Creed: Rise To Glory™ Research

Creed: Rise To Glory™ is a boxing game based on the Rocky Franchise. You can train up your boxing skills with various exercises using the punching bag, speed ball and dummy in the gym, then put your skills to the test in the ring and work your way up to become a boxing legend! You can not only duck, dodge and block your opponents attacks but also use the movement mechanics to move around the ring. 

Survios are releasing an ‘Endurance’ mode for Creed aimed at increasing cardiovascular endurance, we were given early access to it to investigate in this article.

Removing the Virtual Stamina system, the Endurance Mode has been built for hardcore boxing simulation. In Endurance Mode, your character only gets tired when you do. Designed to be used with Quest’s Oculus Move! function, players can track burned calories and the duration of physical activity while they set daily fitness goals. Players can further tailor boxing matches by scaling opponent difficulty through Fight Settings. The update also includes visual enhancements for Quest 2 users with improved textures, render resolution, and shadows.

FIGHTS: ENDURANCE VS NORMAL MODE

4 participants, 3 male and 1 female between the ages of 20-29, played Creed: Rise to Glory™ in a small study using the Oculus Quest 2, to investigate the differences between fights in Normal mode and Endurance mode. A resting heart rate (HR) was recorded and then participants played fights of their choice on Endurance mode. Participants were asked to play for between 20-30 minutes but told that they could take breaks and stop at any point. Participants then gave their rate of perceived exertion (RPE) using Borg’s scale of 6-20, with 6 being no exertion and 20 being maximum exertion. This was repeated on another day using Normal mode instead of Endurance mode. HR was recorded throughout each session. After the final session a short questionnaire was completed. The following results are only based on 4 participants, therefore may not be generalizable to a wider population.

Heart rate and rate of perceived exertion

A total of 01:22:17 hours, ranging from 15:31 to 23:19 minutes, was played on Endurance mode and a total of 01:33:44 hours, ranging from 20:42 to 27:30 minutes, was played on Normal mode. The lower amount of time spent playing Endurance mode, along with the increased HR, could indicate that participants stopped earlier due to higher exertion causing more tiring play. However it could also be related to the difference in time for each fight; participants were able to do shorter fights in Normal mode, fitting in between 5-6 fights per participant, whereas fights in Endurance mode were longer, therefore only 3 fights were fought per participant.

Participant’s HR and RPE data for both Endurance and Normal mode are shown below in tables 1 and 2 – figures were rounded to the nearest unit, except for RPE which was rounded to 1 decimal place. Participant’s maximum HRs (HRmax) were either estimated using the equation 208 – 0.7 × age, or taken from previous tests. 

Average HR, minimum HR after initial increase and maximum HR are all higher in Endurance mode than Normal mode, showing a higher level of exertion in Endurance mode. On average Endurance mode provided very high intensity exercise intensity  (94-99% HRmax), with Normal mode providing a high intensity of exercise (77-93% HRmax). In both modes participant’s RPE was lower than actual exertion. In Endurance mode there was an average difference of 41 beats per minute (BPM) between HR and RPE equivalent, with an average of 33 BPM difference in Normal mode.

Table 1. Fights in Endurance mode

Table 2. Fights in Normal mode

Questionnaires

The questionnaires were answered using a Likert Scale of 1-7.

On average, participants found Creed: Rise to Glory™ fights to be:

• Exciting
• Fun
• Immersive
• Somewhat relaxing but also somewhat stressful

On average, from playing  Creed: Rise to Glory™ fights participants:

• Would choose to play this game again 
• Would spend money on this game
• Put a lot of effort into playing the game
• Were motivated to get a high score

Participants A and C noted that they would choose to play this game for longer – for 45 minutes and an extra half hour respectively. The other questionnaire answers are shown below in tables 3, 4, 5 and 6. 

 Table 3. Questionnaire answers (1: describes the game poorly, 7: describes the game very well).

Table 4. Questionnaire answers continued (1: very inaccurate, 7: very accurate).

Table 5. Overall ratings (1: highly unsatisfactory, 7: highly satisfactory).

Table 6. Comments.

Conclusion

On average Creed: Rise to Glory™ Endurance mode fights induced very high intensity exercise on average, from 87-100% of HRmax. On average, Normal mode fights induced a high intensity of exercise, from 71-84% of HRmax. Participants all had a much lower perception of exertion compared to actual exertion in both the Endurance and Normal mode fights.

Overall, participants found Creed: Rise to Glory™  to be fun, exciting, immersive, motivational to get a high score and to put a lot of effort into the game and mentally refreshing. 

You can purchase Creed: Rise to Glory™ for Steam here, PlaystationVR here, Oculus Rift here and Oculus Quest here. It can be cross-bought between Oculus headsets!