The Thrill Of The Fight and Creed: Rise To Glory are two of the best VR boxing games available, both offering highly immersive boxing experiences, loads of fun, and a really good workout while you’re playing. They are quite different games, and the right one for you will depend on what you are looking for from a VR boxing game. This article is going to compare The Thrill Of The Fight Vs Creed: Rise To Glory to help you decide which is right for you.
I’ve purchased both of these games myself and played them for about 40 hours in total using the Meta Quest 2 and HP Reverb G2. This article is entirely independent and provides my personal opinions about both games.
The Thrill Of The Fight
The Thrill of the Fight is a single-player VR boxing game that is heavily focused on providing an authentic boxing simulation. It is a room-scale VR experience where you must use realistic movements to punch, block, dodge, and move about the ring to defeat a series of AI opponents.
The Thrill Of The Fight feels as close to real boxing as you can get in VR, and you must block and dodge effectively, and time your punches if you want to beat each opponent. It is a single-player game where you can fight against 9 AI opponents at a range of difficulty levels or play a number of training modes. The graphics are reasonable but not as impressive as Creed: Rise To Glory, and there are fewer features, including no access to multiplayer.
Creed: Rise To Glory
Creed: Rise To Glory is an immersive, story-focused VR boxing game that has you taking on the role of Adonis Creed, as you rise through the ranks of the boxing world, trying to make it to the very top. It’s a terrific game with very solid gameplay mechanics but it is a boxing game, rather than a simulation. It has a number of great gameplay mechanics that some will love and others will hate depending on what you want from a VR boxing game.
The core mechanics are excellent, with punching and blocking feeling accurate, and gameplay that rewards well-timed dodging. There is a stamina system that gives the gameplay a good rhythm between offense and defense and there are fun mechanics for recovering from knockdowns and big hits that significantly differentiate this from The Thrill Of The Fight.
Most of the cast of the Rocky movies make an appearance and hearing the Rocky theme playing as you load the game never fails to make me smile. There is a short, but entertaining story mode, and a free-play mode that lets you enjoy training activities and fight any of the opponents at a range of difficulty levels. Creed: Rise To Glory has a multiplayer mode which is tons of fun, although the low player base can make finding matches a little slow.
Creed: Rise to Glory is a game first and foremost, in contrast to The Thrill Of The Fight, which sets out to be an authentic VR boxing simulation. I found both games hugely enjoyable, but there is a clear market for each one. If you are looking for a boxing simulation experience, choose Thrill Of The Fight. If you want a premium boxing game with gameplay mechanics and a story designed to entertain, choose Creed: Rise To Glory.
The Thrill Of The Fight Vs Creed: Rise To Glory Pros And Cons
The Thrill Of The Fight
| Pros Of The Thrill Of The Fight | Cons Of The Thrill Of The Fight |
| The best VR boxing simulation available, with rock-solid gameplay. | Limited gameplay modes. |
| Challenging opponents, with a good range of difficulty settings. | Singleplayer only. |
| One of the best workouts you can get in VR. | Boxing feels more static than Creed. |
| Extremely good value for money. | No way to use the controllers to move or adjust your orientation in-game. |
Creed: Rise To Glory
| Pros Of Creed: Rise To Glory | Cons Of Creed: Rise To Glory |
| Excellent core VR boxing experience and great hit registration. | The story mode is short and a bit unsatisfying. |
| Cinematic feel and immersive graphics. | Matches are shorter and it is easier to KO your opponent than in Thrill Of The Fight. |
| Great for those looking for an entertaining boxing game. | Locomotion is a bit frustrating and takes a while to learn. |
| Dodging, slo-mo, stamina and knock-down mechanics add fun and variety to the gameplay. | Some people will hate gameplay mechanics such as the slo-mo, stamina, and knock-down systems. |
GamePlay
There are significant differences between these two VR boxing games, and you are likely to prefer one or the other depending on what you are looking for.
