EA Sports UFC 5 Update Adds New Fighters

EA Sports has added five fighters, including high-ranked bantamweight Mayra Bueno and undefeated Irish welterweight Ian Machado Garry, to the UFC 5 lineup. This is the latest addition to a constantly evolving roster that also includes boxing legends such as Mike Tyson and Muhammad Ali fighting alongside current UFC stars.

UFC 5 was released in October 2023 for current-gen consoles to overall positive reviews. The game’s roster of fighters is extensive, including today’s top male and female fighters like Israel Adesanya and Valentina Shevchenko, notable names such as the aforementioned Tyson and Ali, and even MMA legend Fedor Emelianenko, who has never competed in the UFC.

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The additions to UFC 5 fight fans are familiar with are 32-year-old Canadian fighter Mike “Proper” Malott, Brazilian #2 women’s bantamweight Mayra “Sheetara” Bueno, 32-year-old Brazilian #7 heavyweight Jailton “Malhaoinho” Almeida, Irish welterweight knockout artist and #10 ranked Ian Machado “The Future” Garry, and 28-year-old Canadian featherweight Charles “Air” Jourdain. The fighters are already available to play as of the game’s January 12 update.

UFC 5 January 2024 New Fighters Stats

• Mike Malott: 95 Punch Power, 93 Kick Speed, 93 Accuracy
• Mayra Bueno: 94 Bottom Game, 96 Submission Offense, 95 Submission Defense
• Jailton Almeida: 97 Top Game, 96 Bottom Game, 97 Submission Offense
• Ian Machado Garry: 93 Accuracy, 93 Footwork, 93 Head Movement
• Charles Jourdain: 94 Submission Defense, 93 Punch Speed, 93 Punch Power

These five fighters are sure to satisfy players of different fighting styles. For example, technically inclined players will love playing as Mayra Bueno with her high stats that will make applying submission holds rewarding in UFC 5. As one of the more challenging aspects of fighting in the game, she’ll be immensely helpful in one’s quest to perfect their submission skills.

At the other end of the spectrum, a fighter like Mike Malott with his high punch and kick stats could be added to the pantheon of the best strikers in UFC 5. That’ll be great for players who just want to keep throwing bombs and land the right shot to knock their opponents out. Meanwhile, Ian Machado Garry could be an interesting study for players who might want to play a savvier game with his 93-rated head movement.

While these new additions each bring some formidable stats, players who still have much to learn can also try playing as some of the biggest MMA names available in UFC 5. The best-known fighters on the roster have the most beginner-friendly games many can’t go wrong with. Meanwhile, fight fans who are more on the hardcore side can stay tuned for more additions, as EA Sports seems to be committed to making the game as accurate as possible.

UFC 5 January 12 Patch Notes

Striking

• Reduced stamina recovery between rounds and made it taper off each round.
  • Even at the first interval, the recovery has been reduced. As rounds go on, fighters will recover less and less, whereas before, the recovery stayed flat. In total, this amounts to a reduction of nearly 20%.
• Tuned body strikes, generally shifting them from damage to stamina drain utility.
  • We’ve heard feedback that body strikes now inflict heavy damage and allow for TKOs too easily. Meanwhile, the stamina drain from body strikes felt a bit too low, which hampers the tactical use of body strikes to slow the pace of the fight down and helps discourage relentless attempts at breaking the (high) block. We also considered that the body punches are a bit too risky to throw, the body lead hook is a little overused, and the body jab is a bit underused. The following tuning changes aim to address all these issues:
  • Damage Decreases:
    • Body Straight: -10%
    • Body Lead Hook: -15%
    • Body Rear Hook: -10%
    • Body Lead Upper: -10%
    • Body Rear Upper: -10%
  • Long-Term Stamina Drain Increases:
    • All Body Punches: +22.5%
    • This value is meant to net +10% drain past the damage decrease to most of the body punches, and the intention is that it will be a big net increase in damage for the body jab (Which isn’t getting a damage decrease).
    • All Body Kicks: +10%
  • Vulnerability Decreases:
    • Chin (Upper) Vulnerability of all Body Punches: -15%
    • General Vulnerability (anywhere but Chin) of Body Jab: -33%
• Improved the speed and evasive properties of ducking.
  • This will reduce the occurrences of strikes unnaturally tracking opponents as they’re ducking.
• Assigned proper stances (orthodox/southpaw) to Sergei Pavlovich, Magomed Ankalaev, and Colby Covington.
• Fixed a rare foot planting issue with the Leon Edwards Alter Ego.
  • He could sometimes drag his feet when walking around.
• Fixed a rare unplayable state from cage knockdowns.

Grappling

• Removed the effect of Negative Grapple Advantage in the ground game.
  • Previously, Negative Grapple Advantage would both speed up your opponent’s transitions and slow yours down. Now, it will no longer slow you down. This should encourage more activity in the ground game and make it harder for a fighter to hold a position for too long.
• Increased the influence of the Ground Striking attribute on postured Ground and Pound damage, especially for elbows.
  • This constitutes an increase in damage for postured ground and pound and rewards fighters who specialize in it. At a max attribute, the change should lead to a buff of 10% for punches and about 23% for elbows, which are riskier. Time to “Smesh!”
• Decreased the damage of elbows in the tight ground game.
  • The base damage of the tight ground elbows (when not postured up) was reduced to a value only slightly higher than the punches. The influence of the Ground Striking attribute on the damage itself was increased, although the net result is still a decrease in damage. This means the damage from the elbows was decreased in general, especially for fighters with a low attribute.
  • Elbows will retain their bonus to cause and aggravate cuts and swelling, this still makes them more potent than punches, but not by such a wide margin as before. Our intention is for players to use punches more in situations where they want to chase a facial injury to the eye, with hooks; or the nose, with hammer fists. The ground elbows target the forehead (as do the postured-up elbows).
• Fixed a Heads-Up Display (HUD) issue in submissions where the damage icon of the first desperate escape would apply to following desperate escapes and the finish, even if they were of different types and required different icons.
  • For instance, an armbar desperate escape would correctly show an arm icon, but a subsequent heel hook desperate escape would show the same arm icon, instead of properly showing a leg icon. This issue was affecting only the icons on the HUD, not the gameplay functionality.
• Fixed an issue where knees could be caught in the clinch and result in the fighters getting stuck.
• Fixed a rare unplayable state during a clinch grappling exchange.

Miscellaneous Updates

• Added Kamaru Usman to Middleweight
• Added Deiveson Figueiredo to Bantamweight
• Added short color selection to Fighter Select for all rostered fighters (excludes Alter Egos)
• Added new Vanity Rewards

EA Sports UFC 5

The official UFC franchise, EA’s UFC 5 adapts the mixed martial arts sport to video game form. The title is available solely on current-gen consoles.

Released

October 27, 2023

Developer(s)

Electronic Arts

Publisher(s)

Electronic Arts