Wrestling video games are hard. I don’t mean that they are difficult to play, although I still have some serious troubles beating the story mode in Wrestlemania 2000. What I mean is that they are hard to create in the modern 3D age, just look at the debacle that was WWE 2K18 on the Nintendo Switch. And while wrestling as a whole is as popular as ever, we don’t see that many wrestling video games that aren’t retro throwbacks because of the developmental challenges for small studios.
That means that AEW: Fight Forever has a lot to prove for its first video game offering in a space ruled by WWE. And just like being the underdog in the television wrestling space, AEW is once again the underdog in the video game space. But that isn’t to say that this dog has no bite, as while AEW: Fight Forever is fairly barebones with the extras, the core base the game is built on pulls from the tried and tested N64 wrestling days of games like WCW/NWO Revenge and WWF No Mercy.
For someone like myself who never really got into the modern WWE wrestling games past some few early PS2-era titles, AEW: Fight Forever is the perfect mixture of classic gameplay with modern styling. It’s not going to visually blow you away, but characters look good and the roster features a nice mix of male and female stars. Sure, they sort of look like action figures, but what the team managed to get together is impressive. The only thing I would have wished for is a feature to turn the graphics backing into the blocky N64 style.
That said this is a barebones visual experience. Wrestlers don’t have the long entrances that we have become used to in other games. Movement is oftentimes stiff and floaty thanks to that Yukes branded mechanic system that is now decades old. Facial animations are about a generation behind and emotions tend to snap into place more often than not. Glitches are also fairly common and will need a few updates to work out as CPU opponents get stuck on the environment and oftentimes their pathfinding gets them stuck on the downed opponent leading to some fancy endless moonwalking.
Again, wrestling video games are very hard to develop and while I would knock a lot of this, the WWE series of titles from 2K have dealt with near gaming-breaking bugs like this for generations. Thankfully, there is nothing that we saw or experienced in AEW: Fight Forever that killed the game of the experience, even when the game was fighting for dear life whenever weapons were in play and tables and ladders decided to yeet themselves out of existence from time to time.
Gameplay wise, if you are experienced with Yukes from their N64 days (the game heavily takes inspiration from No Mercy) you’ll be right at home here. Matches tend to flow well with a simple and still rewarding grappling system. You initiate a grapple with the grapple button and them simply press one of three action buttons plus a direction to initiate a specific move for your given wrestler. This allows for a lot of different combinations, especially when you factor in strong and weak grapples into the mix.
It’s a really fun system that simplifies modern WWE video games that have long been experimenting with all sorts of combo systems, quick time events, and timed actions that feel different for almost every iteration. Sometimes the classics are classics for a reason and AEW: Fight Forever really gains a lot by sticking with its tried and tested roots in the gameplay department. Gameplay modes are what you would expect with single matches, tag teams, battle royales and more, but the really fun standout is the exploding barbed wire death match.
In a mostly PG era were WWE games have lost that fun and mischievous edge of old, AEW: Fight Forever goes full on with the brutality of the death match. And it’s these battles that help make the game stand out from the crowd and will easily draw in fans that have been wanting something more from their wrestling video game. Add in the fact that you can pit male and female stars against each other and you get a game that feels special. You can even select your own character to serve as your manager to make things really insane. My combo of Kris Statlander and her manager Kris Statlander was downright unbeatable.
One that that helps AEW and the game itself is how the team incorporates the story mode into the game. It’s been forever since I played a 2K WWE game for the story mode because of how insanely stupid they have become. AEW: Fight Forever breaks this mold by letting you play through the actual AEW story from its inception to the modern day, placing you in the defining matches from AEW history, only with your given star, or created star, in the lead role. You can play any character male or female and the story plays out in really fun ways.
During the story you’ll be doing more than simply wrestling as you’ll also need to manage your wrestler and their stats. Injuries will take a toll and in-between matches you’ll have the option to eat, train, sightsee, play mini-games, do meet-and-greets, and more. You will get four days between matches and each day you can pick an activity. Training will deplete your energy and require eating, losing a match might deplete your brain/willpower and require sightseeing or doing events to boost yourself up. Mini-games will offer other rewards like money and skill points that can be used in the shop to buy new characters, moves for the CAW, and match stat boosts.
There will also be points where a given activity will feature a red icon meaning that it will tigger some special event. This might be meeting another wrestler or get offered a match that doesn’t count for the story. These matches are house shows and TV tapings that count against your four day total, so it’s important to plan your week out before heading into that story mode PPV match as putting yourself at a disadvantage in a major match is not a good idea. That said, losing a match won’t end your run and will simply work against you in terms of earning money and points to spend.
What’s interesting is that because AEW: Fight Forever follows the AEW story, you’ll be jumping right into the action and a title shot within your first few matches. I won the women’s title when facing of against Riho and then this made every other match a title shot for whoever came up against me. This really made me feel invested in every match. Another fun thing is the great use of real footage to progress the story and after major matches. Whether winning or losing you’ll see how it really played out. This is a fun way to teach new fans about AEW history and my girlfriend got invested in a way she never does as a non-wrestling fan.
AEW: Fighter Forever is a fanatic experience that is geared toward those N64 era wrestling fans. There is a lot of potential here with a solid base that has a lot of room to improve and allow the game to become a much deeper and betting looking experience in future installments. Wrestling video games are hard to create and Yukes have given AEW: Fighter Forever the right skeleton to build a solid franchise from.
If you miss the golden era of wrestling video games then AEW: Fight Forever is a must have title, and if you are looking for something different from the yearly WWE affair this is also a fine choice. Still, the game does have a long way to go to usurp the WWE 2K series, but it’s on the right track. I only wish that this wasn’t a full $60 game as it’s pushing the line of being a budget title for what is on offer.
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