The Thrill Of The Fight
The Thrill Of The Fight is designed from the ground up to be an authentic VR boxing simulation. This is the prime focus of the game and everything else is secondary. When you enter the game, the only options are to get into the ring to fight a series of 9 AI opponents or do a number of training activities.
When in the ring, the opponents move realistically, and with the exception of easy mode, they won’t let you win easily. Each opponent must be unlocked by beating the previous one, and there are four difficulty levels: Easy, Normal, Endurance, and Outclassed.
It is essential to block effectively and move to dodge incoming punches if you want to win against more challenging opponents. Timing is really important to land punches without being blocked, and the strength of your punches makes a big difference in how effective they are.
The only visual clue you have about how well you are doing is how your opponent reacts, and the damage that starts to show up on your opponent’s body and face over time. You can knock your opponent down and the referee with give them a count, and it normally takes a few knock-downs before you can score a KO.
It’s generally more difficult to beat opponents, and takes longer to knock them down than in Creed: Rise To Glory, but this makes the victories more satisfying.
There was no noticeable input lag and punching and moving felt really natural and realistic. You need to physically step forward, back, left, and right as needed, but there is no way to control your character’s movement or orientation with the controller while playing. You’ll need at least 2m x 1.5m of space if you have a 360° setup or 2m x 2m of space for a 180° setup to ensure you can put enough room between you and your opponents, but the more space, the better.
Creed: Rise To Glory
Creed: Rise To Glory is a game first and a boxing simulation second. Many people will prefer this, but anyone looking for a pure VR boxing simulation may prefer The Thrill Of The Fight.
The main gameplay modes are Career, Freeplay, and PVP. Career focuses on the story-focused development of your boxer as you progress through the ranks of the boxing world, Freeplay lets you take part in all of the activities the game has to offer without being restricted by the story progression. PVP lets you fight against friends or other people online.
In Career mode, you start off in one of three boxing gyms, where you talk to your trainer (Rocky), who gives you some story dialogue and then puts you through a training montage. This involves doing a few seconds of work with a number of training bags, running on a treadmill, and sparring with a trainer. How well you do determines how much stamina you will have for your next fight.
After training each time, you enter the ring against opponents that increase in difficulty. The atmosphere in the ring is fantastic, with graphics and sound that really immerse you in the experience of a boxing match. An announcer introduces each fighter, and you must then touch gloves in the middle of the ring to start the fight.
The animations are excellent, and I certainly felt present in the ring and ready to fight. Once the match starts, you must block incoming punches and move and dodge to avoid incoming punches. You need to wait for opportunities when your opponent lets their guard down to connect with your punches.
There is an interesting stamina system in the game that some will love and others will hate. After you’ve made a few punches in quick succession, you will hear your boxer breathing hard, and your punches will stop having much impact. You must block and dodge to regain your stamina before unleashing another round of punches. Personally, I loved the stamina system, as it added a nice layer of tactics to the game, but if you want a boxing simulation, this will detract from your experience.
If you take a big punch, you will be dazed, and the game will shift briefly to a perspective behind your boxer and you must move your hands into the positions indicated on-screen to regain your composure. If things get worse and you are knocked down, the camera will race out of the ring and darken, as if you are close to blacking out. You must run back into the ring by holding the X and A buttons on your controllers while swinging your arms, to get back In the ring before you get a 10-count.
The other nice gameplay touch is that the game will enter a slow-motion mode for a few seconds after you successfully dodge a big punch from your opponent, allowing you to counterpunch and do some real damage.
All these gamified mechanics are a lot of fun, and really add a lot to the experience, but they do make Creed a VR boxing game, rather than a boxing simulation, so think about what you are looking for. Overall, I found the boxing mechanics to be really solid, with responsive punching, terrific hit detection, no perceptible lag, and only one or two bugs/movement artifacts encountered.
Game Modes
Both games have a number of game modes, although Creed: Rise To Glory offers more variety, as well as the ability to take part in multiplayer matches.
