Recent footage at Gamescom has shown AEW Fight Forever’s impressive-looking gameplay, which seems to lean heavily towards the classic wrestling games from the N64 days, as well as some highly unusual mini-games which seemingly share some similarities with Mario Party games of old. Wrestling fans are now highly anticipating the game’s as-yet-undisclosed release date.
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AEW Fight Forever is Showing Promise
The announcement of the game in November 2020 caused excitement among fans as news of Hideyuki “Geta” Iwashita’s involvement broke. Iwashita is not exactly a household name, but he is held in extremely high regard by wrestling fans thanks to his work directing a series of wrestling games released for the N64 in the late 90s and early 2000s. These titles included WWF No Mercy and WCW/NWO Revenge, cult classics that are widely regarded as some of the greatest wrestling games ever made.
WWF No Mercy in particular is held in extremely high regard thanks to its robust gameplay which holds up well even by today’s standards, as well as its huge roster of superstars. The released footage of AEW Fight Forever showed a system that looks remarkably similar to the one used in WWF No Mercy, in everything from the wrestler’s health bars to the way they perform moves. Wrestler Kenny Omega, currently active on the AEW Roster, is a well-known fan of digital entertainment, and he has been a face of Fight Forever for some time, confirming that the title would be published by THQ Nordic. THQ as a publisher has been involved with wrestling games for many years, so AEW Fight Forever looks to be in safe hands.
While the game’s roster won’t be the biggest at launch, AEW CEO Tony Khan has assured fans that it will be expanded throughout several post-launch updates. The game will feature a career mode that allows players to rise through the ranks as their own fully customized wrestlers. It will also feature several unique match types, including the Unsanctioned Lights Out match, and the Exploding Barbed Wire Death match, to name just a couple.
N64 Fans Should Be Excited
As well as the striking resemblance to classic N64 wrestling games, recent footage of AEW Fight Forever has unveiled another aspect, with this one coming as quite a surprise. The game will include several mini-games, ranging from dance-style rhythm games to baseball slugging competitions. The baseball game sees the opposing wrestler wearing a giant padded baseball, and the player has to swing and hit the ball as far as they can in order to score points. These mini-games look like they would be right at home in Mario Party, another beloved series that debuted on the N64. While only a couple of these mini-games were shown, there could well be more, and they should add a whole new dimension to the game.
With these new revelations, the upcoming wrestling title is putting itself in the best possible position to challenge the WWE’s generally unrivaled supremacy in this genre. Not since the days of the WCW has the WWE faced such a threat, and it will be interesting to see if AEW Fight Forever can deliver the knockout blow on release.
AEW Fight Forever is currently in development for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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