Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC/Zuffa LLC
Rogan disliked recording lines for the UFC video game.
When EA UFC 4 is released, a familiar name will no longer be providing commentary.
Joe Rogan has been alongside either Mike Goldberg or Jon Anik for the entire UFC Undisputed series, as well as the three previous EA UFC titles. That won’t be the case for this year’s iteration of the video game, as confirmed by creative director Brian Hayes to Gamespot.
“He hasn’t been shy about saying this on his own podcast; like, he hates doing it,” Hayes said. “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.”
“He was open with us from 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 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.”
For those who played EA UFC 3, you may be interested to know that Rogan actually didn’t record any lines for that game. Instead, EA spliced together lines from actual UFC broadcasts to implement as part of the commentary audio.
In recent years, Joe Rogan has been heard less and less frequently on UFC fights. The longtime analyst once did analysis work on virtually every fight card from PPV to fight night, then reduced that workload to PPVs and big FOX events. At the moment, Rogan only does North American based pay-per-views and no Fight Nights. Now he doesn’t even feature in virtual form.
Daniel Cormier will instead be the one rehearsing and voicing over commentary lines for hours alongside Jon Anik. One can only assume this means he can actually commentate on his own fight when someone uses him in a match.
EA UFC 4 is set for general release on August 14th, with EA Access subscribers able to get a head start on August 7th.