Fight Night, EA's Beloved but Long-Dormant Boxing Sim Franchise, Is Coming Back

Electronic Arts created social media accounts for its long-dormant boxing sim franchise Fight Night and the first post was exactly what fans wanted to hear: Fight Night is coming back.

The full post reads, "To everyone who stayed in our corner: Fight Night is coming back." And there's an image of a pair of boxing gloves hanging over a boxing ring with the caption, "The fight is never over." There are no additional details as of now, such as who's developing the project (the original and most recent two were built by EA Canada in Vancouver, while Fight Night Round 2 and Round 3 were developed by the now-shuttered EA Chicago), whether it's even a new game at all or potentially a remaster or remake – which I find unlikely given all of the licensing involved in these games; odds are it's a new entry – or a release window. Or, heck, if it's even targeting the current generation of consoles.

Regardless, the return of Fight Night should be welcome news to a lot of gamers, myself included. In the run-up to next month's 25th anniversary of Xbox, I've been writing a series of retrospective pieces about Xbox games I have fond memories of over the past quarter-century. One of those pieces was about Fight Night Round 3, which was, in my humble opinion, the first "holy sh*t!" game of the HD Era , graphically speaking.

While Fight Night has been dormant, EA has shifted its resources to the UFC game franchise, whose most recent entry, UFC 6, was released earlier this year and our reviewer thought it was great .

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN's executive editor of previews and host of IGN's weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked , and a co-host of Next-Gen Console Watch . He's a North Jersey guy, so it's "Taylor ham," not "pork roll." Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan .