FIGHT NIGHT Round 4 has been on the North American shelves for a couple of weeks and has now hit the streets world wide as fans of the series battle their way to ring supremacy.  There's been a lot praise for the game and the community has been very vocal with what they love about it along with areas that they would like to see improved.

And since the game has launched, as they have been throughout the development process, the team has been listening.

I had a chance to ask some questions about what the community can look forward to seeing in the near future and this is what Producer Mike Mahar had to say.

Q1 - What can fans expect to see in the first DLC pack later in August?  Can you go into detail on the new training gym, sliders, and some of the equipment that will be available?

Mike Mahar - Fans can expect to see some updates in our first DLC pack.  We’ve addressed several of the important Legacy Mode issues including:
-    Boxers missing their hair textures
-    Gamer’s able to schedule two fights at once and then not being able to continue their career
-    Additional bugs that caused Legacy Mode freezes to occur

Gamers have noticed that the new training gym is a modern upscale training gym. Previously the gym was only available in Legacy Mode, but with the update it will be unlocked for use in Fight Now.

We’ve also introduced new gameplay sliders that give gamers the ability to tune and tweak the following attributes:
-    Counter Punch Window
-    Boxer Stamina
-    Punch Accuracy

Gamers can use these settings to further customize the game play experience. If they think they’ve got something worthy of sharing, they can use our File Share system to share them with other FIGHT NIGHT Round 4 gamers.

Fans can also expect to see some new equipment consisting of:
-    All American Gloves
-    All American Shoes
-    Jordan Brand Trunks

Q2 - Will there be new fighters made available in the future as well?

Mahar - While I can’t say for sure whom we’ll be offering, I can say we’re always looking to add more boxer’s to our existing roster. There are past, present, and future greats we’re pursuing and trying to sign. We want to grow the boxer roster and give gamers as many of the boxers they’ve asked for as possible. Stay tuned for more info moving forward.

Q3-  Can you go into detail about the updated control scheme that fans will see in September and why the game didn’t ship with punches on the face buttons in the first place? 

Mahar - The updated control scheme will allow users who are accustomed to using button controls from FIGHT NIGHT Round 3 to return to using buttons in FIGHT NIGHT Round 4. They are very similar in their implementation. The reason they weren’t originally included in FIGHT NIGHT Round 4 was two-fold:
     1.  We didn’t want to put them in the game without extensive testing and tuning to ensure we avoided the mistakes of FIGHT NIGHT Round 3 where some users perceived there to be an advantage to using buttons versus the Total Punch Control. It took some time, but we’ve accomplished that goal.  In FIGHT NIGHT Round 4 it is just as easy to throw fast punches and combos with TPC as it is with the buttons. Gamers will not notice any difference or advantage versus the AI or playing against users online.
     2.  We believe that Total Punch Control gives the user the most authentic and robust game play experience possible. But, at the end of day our consumers are the most important voices and what they say counts. If people want the choice to use buttons versus TPC, we’ll give them that choice.

Q4- Will there be other gameplay improvements that the community has asked about in any of these updates such as improvements to Online or Legacy Mode?

Mahar - Our first DLC pack was almost completed when the game shipped and we’ve squeezed in as many changes as we could. Not everything the community has asked for could make it in. I can promise the community that we’re on the FIGHT NIGHT Round 4 message boards constantly (you can find me posting under EA_MikeMahar) and we’re going to be offering more FIGHT NIGHT Round 4 updates as soon as we can this summer to address issues with Online, Legacy Mode, and more.

Q5- How often will the team be producing DLC updates for gamers?

Mahar - We have an aggressive plan to offer several updates for FIGHT NIGHT Round 4.  Though we can't make any official announcements, I can say the FIGHT NIGHT Round 4 Dev team is going to be around for a long time to support our community.

With less than three weeks before one of the most anticipated games hits the streets, Fight Night Round 4 fans everywhere have been counting down the days and working the demo to get ready for the ship.  For those lucky enough to be at E3 this week, not only were they able to get their hands on the game, they also got a chance to meet one of the legends of the sport, "Sugar" Ray Leonard.