The Thrill Of The Fight
The only game modes in The Thrill Of The Fight are fighting against AI opponents and taking part in a series of training activities.
Training activities include using the speed bag, dummy, heavy bag, and focus ball. Each one gives you free rein to practice your punching and timing. There is a really useful scoring screen to the right of each training aid that will show you various stats, such as what type of punch you are doing, how hard you are punching, the number of reps, the best streak, etc. This mode is interesting, but won’t keep you entertained for that long.
Fight mode lets you fight against a series of progressively more challenging opponents, whom you must beat in turn to be able to move on. There are also four difficulty levels, easy, normal, endurance, and outclassed. You must beat each opponent on endurance mode to unlock outclassed mode. Although the content seems limited at first glance, the fights are deep and challenging, and there are many hours of entertainment to be had here.
Other than these modes, there are a few bonus modes that were released for Halloween each year, that will provide some alternate entertainment.
Creed: Rise To Glory
Creed: Rise To Glory has Career, Freeplay, and PVP modes.
Career mode involves you rising through the ranks of the boxing world as you try to make your name in the sport. You are guided by your trainer, who provides some dialogue, and you alternate between taking part in training montages and fighting against progressively more difficult opponents.
The training montages involve you alternating quickly between training activities, such as using the heavy bag, combo dummy, training pads, treadmill, etc, and your performance in this will determine how much stamina you will have for your upcoming fight. This is a bit of a gimmick but is actually a lot of fun, and you are incentivized to put as much effort into the training as possible.
The story mode is pretty short, and will only take about 2 hours or so to complete, but does provide a good introduction to the game.
Freeplay lets you fight against any of the boxers, choose your difficulty level, practice with any of the equipment in the gym, or do any of the training montages. Having the freedom to take part in all the activities is nice, but I spent most of my time in the ring, trying to beat each boxer on Champion difficulty level.
There is also a PVP mode, that lets you play a quick match against anyone, or challenge one of your friends to a fight. I loved the PVP mode, as playing against another human player is always so much more exciting than fighting an AI opponent. You can talk to your opponent as you fight, and hear them struggle as they start to tire out. PVP is probably the part of Creed: Rise To Glory that I enjoy the most, and fights with friends have produced some truly intense, and also hilarious moments.
Unfortunately, the player base for Creed: Rise To Glory is quite low, and you may have to wait a while to get a match against a random person, so bring a friend if possible.
Graphics
Graphics do matter for VR sports games, but not as much as you may think. Good animations, character models, and high-resolution textures draw you in, but the quality of a game will always rise and fall on the standard of the gameplay.
The Thrill Of The Fight
The graphics of The Thrill Of The Fight are serviceable, but not spectacular. They don’t detract from the experience, but you aren’t going to find them particularly impressive. The animations are better than the graphics, with the boxers moving quite realistically, and there were almost no graphical glitches.
Creed: Rise To Glory
Creed: Rise To Glory is the clear winner in the graphics department. This is quite a beautiful game, and the combination of good graphics, excellent art style, design, and great animations make this a joy to play. I did notice a few graphical artifacts as I was playing, such as my glove getting stuck on the opponent’s body for a second after landing a punch on occasion.
This game has a really cinematic feel, which is clearly what they were going for. I loved the lighting effects in the matches, with the darkness of the crowds and the spotlight on the ring. You could nearly smell the excitement of fight night. I’m impressed that this game works so well on the standalone Meta Quest 2, as games that look this good can be very graphically demanding in VR.
Realism
The degree of realism in a VR boxing game will have a big impact on your enjoyment, with some people looking for a simulation, while others want entertainment in a physically demanding VR game. The same goes for a lot of VR sports games. With these two VR boxing games, there is a clear choice to make.
The Thrill Of The Fight
The Thrill Of The Fight was designed from the start to be as authentic a VR boxing game as possible, and I feel it has been remarkably successful at this. The core boxing mechanics are terrific, and it feels as real as possible from start to finish.
