Fight Night Champion is a developed by and published by . It is the fifth and last entry in the and was released on March 1, 2011, for the and . The game takes a drastic turn from its predecessors, depicting a "grittier", "darker" setting with animations and player damage that "truly conveys the brutality of the sport of boxing." The violence and strong language in the game's story mode earned it a Mature rating from the , the only EA Sports title to do so.
The game was officially revealed on 7 July 2010 at an EA Sports studio showcase. It was added to Xbox One's catalog of backward compatible titles in May 2018. The game is the first EA Sports game to feature a full Hollywood-inspired story mode, called Champion Mode. The story follows the career of Andre Bishop, a talented boxer, who is forced to overcome great setbacks including a prison sentence and a corrupt fight promoter. Champion Mode is intended to further convey the brutality and hardship of the sport of boxing.
An version of the game, developed by , was released alongside the console versions.
The new direction of the gameplay was highly praised by critics, with the game being released to positive reviews
Fight Night Champion is a third-person fighter that introduces an all-new control scheme to the series: "Full-Spectrum Punch Control". This method allows players to throw onscreen punches by merely flicking their game controller's right control stick (in addition to the previous default option of punching by pressing a button on the controller). This extra option is intended to eliminate the more complicated controller manipulations that were necessary in the "Total Punch Control" system of previous editions of the Fight Night series.
Along with Full-Spectrum Punch Control, several modifications have been made to the secondary controller buttons that are used for uncommon and power punches. The "Haymaker modifier" of past editions has been replaced with a "power modifier". This modifier allows power punches to be thrown by holding a specific button while punching. The blocking and leaning system has also been modified; there are now single buttons dedicated to both blocking and leaning.