AEW: Fight Forever is a successful modern mix of No Mercy and SmackDown
When All Elite Wrestling launched in 2019, wrestling fans were excited that a new promotion had arrived to freshen up the stale landscape of professional wrestling in the US. The same could be said for wrestling video games, with the announcement of AEW: Fight Forever igniting hopes that a new entry in the genre could bring something new to the table – or old as the case may be.
For people who grew up playing wrestling games, there's a clear nostalgia-filled fondness for what were considered some of the best wrestling games ever made, endearingly named AKI games – an encompassing term for games created by the former AKI Corporation – including titles like Virtual Pro Wrestling, WCW vs nWo: World Tour and most commonly WWF No Mercy.
We're happy to say that the team at AEW and veteran devs Yuke's nailed it if they wanted to create a modern mix of No Mercy-style gameplay with SmackDown! mechanics, as that's pretty much how AEW: Fight Forever feels to play.
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AEW: Fight Forever feels tight and fluid, with an impressive amount of moves and ways to do them, as well as a focus on weak and strong strikes and grapples just like No Mercy. During our time playing the game, we were repeatedly impressed with the amount of detail put into perfecting how matches play out.
The wrestling gameplay shines due to the inclusion of mechanics like chain wrestling, dives from the guardrail, moves on the apron, topés to the outside, and even being able to suplex opponents through the barricade. You can also catch your opponent midair during dives or when they come off the top rope, and it all feels snappy and seamless, with the animations rarely looking awkward.
Wrestlers will realistically move into position when you trigger your finisher, and reversals feel largely fair and smooth too, and not overdone or cartoonish like some wrestling games in the past, which helps the matches feel more natural as they unfold.
The game is loaded with details that wrestling fans will appreciate, to the point that Orange Cassidy even has his own stance where he wrestles with his hands in his pockets at the press of a button.
At launch, the game includes singles matches (including Lights Out and Falls Count Anywhere), tag matches, three- and four-way matches, ladder matches and the 21-person Casino Battle Royale.
The infamous Exploding Barbed Wire Death Match is also in and a highlight – it's fun throwing your opponent into barbed-wire ropes as explosions surround the ring. It's just a shame that you can't leave the ring in this match type, as it would have been nice to make use of the barbed-wire boards surrounding the squared circle.
You can reach under the ring and over the guardrail for weapons in any match type, and the variety and how much weapon interactivity there is is impressive, from using tables and putting tyres or chairs around an opponent's neck before doing a move on them, to placing ladders on top of wrestlers, and there's even a fully rideable skateboard.
Hit detection and collision feels good, with wrestlers reacting to landing on weapons and ladders. One of the highlights is pouring out a bag of thumbtacks and driving your opponent's body into them, then seeing them impaled in their skin for the rest of the match.
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The game's story mode is Road to Elite, a career mode that sees you take a wrestler you've created, or an existing AEW star, through an entire calendar year at the company, with the year divided into four blocks that each build to a PPV, including All Out, Full Gear, Revolution, and Double or Nothing.
You'll work one of three scenarios for each block, which are essentially storylines that play out as you tour North America, during which you can go to the gym, sightsee, do a press conference or meet and greet, and you can even squash jobbers on AEW Dark. Each task affects your energy levels and momentum, making it a very mild balancing act that is fun at first but can become repetitive after numerous playthroughs.
You run into wrestlers in charmingly cheesy Yakuza-style cutscenes that are reminiscent of classic wrestling games, and while the dialogue is bad, it can be slightly entertaining interacting with wrestlers and picking up on the wrestling references.
Sadly, the main storylines aren't specifically curated to a wrestler, so you'll see the scenarios repeat if you do multiple playthroughs. They try to balance this with multiple choice prompts that make it seem like you can make different decisions, but these largely lead to the same result and don't impact your career path.
We were pleased to see that there's a different storyline for the AEW Women's Championship, but it was then disappointing to see other scenarios ignoring this like it never happened. In fact, it seems like there's no disparity between each block, with each PPV build having isolated storylines that ignore any previous progress.
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We played through Road to Elite numerous times with different wrestlers to see what changed and it mostly seems like wins and losses don't matter at all. We deliberately quit and took a loss every match and still managed to challenge for the AEW World Championship in the final block, which is disappointing as it was the same scenario for winning every match. We'd like to see our choices and performance make a difference in how our career plays out.
The primary motivation to play Road to Elite is to improve your created wrestlers, from boosting stats to giving your CAW traits and skills.
The traits, known as Action Skills, have a significant role in gameplay, as they influence the kind of things you can do in matches. For example, Gimmick Infringement lets you steal your opponent's finisher, while Guardrail Dive Offense allows you to dive off railings.
Create-a-wrestler has been a staple of wrestling games for some time now and is a big part in keeping players invested. Sadly, AEW: Fight Forever's falls short on customisation options, with very few presets and no ability to adjust specific facial features or attire textures.
Resources have clearly been put elsewhere, which is a shame as the game stands out in other areas of creation with a really impressive lengthy move list for both single wrestlers and tag teams, a hefty entrance music library and animations tied to WWE, NJPW and AEW stars who didn't make the final game roster.
We made Speedball Mike Bailey and Kota Ibushi and were delighted that Justin Roberts had recorded announcer audio for "Speedball" and "Kota Ibushi" we could use for their entrances. There's also arena creation (which is fun but basic), the ability to edit entrances and movesets, and the option to create and modify tag teams.
One of our favourite things to do in No Mercy was customise the attire of the existing roster by changing gear colours or selecting a new attire entirely. While AEW: Fight Forever has a couple of alternate attires for Kenny Omega, the Young Bucks and Britt Baker, you can't change existing colours and can only modify them by adding random t-shirts which feels rather pointless.
That said, the wrestling gameplay is the best we've seen in a wrestling game in some time, and Fight Forever's online ranked mode, multiplayer and rotating challenges give you a reason to come back and keep playing.
You can't help but miss certain gameplay features, especially when compared to the amount of content in older games from the same dev team. You can't crawl or grab ropes in submissions, only four players are allowed on screen at once, there are no referee bumps or interactions or backstage areas to fight in, and roster members are missing (we need Jamie Hayter in asap).
But at the same time, this was built from the ground up and is a clean slate, so it's almost expected that they're only just laying the groundwork. We just hope they build on it in the future.
AEW: Fight Forever is a solid foundation that takes the fundamentals of classic wrestling games and successfully adapts them to All Elite Wrestling. The DNA of No Mercy, SmackDown! and Day of Reckoning is undoubtedly pumping through the veins of Yuke's new grappler, and while newer players will be able to pick up and play, long-time or lapsed wrestling fans will also be pleased.
It's clear that a lot of love has been put into making AEW: Fight Forever fun and feel good to play. It's just a shame it falls short in certain areas related to story, features and creation. Despite this, there's a lot for AEW fans to like here and we definitely recommend it, because much like All Elite Wrestling is an alternative to WWE, it's nice to have an alternative in the wrestling game space too.
Platform reviewed on: PlayStation 5
AEW: Fight Forever is out on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC on June 29.
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