Fans call for Joe Rogan to be included in EA Sports’ recently-announced UFC 5 video game
After years of keeping combat sports fans waiting, EA Sports finally announced its long-awaited UFC 5 video game.
No official release date has been revealed as of yet, but the game is expected to receive a full reveal in September, more than three years removed from the release of the series’ last entry in August 2020. Upon hearing the announcement, fans flocked to social media and unanimously demanded that the game include long-time color commentator, Joe Rogan.
Joe Rogan is Not a Fan of Doing Voiceover Work for UFC Games
While the game does include commentary, UFC 4 only features play-by-play man Jon Anik and UFC Hall of Famer Daniel Cormier. However, the decision to omit Rogan from the franchise came from the popular podcaster himself, and not EA Sports.
“He hasn’t been shy about saying this on his own podcast; like, he hates doing it,” Creative Director Brian Hayes told GameSpot back in 2020. “If you’re not a person that [can] mentally get into that space, then I can see how it could be a very, you know, challenging, potentially mind-numbing experience for a certain type of individual.”
Rogan’s voice has been featured in past UFC games, but his dislike for doing voiceover work forced EA Sports to go another route.
“He was open with us from the very beginning that he hated his experience of doing voiceover on previous iterations of other UFC games, and things were no different for us,” Hayes said. “He hated doing voiceover on these games as well. That has nothing to do with us in particular, or, you know, our games versus other games. He just does not like sitting in a booth reading lines for hours at a time.”
With his podcast, ‘The Joe Rogan Experience,’ taking up a significant amount of his time, the former Fear Factor host has even limited his duties at the commentary table, only appearing at pay-per-view events in the United States. That means you won’t hear Rogan’s beloved calls of “He hurt him!” in September or October as the promotion heads back to Australia and then Abu Dhabi this fall.
