UFC 6 Showcases Hall of Legends Mode in Latest Teaser

I like banging on drums, and one that I bang on a lot is that sports games have a chance to do something that’s hard to do and that is teach people history in a way that’s attention grabbing.

More of today’s modern sports fandom is tied up in being a fan of individual players over teams, which I don’t think is necessarily healthy for sports overall, but it makes sense with more people ingesting individual highlights and bite-sized portions of games rather than watching the entire thing play out.

We have an official OS Account that you all can sign-up for now. I implore all of you, whether you want to subscribe to a paid tier or not, to go that site and sign-up. Go there, click the “Sign In” button and then use either Discord or your OS name to log-in and connect everything together.

Also, please join the OS Discord.

It’s likely a downstream effect of social media, YouTube clip farming, and the fact that we have the world at our fingertips at all times, but the point is it can be hard to get people to appreciate what’s come before when there’s always so much stuff to watch at all times.

Even though younger sports fans have more access to old highlights and data, they’re not necessarily going to look into all that because there are one million other things always going on. Meanwhile, as a kid I would watch the same 30-minute SportsCenter four times some days because it was either that or watch Price Is Right and Maury when you stayed home from school and were waiting for Saved by the Bell re-runs to come on in the afternoon.

On top of that, “old-school” media would do the job of putting things in historical context all the time for us, but “new-age” media is more about “embrace debate” and less about sports recaps and tales of yesteryear.

I don’t mean to sound like old-man-yelling-at-clouds since I’m not even mad about this development or anything, rather I’m just providing context for why I bang the drum about sports games taking up the mantle that has been forgotten in large part outside of an endless stream of sports documentaries.

Over on OS, Kyler recently talked about the Negro Leagues storylines being the best thing in The Show today, and I believe that’s a good take. While the gameplay is nothing groundbreaking, the presentation, care, and love you can feel for the history is readily apparent with each storyline.

They are engaging, and it’s 100 percent the first time a lot of baseball fans have learned (and retained) anything about the Negro Leagues or some of the greats from that era. It’s doing a good thing for the game while being fun to play in the process, which is exactly what I think you should strive for when you’re being “edutainment” adjacent.

Whether it’s Word Munchers or the Negro Leagues, history or math, games have the ability to cut through the boring and stealthily help you learn without you even realizing it’s happening.

With sports, history is important because it strengthens someone’s bond to the present. You can’t always appreciate what’s in front of you without knowing how one-of-one it might be. Victor Wembanyama is more awesome once you know a little more about someone like Wilt Chamberlain and what being an outlier of that degree really entails.

You might think this isn’t even that old, and I brought it up in the context of The Show wishlist this week, but Aaron Judge or a Cal Raleigh chasing history last year maybe causes someone to want to know about Sosa and McGwire (and Griffey) and that chase back in ‘98 because it was brought up somewhere and they never knew about it before then.

Games are another avenue for that sort of discovery, and this is why I love that UFC 6 is adding a Hall of Legends feature.

They’re going with Max Holloway, Zhang Weili, and Alex Pereira in this first version, and it essentially looks like a mix of WWE 2K Showcase mode and a Saturday spent walking through your local museum.

You’ll be able to play through classic moments in the fighter’s history, but you’ll also walk around a virtual museum and get to watch videos talking about their childhoods, take in art showing off where they came from, and view other real clips from classic fights they’ve had.

It’s exactly the sort of thing the Negro Leagues does so well for The Show, and it feels like that little touch of the Smithsonian that should continue to find its way into every major sports franchise as the years progress. There are so many great athletes and stories to tell, and it’s a ready-made way to create new fans or give old fans a nostalgia-fueled kick in the ass to then go and binge 10-hours of old highlights on YouTube.

Here’s What Else Happened This Week

Speaking of The Show, SDS did drop a small patch that fixes one issue with HOF inductions in franchise mode, but otherwise it wasn’t a very deep patch this time around. The biggest thing is that roughly 40 more players got likeness updates, including CJ Abrams and Aaron Nola.

This Saturday, there will be an open beta for NBA The Run. This means PS5 and Xbox Series X/S players will be able to join the Steam crowd this time around, and everyone can join this one. A lot will be available as they test out crossplay, and it should be open from around 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. PST. You’ll just need to look for the game on each platform’s respective store to download.

In terms of things to keep your eye on as a general sports game fan, Rocket League and F1 25 released new info this week. Rocket League is going to Unreal Engine 6 (skipping 5), and it’s some of the first glimpses we’ve seen of that engine.

Unreal 5 is not used tons for sports and racing games (it is used plenty for big-budget games overall), but it has been used for stuff like UFL and the upcoming NBA The Run. This is important to monitor even if it’s probably 1-2 years away because this is a game engine you might ultimately see a lot of in your future all over the place.

The other notable piece of news even if you don’t follow the sport is EA hyping up the F1 25 Season Pack that releases on June 3.

The F1 series is skipping a “full” release and going with a two-year development cycle this time around, so this is what’s being released during the skipped year. This is an important game to monitor if only to see how EA handles a “true” two-year development cycle that some people have wanted other sports games to move to in recent times.

Finally, EA is adding the World Cup, errr, The World’s Game update to EA FC 26 ahead of the 2026 World Cup, of which they have no connection to of course after dropping the FIFA brand years back. There will be 48 playable international squads (apparently fully licensed), and it’s going to be a free update for everyone. It also includes a tournament mode with a group stage and then knockout rounds.

I have spent countless hours playing the standalone World Cup games (and DLCs) in my life, and I assume I’ll get World Cup fever once again so this might actually make me boot up EA FC 26 for the first time in months.

Oh, and one more thing. I always have to mention when Retro Bowl gets an update, and NFL Retro Bowl 26 did get an update that adds the new NFL schedule, all the international games, and the new Super Bowl LXI branding. If you have access to Apple Arcade, check that sucker out.