Earlier this week the sequel to EA Sports UFC was announced . EA revealed that Ronda Rousey has earned a spot as one of two cover athletes on Friday. The individual who will be joining her on the cover will be announced at a later date.
Rousey has become the most marketable fighter alive today not only due to the utter domination of her competition in The Octagon, but also her success in branching out into the entertainment industry with major movie roles. It's no coincidence that the announcement was made today given that Rousey defends her women's bantamweight title at UFC 193 on Saturday night . She'll be looking to go to 13-0 by taking out Holly Holm.
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“EA Sports is a cultural barometer to know what’s going on in sports at the moment,” Rousey said. “As a gamer myself, it’s pretty surreal to be on the cover of the game and to have a woman on the cover of a UFC game shows a lot of progress. I’m really happy to be involved with it.”
This actually doesn't mark the beginning of a relationship between EA Sports and Rousey. Earlier this year she took the place of Jon Jones as the face of the EA Sports UFC mobile game. Jones had been arrested, suspended from the organization, and had his title stripped. When legends were added to the mobile game Chuck Liddell replaced Rousey in that role, possibly with an eye towards making sure she would be associated with only the sequel instead.
EA Sports UFC 2 will release spring 2016 on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The first effort from the company went out last summer, and was met with lukewarm reviews and disappointing sales. It was greatly improved upon with post-release updates however. That game is available to play for free as one of the many games provided with an EA Access subscription on Xbox One.
Bryan Wiedey posts sports gaming news and analysis daily at Pastapadre.com, has co-founded the new site HitThePass.com, is a regular participant on the Press Row Podcast and Hit The Pass Radio shows, and can be reached on Twitter @Pastapadre.