Some of the easier opponents let their guard down too easily, and all you need to do is wait for them to make their inevitable mistakes, before picking them off repeatedly. As the difficulty increases, it feels much more authentic, and I found most of the opponents at “Endurance” level and above to be very challenging. The movement system could do with some work, as the game feels a bit more static than real boxing.
Creed: Rise To Glory
Creed: Rise To Glory has really authentic boxing mechanics and you will need to block, dodge, and punch in a realistic way to beat your opponents, but it isn’t designed to be a boxing simulation. Creed: Rise To Glory is trying to capture the spectacle of the very best boxing movies, by accentuating the moments in a match that really matter.
Whilst not realistic, the stamina, slo-mo, and knockdown mechanics are loads of fun. There is an equal mix of praise and criticism of these in the thousands of user reviews on Steam and the Oculus store, but I found the whole package to be thoroughly enjoyable.
Movement
Both of these VR boxing games are room-scale experiences only, and you should really have a minimum play space of 2m by 2m to enjoy them safely. I recommend creating as much space as possible and moving anything breakable out of reach. Movement around the ring is handled differently in each game.
The Thrill Of The Fight
Movement in The Thrill Of The Fight is done by physically moving and dodging forwards, backward, and side to side. You can push your opponent back by walking forward or retreat by stepping back. You always start in your corner, which will be in the same physical location in your playspace. Most headsets allow you to reset your orientation, but there is no way to turn your avatar in the game without physically turning your body.
The game uses a variety of techniques to minimize your physical movement within your playspace, and I found that a 2m by 2m space was more than large enough to enjoy the game. You will generally be facing in the same direction most of the time, so there is no problem using a PC-tethered VR headset, but I would highly recommend using the guardian or chaperone boundary system if your headset is capable of this.
The reassurance of having a digital wall appear when you are approaching the edge of your playspace is great and will help you prevent injury and keep you well within your safe play space.
Creed: Rise To Glory
Locomotion in Creed: Rise To Glory is done with a combination of physically walking around your playspace, and using the controllers to move. On Quest 2, for example, you hold the A and X buttons and then swing your arms to move forward. You can move backward by doing the same but starting with your arms beside you. You can also use the right thumbstick to do snap turns, allowing you to easily orientate yourself.
There is also an advanced locomotion mode where you can keep your arms up in the block position, but rotate them in the direction you want to move. This does take a bit of getting used to, but works well and becomes more natural over time. You can also physically move around the ring, and you will need to physically dodge in all directions to avoid incoming punches.
Personally, I would have much preferred if I could have just used the thumbstick to control locomotion around the ring, in the same way as many other games. Having the option to do either would be great and would keep all players happy.
Both games have their pros and cons in terms of motion, with Creed: Rise To Glory feeling more mobile but taking a bit of time to get used to, and The Thrill Of The Fight feeling like a more stationary boxing experience.
Workout Potential
Both Creed: Rise To Glory and The Thrill Of The Fight provide an amazing workout. I would go as far as to say that they provide more intense workouts than any other VR fitness or sports games I have tried. Every time I play these games I end up exhausted and dripping with sweat, and I’m someone who normally does plenty of exercise and tries to keep fit.
I would highly recommend using a waterproof face cushion for your VR headset when playing both these games, as absorbent ones are going to get wet and will be unpleasant to wear after a while.
Overall, The Thrill Of The Fight provides a more intense workout, due to the natural pauses in gameplay in Creed: Rise To Glory caused by the stamina and knock-down mechanics, but both are still definitely great for burning off energy.
Platforms
The Thrill Of The Fight is available on Steam and on the Oculus store and can be played on Quest and Quest 2, as well as any PC VR headset that is able to play games on either Steam or the Oculus PC app.
Creed: Rise To Glory is also available on Steam and the Oculus store and can be played on Quest headsets and all compatible PC VR headsets. It is also available for PSVR.