Why EA Sports UFC 4 Doesn't Include Joe Rogan As A Commentator This Year

EA Sports UFC 4 will not feature the commentating talents of Joe Rogan, who is one of the league's main commentators in real life. Creative director Brian Hayes tells GameSpot that Rogan has never enjoyed doing voiceover for the franchise, but this is the first time he won't be in the series at all.

For EA Sports UFC 3, the developers at EA Sports had to splice together Rogan's voice lines from real UFC fights to put in the game. But for this year's game, Rogan is completely out.

"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."

Hayes said the developers knew since the first EA Sports UFC game that Rogan felt this way about doing voiceover, because he expressed similar opinions about the work he did for other UFC games.

"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."

With Rogan out, the new commentary team in EA Sports UFC 4 is comprised of former light heavyweight and heavyweight champion Daniel "DC" Cormier and UFC's Jon Anik.

EA Sports UFC 4 launches in August for PS4 and Xbox One. The game makes a number of major changes to the formula, and you can see some of the gameplay improvements in the video above. Check back soon with GameSpot for more from our conversation with Hayes.

While EA Sports UFC 4 will no longer feature the Ultimate Team mode, those who pre-order will be able to play as heavyweight boxing champions Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury.