Though EA Sports seems to be targeting a somewhat casual crowd with the UFC game due out in less than two weeks – the game doesn’t play like a true sim of the sport and leans towards action packed fun factor instead – it’s anything but accessible. Certainly much of that is simply inherent in MMA given the number of options at a fighters disposal and individual styles. Translating that to any control scheme will result in an overwhelming number of abilities to access based on the context of any given moment.

The demo includes a tutorial which has helped in some regard but based on early reception hasn’t done enough to prepare players for the actual fights. To help sink more of the information in EA has provided additional resources to assist in learning the game. Those include a bunch of video tutorials, how to attempt the various submissions, and the control schemes.

While helpful, it’s asking a bit much to expect consumers to take the time to learn in this manner. If the tutorial isn’t sufficient, and the game isn’t natural in advancing skills through time spent playing, it’s going to be difficult to draw new people in. Already the punishing nature of the demo despite being set on “easy” and the manner in which the CPU fights has turned off many who were on the fence. MMA is never going to be a “pick up and play” video game sport but it has to be fun even when learning means failing early on.