Here's an announcement boxing fans have been waiting on for a very long time: the Fight Night licence is back after 15 years away. EA Sports has just confirmed the return of its famous boxing franchise, left to gather dust since 2011, with a message as short as it is effective: "To everyone who stayed in our corner: Fight Night is back." Fifteen years on from the last instalment, Fight Night Champion, the series is finally climbing back through the ropes. The question now is when, and on which platforms, because EA hasn't shared any further details for the moment — though we do have a few other things to tell you. Read all the way to the end, don't be shy.
Fight Night, the comeback
To understand just how big this announcement is, you have to go back to 2004 and the release of the first Fight Night. The franchise then rolled out instalment after instalment up to Fight Night Champion, released in March 2011. All 5 games launched in that period were warmly received by critics, with Metacritic scores in the 80s — a fine showing for a sport that remains fairly thin on the ground in video games. The last entry in particular left its mark with its 'story' mode devoted to Andre Bishop, a fictional boxer whose journey was told with real directorial flair. But after that release, Electronic Arts chose to leave boxing to one side and focus on mixed martial arts — MMA, in other words. The publisher put out 5 EA Sports UFC games between 2014 and 2026, with no word on Fight Night throughout all those years.
That silence never killed off the appetite for the series' return, though. Fans regularly called for a new instalment, and some figures from the boxing world even tried to talk EA into firing up the machine again. In 2020, for instance, Eddie Hearn, Anthony Joshua's promoter, said he had pitched a game idea to the publisher. According to him, every time he floated the idea of a Fight Night comeback on social media, the response was enormous. That said, licensing is also thought to have weighed on EA's decision to favour the UFC in the past. Securing image rights for boxing's biggest stars can be expensive, with negotiations to be conducted with various athletes and their representatives. The UFC deal, by contrast, brought all the fighters together under a single licence.
We've got Saudi Arabia to thank for this!
The announcement also lands at an interesting moment for Electronic Arts, whose sale to the Saudi sovereign wealth fund Public Investment Fund (PIF) has just been finalised. Worth knowing: Saudi Arabia has dramatically stepped up its presence in the boxing world in recent years, hosting high-profile fights and pouring money into the sport. The country is also tied to Zuffa Boxing, an outfit linked to UFC president Dana White. Obviously, it's hard at this stage to draw a direct line between all that and the decision to revive Fight Night, but boxing is clearly enjoying growing visibility, which could give the franchise a fresh shot at finding its audience.
For now, EA has revealed neither a release date nor any images of the game. We also don't know whether this new instalment will build on the foundations of Fight Night Champion or try to reinvent the formula entirely. One thing is certain: EA's message has already rekindled plenty of interest among virtual boxing fans, especially as the post has racked up more than 4 million views on Twitter. After a 15-year wait, all that's left is to hope this comeback materialises sooner rather than later.
