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He has a lot of interesting "amateur" ideas and doesn't care how hard they are to execute.

EA has had several Fight Night boxing games years ago, but the last Fight Night: Champions is 12 years old. Ash Habib, a die-hard boxing fan from Sheffield, England, was disappointed that no one made a decent boxing game these days and decided to make one himself.

First, he had to learn how to make video games.

Habib had worked as an executive at an IT company for many years and had no programming or game development experience. At first, he planned to start simple and make a 2D boxing game. However, after watching some instructional videos on Unity Engine, he was hooked. After a period of study, he quickly mastered the skills of how to make the characters move on the screen. He felt that making games did not seem so complicated, so he gave up the plan to make 2D games. "Since it's easier than you think, why not just make a 3D game? "

In retrospect, Habib realizes that his ideas were naive and game development wasn't that simple, but if he hadn't set ambitious goals from the beginning, he probably never would have designed Undisputed, a very complex boxing simulation game that launched Early Access on Steam in January. Currently, the game is licensed by more than 50 boxers, including Muhammad Ali, but also Kanero Alvarez, Terence Crawford, Katie Taylor and Tyson Fury, who are active in today's boxing world.

In 2020, Habib quit his job and founded the game studio Steel City Interactive with his brothers Ashev and Assad-Sheffield was once the city of steel in Britain. In a sense, Undisputed is different in part because Habib isn't expert at game development. He has a lot of interesting ideas that are "layman" and doesn't care how difficult they are to implement or attract players.

"I have a wish list of everything I want to see in a boxing game. Habib said,"Nobody has put them all into one game yet, so early in production, the team tried to put them all into the game. I want this game to be as technical as possible and fun at the same time. "

Habib believes that boxing games must respect facts and restore the true proportions of fighters. For example, players who operate Tyson Fuli with an arm span of 2.16 meters in the game can take advantage of this advantage to control the distance with straight punches and jabs. This type of detail is important to boxing fans, but it can also lead to a steep increase in the workload of animators and other developers. "Now it's kind of clear that there's a reason other games don't do this. "

Habib wants to move boxing from reality to games, which is not easy to do unlike most fighting games that emphasize instant feedback and exhilaration. In Undisputed, fighters need to adjust their body weight after taking a step forward, and then move backward. As physical strength declines, punch speed will slow down, strength will also be affected by standing posture... This game provides more than 60 different offensive punches, as well as slipping, rolling, pulling, rotating, low gear, high gear and other actions, the operation is quite complex.

"Undisputed" also highly restored the various rules of boxing matches and off-field emergencies. For example, referees may give different evaluations of boxer performance, sometimes even misjudgment; score predictions may occur during the game, but they may not be accurate. Apart from boxers, referees and coaches would also appear in the ring, and there would also be people who would come up to treat wounds…Occasionally, extremely rare incidents would occur in the game, such as deliberately hitting the opponent's wound with their head, which would result in disqualification.

Habib revealed that the development team plans to add career modes to the game, including contract negotiations, training sessions, etc., training will affect the fighter's fitness and skills.

Attracting professional fighters In many ways, Undisputed is aimed not at fight game players like Street Fighter fans, but at people who really love boxing. This is probably why many fighters are willing to participate.

"Professional fighters have a very busy life and a full schedule. We didn't expect them to be willing to devote themselves to this sport and even show great enthusiasm. For fighters, Undisputed is more than just a game to buy them portrait rights. "

Undisputed features female boxers, such as WBA and IBO super welterweight champion Terri Harper, and in an effort to restore herself, the team invites boxers to do motion capture in person, unless they are unable to attend, when the team usually uses data from fighters with similar styles, but Roy Jones, 54, is reluctant to let others do his moves. "He told us there was only one person who could move like Roy Jones and that was Roy Jones. "So Jones flew from the United States to Sheffield to personally complete the motion capture of the in-game characters.

Jones, a former pro who won four titles in different categories, also appeared in the "Night of Boxing" series, but for many active fighters,"Undisputed" was the first video game to invite them to appear.

Compared to Jones, the process of signing Carneiro Alvarez was more complicated. Habib knew very well that when Undisputed was still in the early stages of development, he couldn't call famous fighters and ask them to cooperate. "I can't always tell them: 'Hey, I watched some Unity instructional videos, do you want to join my game? But word spread quickly as Habib showed Undisputed to local fighters in Sheffield. "The whole boxing world is behind the game these days. "

"Boxing circles are small and a lot of cooperation is based entirely on trust. When we show what we want to do and the other side believes it, it means a lot to boxing. One fighter might call another fighter and ask,'How are these guys? As time went on, our circle of friends in boxing got bigger and bigger. "

Now that the development team has expanded to more than 50 people, there has been a great improvement in technology and art. A few months after the release of the Early Access version of the future plan,"Undisputed" is currently not very stable in the Steam Store user reviews, sometimes "mostly positive," sometimes "mixed." Some players were disappointed with the lack of modes available in the game, while others experienced technical problems with online tournaments or found the graphics poor or the commentary system ridiculous. On the other hand, not everyone shares Habib's vision of the ideal boxing game. Some people mentioned that they felt that the fighter's movements were not natural, or they did not understand why their full-force blows could not knock down their opponents.

Habib responded that details such as whether the hook or counterattack was over-emphasized, whether Deonta Weld's power should be enhanced, and the development team will continue to adjust various variables, but the studio's goal remains the same: "We want to balance technical and gameplay. "

Habib said the full version of Undisputed will arrive on the console, including career modes, more licensed fighters, custom fighters and other new content. The Early Access version is currently priced at $30, with plans to raise the price after the full version is released.

This article compiled from: www.pcgamer.com/undisputed-boxing-game-interview-GDC/

A boxing fan with no game dev experience quit his job to make a technical boxing sim

Written by Tyler Wilde

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