,"_328":329,"_330":331},"title","EA Sports UFC 6 Revealed With Debut Trailer and Release Date","sourceName","IGN","authorName","Cade Onder","publicationDate","2026-05-05T15:03:19","EA Sports' highly successful fighting game franchise is returning later this summer with UFC 6.","content","

EA Sports' highly successful fighting game franchise is returning later this summer with UFC 6. EA has officially confirmed that UFC 6 will release on June 19, 2026, but players can get 7-days of early access along with other goodies through UFC 6's Ultimate Edition, which will cost $99.99. EA has also revealed the cover models for the game. Alex Pereira will grace the game's standard edition covers, while Max Holloway will be featured on the Ultimate Edition cover art.

“Representing Brazil on the cover of UFC 6 means everything to me. This is for the fans who believed in me from the very beginning,” said Pereira. “EA Sports made my fighter look as powerful as the real thing and nailed my lefthook. The fans will get the true Poatan. Chama.”

UFC 6 is being advertised as the \"most realistic and authentic fighting experience\" to date, thanks to new advancements in the gameplay and technology powering the game. EA noted that UFC 6 has added new ragdoll physics and stated that the fighters will look, move, and fight like themselves, giving them a sense of individuality.

UFC 6 will once again boast an M-rating, ensuring the violence will be untamed. UFC 5 was the first game in the franchise to take advantage of the M-rating after EA made changes to the game's damage system, which pushed the game's content past a T-rating.

In terms of new content, UFC 6 will feature new single-player modes like Hall of Legends and The Legacy. This will allow players the chance to experience the stories of legendary UFC fighters firsthand or build their own story, working their way up from being a nobody to an iconic fighter.

EA Sports has always had a large presence in gaming thanks to Madden, FIFA (now simply known as FC), and the NBA games, but also its combat sports titles. EA started out with boxing via its Fight Night series, which was thrilling and successful. However, UFC eventually began to have a very prevalent place in the culture. THQ initially had the rights to UFC games, but once the company went under, EA was able to swoop in and make its own UFC games.

The series began with releases every other year, but now appears to be on a three-year cycle. IGN gave UFC 5 a 9, emphasizing the franchise's high level of quality. We'll see if UFC 6 manages to keep the franchise in good standing.

Cade Onder is a freelancer for IGN's news team. He covers all things entertainment, including gaming, film, and more. You can find him on Twitter @Cade_Onder.

","link","https://www.ign.com/articles/ea-sports-ufc-6-revealed-with-debut-trailer-and-release-date","imageUrl","https://assets-prd.ignimgs.com/2026/05/05/screenshot-2026-05-05-160252-1777993389799.png","EA Sports UFC 6 Review","Tom Marks","2026-06-16T00:00:30","An impressive fighting game that strays further than ever from the sport’s reality.","

Wins and losses. Knockouts and submissions. These sensational headline-grabbers are essential to MMA, but they only make up one part of the bigger, brutal picture. The pieces that are arguably more important — the countless bloody knuckles, cuts, gashes, and bruises it took to reach that point — often get lost in all the pre- and post-fight commotion. Luckily, these unforgiving journeys full of sweat, sacrifice, and punishment are the stories EA Sports UFC 6 aims to deliver, and, man, does it do that well. With an impressive roster of legendary fighters and a handful of curated stories that captured my complete attention the minute I dove into them, I’ve found myself enjoying and appreciating the violent art of MMA more the longer I played, even if EA Vancouver’s latest creation has strayed further than ever from the sport’s reality.

No, I don’t mean how the fighters’ joints will occasionally bend in awkward ways during a fight (although that still cracks me up whenever I catch it). I’m talking about Flow State, the newest and most significant feature added since the series moved to the Frostbite engine in UFC 5. For the uninitiated, Flow State is a boost that, once activated, practically turns you into Bradley Cooper in Limitless. You know, that movie where he takes a pill to unlock 100% of his brain, making things easier and more predictable? It’s pretty much like that.

In UFC 6, though, it’s harder to trigger since you can’t simply choke down a sketchy tablet mid-match. Instead, filling your fighter’s meter depends on the perks they have equipped and the boost conditions each one has. For example, a grappler like Islam Makhachev will enter Flow State much faster by chaining together offensive submission moves than by unleashing a flurry of well-timed hooks and roundhouse kicks.

What we said about EA Sports UFC 5 (2023)

EA Sports UFC 5 is the best MMA game yet. Its next-gen presentation and refreshed mechanics are a dramatic improvement over previous games in the series, allowing for a more seamless and exciting recreation of the sport. The new damage system makes adjusting your strategy mid-fight more involved with plenty of risk-versus-reward decisions, making both offline and online modes all the more enjoyable and replayable. Career Mode has been fine tuned with welcome lifestyle improvements and a deeper story with Coach Davis. UFC 4 may have been the best MMA game mostly due to lack of competition, but UFC 5 stands a class above it, earning that title on its own merits as both an amazing sports simulation game and fighting game alike. - Tanner Smith, October 27, 2023

Score: 9

Read the full EA Sports UFC 5 review.

Look, I get that “flow” is a very real thing because I’ve repeatedly watched Anderson Silva dodging a hailstorm of punches like he’s Neo from The Matrix (Chris Weidman is Agent Smith in this scenario). But his instinct was born out of endless reps in the gym, and probably a bunch of behind-the-scenes knockouts, too. The flow in UFC 6 is the opposite; it’s manufactured and gimmicky. Out of place like a Street Fighter move dropped in the middle of the octagon’s bloody canvas. After getting so used to the straight-up, no frills fighting that all the previous games in the series were known for, it’s hard to take a feature like Flow State into account. I’m not even kidding, I always forget to activate it when my meter’s maxed out because it’s the last thing on my mind. I’d much rather focus on my hit-and-run fighting style, not losing my advantage on the ground game, and avoiding getting my face beaten to a bloody pulp, thank you.

It’s also a double-edged sword in online fights, whether that’s in full-rules Ranked, Stand & Bang, or Online Career. Even though you can use Flow State to push the advantage or turn the tide of battle in your favor, your opponent can just as easily do the same. As of launch, most PvP brawls have pretty much turned into a race where the person who fills their meter fastest wins. Or, at the very least, gains a big lead in the scorecard with it. Either way, Flow State is an obnoxious feature to keep track of when there are already so many things to juggle within the octagon.

Flow State feels out of place, like a Street Fighter move dropped into the octagon.

Still, even something as unrealistic as Flow State can’t knock down UFC 6’s hard-hitting combat, which is otherwise as savage as ever. I’ll be honest; the revamped controls and button combinations had me reeling at first, as if I was on the receiving end of a Jon Jones elbow. But once I got used to it, my vision cleared and the wild haymakers I was throwing turned into a coherent string of jabs, uppercuts, and leg-buckling hits.

My return to familiarity only became more satisfying because each punch and kick that I dealt felt like it landed with even greater force than in UFC 5. The result of those blows — the dripping eyebrow gashes, flying sweat, and spittle — that decorates the canvas once both fighters collide and start exchanging vicious strikes also looks as vivid as ever. Even more than these moments of brutality, UFC 6 has greater physical realism, with the unexpected body contortions — those weird, jerky animations that come up when a limb flies towards an opponent — happening less during fights, which is great when that’s an issue I saw all too often in its predecessor.

Remember the Titans

Now, the Flow system does have its moments, especially in my favorite mode, Hall of Legends, which features three UFC greats in Max Holloway, Alex Pereira, and Zhang Weili. It’s where I’ve spent most of my time because everything in it, from the videos of each champion’s humble beginnings to the thrilling reenactments of their most iconic fights, is all so easy to get lost in. And it was one of these bouts — Holloway’s BMF title win against Justin Gaethje in 2024, to be exact — that helped Flow State shine, if only for a little bit. Of course, the most iconic part of that fight is the last 20 seconds, and I was able to recreate it with the help of Max’s Flow Boost, which has him actually point down at the canvas when it’s activated. You would not believe the noise I made when I saw and did that for the first time — like a caveman discovering fire. And no, my primitive side didn’t stop there; I made more of the same grunting sounds after playing through Weili’s and Pereira’s own curated experiences.

You would think that, having seen some of these scenes live, rewatching their digital reruns years later wouldn’t be as exciting. But they still are, at least for me, and I think they’ll only continue to retain that same electricity into the future, which is a big part of what makes UFC 6 particularly special. These interactive memories are all so expertly told and uniquely individual in the way they unfolded that experiencing them again and again (yes, I went through them multiple times) didn’t feel like a chore at all. And I hope that whenever the seventh installment does come out, EA Vancouver doesn’t just dispose of this mode and instead gives Hall of Legends the same care and attention it did here.

Still, you’re probably wondering why this would be anyone’s idea of a favorite mode when there are a few other exciting ones to choose from. Well, reader, it’s because I’m a sucker for a good story, and it doesn’t get much better than immersing myself in the lore behind three legendary champions. Although the dedicated UFC Career story, called The Legacy, is a close second. That’s right, there are now two separate Career modes you can pick from: the former, which drops you straight into Dana White’s octagon, or the latter, where you star as Chris Carter, a relative no-name who starts from the bottom. Do I even have to tell you which one I was drawn to first?

Yes, as soon as I saw The Legacy, I pressed select faster than you could say “Chama”. Don’t worry; I won’t be spoiling much of the plot here because I would like everyone to experience it knowing as little as possible. But I will say I love how it immediately got me invested in the journey with a rivalry, a career derailment, and the promise of revenge. Sure, it may sound like the overused plot of a Rocky movie, but that stuff works; just ask Sylvester Stallone. There are so many more pre-fight events that demand your attention this time, too, which makes this mode both more entertaining and less repetitive than UFC 5’s.

The Career options are both more entertaining and less repetitive than UFC 5.

If going through a rags-to-riches story isn’t your jam, you can always jump headfirst into the big leagues with the newly rebranded UFC Career mode (EA Vancouver added UFC at the beginning, if you didn’t notice). Although I wasn’t as invested without the standalone story to back it up, it’s still plenty of fun – not only due to the improvements I mentioned before, but also because Ken Shamrock and Randy Couture are finally included in the roster. At least now I don’t have to create them both from scratch just to start a modern career with them, even though it is hilarious to see a 62-year-old be called a newcomer by the commentators.

Overall, developer EA Vancouver’s decision to create a separate prologue tale from the UFC Career mode is ultimately what distinguishes UFC 6 most from its predecessor. Not only does it give you more options and a better onboarding experience, but it also doubles down on the overall pitch for this version: that every fighter has a story, a central concept I have seen consistently and resonated with the more I’ve played UFC 6.

The Gym-fluencer

Still, even decent stories have their shortcomings with parts that drag and feel unnecessary in the grand scheme of things. And this tale of MMA, which so far has had more highs than lows, has one such blemish called The Gym.

When I first heard about it, I thought it would be like MyTeam in NBA 2K or Ultimate Team in Madden. Unfortunately, it’s neither of those. Instead, it’s where you can recruit (collect?) a bunch of different fighters so you can train them…to earn cosmetics. Remember that thing I said earlier about straying further than ever from reality?

That’s right, training in this mode is purely for the sake of looking good — not in the “lift weights to get buff” way, but in the style of a vain influencer who does it just to get free stuff. Instead of Lululemon apparel, though, UFC 6’s The Gym grants fighter-specific rewards, like coins, backgrounds, multicolored fight kits, and belts. So, let’s say you train Max Holloway up to level 14, which seems to be the current cap for all fighters; at that point, you’ll have earned five different shorts, 500 coins, a background, a profile pic, and the biggest prize of all, a UFC Champion belt. See that, people? Hard work does pay off!

Again, it’s all just so unnecessary when the only point of training the fighters you collect in The Gym is to earn accessories that you probably won’t even notice once you’re in the octagon. I know I don’t, because I’m much too mesmerized by the bleeding cuts and blood spatters that practically turn the canvas into a brutalist Pollock painting. Sure, there’s beauty in the hundreds of punishing hours that fighters put in to eventually reach peak form and conditioning. But not when it’s minimized and turned into a sideshow for knick-knacks like this.

","https://www.ign.com/articles/ea-sports-ufc-6-review","https://assets-prd.ignimgs.com/2026/06/15/ufc-6-blogroll-1781567390691.jpg"]

EA Sports UFC 6

Twitch streams

Latest news

Twitch streams

Latest news