EA UFC 6 Review: Is the New Game Worth Buying?

EA UFC 6 launches Friday for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S with sharper graphics and more responsive striking than its predecessor, though a roster problem and a puzzling new mechanic stop it short of being a complete overhaul.

MMA Mania's Alexander Behunin spent time with a pre-release copy and found the gameplay notably tougher than UFC 5, where button-mashing could carry you through exchanges. The striking chains are faster and feel more natural, while defensive counters actually punish sloppy aggression. Grappling carries over unchanged from the last installment, which Behunin notes is not the worst outcome given how difficult MMA ground work is to translate into a video game. Ground-and-pound is reportedly overpowered to the point of being absurd.

Flow State Gimmick and Missing Fighters Drag Down Solid Update

The major misstep is Flow State, a meter-based system that rewards style-specific moves and triggers stat boosts or finish opportunities when full. "It belongs in Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat, not a UFC simulation. It is awful, and I have no idea what the developers were thinking," Behunin wrote. Graphics are a clear bright spot, with improved lighting and character models that finally capture individual fighting styles — Jiri Prochazka's chaotic hands-down stance feels distinct instead of copy-pasted.

Career mode ditches the old weekly point grind for a calendar schedule and over 150 randomized storyline events where choices carry consequences. A new prologue mode called The Legacy follows fictional wrestler Chris Carter through an amateur career to his UFC debut, essentially a tutorial wrapped in a Fight Night-style campaign. Hall of Legends offers documentary-style challenges built around Alex Pereira, Max Holloway, and Zhang Weili, while The Gym lets players manage an entire team of created fighters instead of controlling a single athlete.

The roster remains thin. Ranked fighters like Kevin Vallejos, Lone'er Kavanagh, and Uros Medic are missing, and several legends including Cain Velasquez and Nick Diaz were removed despite already being scanned for earlier games. Conor McGregor and Islam Makhachev are locked to single weight classes. EA has promised monthly roster updates, though Behunin notes that could mean one or two fighters per drop based on the UFC 5 pattern.

Behunin scored the game an eight out of ten and called it worth the seventy-dollar price tag, a rare endorsement for the franchise in recent years. EA UFC 6 is available June 19.

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• MMA Mania — EA UFC 6 video game review: Is it worth buying?