UFC 5 Career Mode Tips & Beginner's Guide

Now that the latest installment is available worldwide, more and more players will be diving into UFC 5 career mode to chart their course to becoming the absolute GOAT. Whether you're looking to build up dominance offline or online, we'll break down all the tips players need.

From managing your weekly time and maximizing Evolution Points, your UFC 5 career mode experience is sure to change from save to save. Before you get buried in the next road to gold, these UFC 5 career mode tips will set you up for success.

UFC 5 Career Mode Beginner's Guide & Tips

You'll first have the option of creating a new fighter or importing one in UFC 5 career mode. If you do create a new fighter, they'll automatically be saved into the created fighter roster and be usable in future career mode saves or Fight Now in UFC 5. Of course, importing an existing UFC 5 roster members gives you the option of taking legends like Muhammad Ali or Kimbo Slice into a legendary career of their own.

If you choose to create a custom fighter, pretty much every aspect of appearance can be changed down the line along with nickname, hometown, stance, and voice. However, your name, social kmedia handle, height, weight class, and age will remain fixed and cannot be changed unless you edit the fighter and create a completely new career mode save.

If you use an imported fighter, you won't have any appearance options but will still get to customize attributes, perks, and moves as your journey rolls on. Ultimately, you can build pretty much any type of fighter with any type of specialization you want out of any starter fighter type or imported roster member. However, your fighter type (or roster pick) will dictate your first perk and your starting attributes.

The other big aspect you can't change on each UFC 5 career mode save is game style and difficulty. If you start a save on Normal Difficulty with Competetive style, that's the way it's going to stay. If you go for Hard Difficulty along with Stand & Bang style, that's what you're sticking with. Make sure to test yourself in Fight Now so you don't get too invested in a save on a difficulty you can't manage.

Fortunately, so long as the difficulty isn't too far out of your skill level, your skills will improve over time. The first time in UFC 5 career mode you'll be required to do a series of onboarding tutorials, but these can be skipped in every subsequent career mode save. Also, don't fret if you don't master each task right away, as they'll all be repeatable in various sparring drills later on.

Top UFC 5 Career Mode Tips

We'll get into some more in-depth advice below on how to handle specific aspects of building your fighter, but first let's go over some UFC 5 career mode tips every player needs to keep in mind.

• Maximum Length Training Camps

From fight to fight, you'll have the option of setting up a training camp of varying length. Early on, you want to always do the longest training camp allowed. While the money bonus may be enticing, you desperately need the training time between early fights to maximize your sparring opportunities and upgrade.

• Use Every Minute of Every Week

You'll have a set amount of time to chip away at each week during training camp, and every bit of it will count. Keep an eye on your hype and promotional options, as getting at least a social media post in each week will help you keep the hype growing even as you do lots of sparring.

Connections and fighter invitations are also a great option when they can fit, so try to do the math on your total weekly time and pick activities that will use as much of that time as possible. You don't want to end up leaving a quarter of your weekly time on the table because you miscalculated.

• Don't Simulate Sparring

This is one of the most tempting things early on, as the simulation option seems ideal for speeding up UFC 5 career mode and ensuring guaranteed Evolution Points. It's a deceptive benefit though, as you'll also be losing out on both the practice and (more importantly) move progress.

You can make huge leaps forward with your move progress in solidifying five-star moves you can prestige, and you generally want to avoid knocking out your partner early as every second of each session allows you to level up transitions, strikes, submissions, and all sorts of moves.

• Tape Only Matters On High Difficulties

One activity you'll find intriguing at first is choosing to watch tape on an upcoming opponent, as it'll eat up a small chunk of your week but reveal aspects like their attributes or signature moves. However, it's generally not going to make a huge difference on lower difficulties.

In our experience, playing Competetive on Normal or any easier option makes tape pretty much pointless. If you can strike and move on the ground, the tape really isn't going to matter. However, on high difficulties you will absolutely need to know how to pick apart your opponents weaknesses and this can be critical.

• Push Yourself & Start Over

If at any point your UFC 5 career mode journey starts to feel repetetive, you can always start again. If you really want to finish out a save you're super dominant on, start doing short training camps and racing through quick fights until you reach the end.

Dominant early performances will send you straight to the UFC, but struggling could put you in the WFA as you slowly work your way up. Harder difficulties will force you to be more creative and strategic in each fight, and they'll give you a very different experience along the way.

How to Upgrade to a 5-Star Fighter

If you want to improve your fighter in UFC 5 career mode, you'll need to earn Evolution Points to upgrade attributes. There are several different paths you can take depending on your preferred fighting style, but the recovery attributes are usually the best place to start.

Having superior cardio and resilience will make a huge difference early on. Past that, making sure your punch or kick power and speed are solid even if you focus on the ground game will be a big help. You can rack up more Evolution Points by completing challenges in sparring drills, but the best way is when you Prestige a move.

How to Learn & Prestige Moves

Your UFC 5 career mode fighter won't start with a complete massive arsenal of every move in the game. Several key attacks like the Superman Punch, other strikes, and submissions are learned by making connections with other fighters who you'll invite to training sessions. 

While it can be tempting to start off these sessions by quickly learning the move, you'll actually get the most out of the time by training up other transitions, takedowns, or strikes during the five minute session. Be sure you still have time near the end to execute the new move and ensure it's learned, and be careful not to knock out or injure your sparring partner. If things go awry, you can always restart and try again.

Eventually after lots of usage, you'll be able to upgrade moves to a 5-Star Level at which point they'll get a Prestige Challenge. Check these by going to Fighter Evolution where you can see how many knockdowns or submission finishes you need with an existing 5-Star move to make it a Prestige Move. When you do, you'll earn a massive bonus of 100 Evolution Points.

How to Become the GOAT in UFC 5

One of the clear goals you'll notice once you're into UFC 5 career mode is becoming the GOAT. You can check your G.O.A.T. Status at any time from the main career mode hub, and that's where you'll find a checklist of just how to get there.

Ultimately, which of these feeds into your GOAT journey will depend on your type of fighter. Two Division Champion is one you'll only have access to if using a fighter that's not at the highest possible weight class, as male heavyweight and female bantamweight fighters won't have the option to move up a weight class for the two division champion storyline.

Followers, Career Earnings, PPV Buys, and PPV Main Events will all pretty much roll in over time as long as you're building up hype, utilizing sponsorships, and winning consistently. You usually want to focus on either Knockouts or Submissions, or both, as these can be pretty easy to rack up once you're used to finishing fights that way. Just keep chugging, and before long UFC 5 career mode will recognize you as the Greatest of All Time.

UFC 5 Online Career Mode Tips & Tricks

Up to this point, we've only been focused on the offline single player UFC 5 career mode. However, they do have an online career mode option that players can dive into. One big difference is that you will not be able to import existing roster members in UFC 5 online career mode.

You're required to create or import existing created fighters, of which you can have up to four in total. You're allowed one fighter each for the Men's Lightweight, Men's Middleweight, Men's Heavyweight, and Women's Bantamweight divisions. This allows you to upgrade four different types of fighters with their own individual strengths, and it keeps matchmaking faster as with multiple active fighters you'll seek out opponents in each weight class.

You'll follow some of the same strategies when it comes to upgrading each fighter, but evolution points will only come from online fights and not from sparring sessions. You'll also be able to use them to purchase perks, but these are much more expensive investments in online career mode.

While having active fighters at every weight class can help you find opponents faster, the tradeoff is that it takes longer to maximize each individual fighter and you may end up using one of your weaker builds. Don't be afraid to deactivate other weight classes and focus on a single fighter early on if that's your preference.

Ultimately, your UFC 5 online career mode experience will be dictated by how much you enjoy online play and your own skill level. You can test yourself time and time again by faceing off with top fighters, but anyone getting frustrated with minor lag or the general vibe can always jump back into UFC 5 career mode offline.