Undisputed Review: A Solid Boxing Sim That Lands a Strong Jab, But Isn’t a Total KO

After spending nearly two years in early access exclusively on Steam, the biggest boxing game in more than a decade has finally launched worldwide and hit consoles for the first time. While some more novelty boxing style games and mobile offerings have popped up in recent years, Undisputed delivers the most realistic boxing sim since Fight Night Champion. You could take any of the game’s 80+ licensed fighters into the ring right away, but Undisputed shines best when you start at the bottom in career mode.

Boxing Foundation for In-Ring Gameplay

Core gameplay is key to any game, but that’s more true than ever for a boxing sim packed to the brim with legendary fighters of the past and present. Fortunately, the in-ring flow of Undisputed is as dynamic and exciting as you’d expect. Different fighters have their own style, but the fundamentals of every fight remain relatively constant. 

For players who want a little customization, the Undisputed controls include a few different schemes to pick from depending on the type of punches and defensive style that fits you best. There’s a great early tutorial breaking down all the basic controls when players first dive in. You’ll likely settle into the basics without too much trouble, but it’ll take significant practice honing both your offensive and defensive skills to dominate on higher difficulty settings. 

Undisputed has also done a fantastic job simulating injuries throughout a fight. If enough power punches make contact, you can do serious damage and open up a cut that could eventually lead to a referee stoppage. Some might prefer to go all-in on the knockout strategy, but with a different type of fighter there’s plenty of room to focus more on defense or wearing down your opponent from round to round. 

For players who have fond memories of Fight Night Champion, the core gameplay of Undisputed feels very similar and definitely took inspiration from that franchise. The action will also feel pretty familiar for UFC 5 players, but Undisputed still feels solidly ahead of those predecessors.

Crisp Visuals Meet a Solid Character Creator

Once you’re headed to the ring, it’ll quickly become clear that being built for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S has given Undisputed the best boxing game graphics to date on top of excellent fight presentation. Commentary may eventually feel a bit repetitive like most sports games, but everything recorded for the title sounds great and will include your selected fighter nickname when using a custom boxer. Undisputed visuals are obviously better than the decade-old Fight Night Champion, but they also feel many steps ahead of UFC 5. 

One big help towards that is having an expansive character creator. Nothing helps you get immersed into a career mode quite like making your own fighter from scratch, and Undisputed uses dozens of sliders to let you fine tune even the most minute details about a custom boxer’s face and body shape. Despite almost every major sports game or RPG with a character creator falling short in this area, Undisputed has also nailed the body mass adjustment to allow for realistic bigger bodied characters. If you want a heavyweight fighter like Butterbean, that’s actually possible. The gap between appearance quality for licensed fighters and appearance quality for custom boxers is small, an area where UFC 5 and others have struggled. 

While Undisputed’s current creator options deliver well, a few areas need some fine tuning. The hair and facial hair options look great, but they could use some additional styles. The tattoo options provide a decent selection, but actually applying them can get frustrating as the placement boundaries can vary. Left and right arms oddly have slightly different boundaries and maximum size tattoos aren’t identical between sides. Stomach tattoos feel restricted in that they can’t go low enough, and many of the leg tattoos feel too small at maximum size to really stand out or exhibit the design. 

Similarly, the design patterns for your boxing gear could use something extra. With only 15 design patterns, even with color variations you’ll end up seeing the same handful of designs on career mode opponents over and over again. Much of this could be adjusted or added in future content updates, but there’s one clear way for Undisputed to become a bigger player in the sports gaming genre. 

In an ideal world Undisputed would allow uploaded custom images, and a hub for player creations. Custom designs for gear or tattoos will fill all the gaps on selection, and a community hub where both designs and custom boxers can be downloaded would amplify player involvement. Look no further than WWE 2K24 to see how a community creations center can add to things, as Undisputed could have every legendary boxer (real or fictional) accessible via player creations. When the entire player base can flex those creative muscles, Undisputed will take a big leap toward becoming exceptional.

Build Your Championship Career

While you might plan to head online or test your skills in the weekly Prize Fights, the true star of Undisputed is career mode. You can use a custom boxer, but Undisputed also includes the option to use any of their 80+ licensed fighters (with plenty of room to grow in future updates) and chart their path to the championship. Players who use a licensed fighter instead of a custom one will have all the punching animations and appearance details locked, but you’ll still customize the starting attributes and focus on increasing the ones that best fit your in-ring style. 

Once career mode is underway, the general pattern will be negotiating for a new fight and quickly heading to Fight Camp in preparation. You’ll have a team of three on staff: a Coach that increases how much Fight Camp training boosts your ratings, a Cutman that helps you between rounds and with injury rehab, and a Manager that negotiates fight contracts to secure you quality opponents with a great payout or fame boost. 

As you level up, you’ll try to build up your finances as well to have access to better staff. The same is true for the gyms you’ll use for Fight Camp, and part of that challenge becomes deciding when the expensive gyms are actually worth it and when a cheap gym will still be your best call. As you climb the rankings with each fight, you’ll work your way towards a title shot and potentially multiple titles if your success continues. 

While you could happily enjoy hours in career mode making that rise to the top, the mode could be helped by adding some additional story and RPG elements. It’s pretty much just fights and strategy at this point, but some unique rival storylines or conversations with staff at different points in your career would crank up the immersion and make the mode less prone to feeling repetitive. 

We'd also suggest that as the roster expands, Undisputed could consider a showcase mode. WWE 2K has done this with Rey Mysterio and John Cena in the past few years to great effect, and the recent Tiebreak release had a multi-match path of Novak Djokovic's many tennis championships. Even MLB The Show has excelled by turning the spotlight to the often-forgotten stars of the Negro Leagues. Boxing has a rich history, and Undisputed could preserve that while letting players learn about the biggest moments this sport has ever seen.