Our man on the ground, Carlos Navarro, had a chance to speak with the Champ after he demoed the game with Producer Mike Mahar.

Mike Mahar, producer   Styles make fights. It’s an old boxing adage that succinctly describes how the boxing styles of two combatants determines the type of fight they will have. If you put two cutesy southpaw counter-punchers in against each other and  you’re probably not looking forward to a barnburning slugfest. If you put to face-first, take-two-to-give-one sluggers in against each other and you probably won’t have an exhibition of outstanding defensive technique on your hands. Creating a diverse set of boxing styles for the AI in Fight Night Round 4 has been a focus since the early stages of development.

There are a lot of things that make up a boxer’s style. First off, you have the stance: orthodox or southpaw. An interesting twist in Fight Night Round 4 is the addition of independent power ratings for each hand. This allows you to make a southpaw boxer with a dominant right hand, or vice versa. The boxing world is full of natural southpaws that were converted to fight right-handed by trainers early in their career. In Fight Night Round 4 you can simulate that effect with created boxers and you can expect licensed boxers that fought this way to have their attributes reflect that.

The way a boxer positions their feet and holds their hands is probably one of the most recognizable facets of their boxing style. It’s the kind of thing that you can look at for one or two seconds and get a sense for what kind of boxer they are. Boxers like Roy Jones Jr, George Foreman and Emanuel Augustus are very distinct from one another. Roy holds his lead hand low baiting his opponents to throw something so he can  use his speed and reflexes to defend and counter. George Foreman held his hands high and stalked towards his opponents waiting to unleash the fury the moment their backs touched the ropes. Emanuel Augustus, well, I don’t think anybody has really figured that guy out just yet. Fight Night Round 4 features a wide variety of different ways for boxers to stand and hold their hands that allows us to recreate the style of all the licensed boxers and allows you, the user, to create a huge variety of virtual opponents.

On top of the boxer’s stance and hand position there are a 3 different base punch styles and 3 different base block styles to choose from. With the new physics system, the different punches and block styles have subtle differences in how the punches contact the target or how the blocks cover against incoming punches. Another interesting addition in Fight Night Round 4 is the ability to select your boxer’s best punch and give it a boost. This doesn’t make it a crazy animation. Joe Frazier’s left hook didn’t look really different than other left hooks – until it landed. No more Sinister Cross or Judge Jab. The system is more balanced but it still allows us to customize fighters to match their real life counterparts.

But a boxer’s style really comes down to their strategic approach when they step inside the ropes. For Fight Night Round 4 we developed 8 base boxing styles that we assigned to every licensed boxer. Then we tweaked and tuned these base styles to make them each boxer’s strengths and mimic the way they fight (or fought) in real life. The 8 base styles include:

    Conventional Boxer: A boxer that sticks to the fundamentals and tries to set things up with the jab.
    Unconventional Boxer: A boxer that eschews the fundamentals for a more dynamic approach.
    Slugger: A roughhouse power puncher that likes to throw bombs, thinks the best defense is a good offense.
    Brawler: Another power puncher, but one that shows more defensive ability.
    Counter Puncher: A slippery, in-the-pocket defensive style fighter.  
    Boxer Puncher: A boxer that takes a conventional approach to setting up his big punches at medium distance.
    Inside Fighter: A close range boxer-puncher that moves his head and tries to control the ring and work the body.
    Outside Fighter: A stick and move fighter that focuses on keeping the opponent at the end of their punches.

One of the really great things it that using the Create Boxer feature, you can assign one of these 8 base styles to any boxer you create, which allows you to ensure that when you create one of your favorite legends and import him into your Legacy Mode as an opponent, he won’t end up dancing around the ring when you want him to be an aggressive puncher. When it all comes together and you combine the different animations, boxer styles and boxer attributes with the differences in height and reach, you can really see big diversity between the boxers you face inside the ropes in Fight Night Round 4.