All Elite Wrestling’s first video game, designed with the assistance of famous wrestling game designer Yuke’s through their own AEW Game division has been out for a couple weeks. They also announced a 30 person online free addition using Stadium Stampede which will allow players to run over others with tanks (see, ridiculous!). I played the game for a week before it came out and then for a week after, while also watching some streamers I enjoy also take the game in and seeing how they reacted. Then I let the game digest in my brain through phone calls and conversations, and now I’ll try to let MY PERSONAL (which probably differ from many) exist on the page with other things.
Let’s get the good out of the way. Graphically (at least on a recent console or a PC) are fantastic, no issues there… although on a Switch the game looks silly almost like an Xbox OG game. The game-play is nothing to truly complain about. It’s basic at best, it’s your traditional fighting/wrestling game. You have strikes, kicks, slams, moves off the top, running moves, dives, weapons, different arenas and select but not complete roster. One on One plays well, but 3 and 4 person singles and the tag team have concepts that frequently make it frustrating to annoying. When you tag in or out the AI all get in the ring. Every single time. Also when you go for a pin so it’s up to the AI to stop the AI and they never do. Another issue and this is all those modes is focusing. Even with a button to fix your focus it doesn’t always work 100%, or even 50% of the time, your character will focus on who it wants and cause you to at times to even wrestle the Invisible Person!
A big flaw in the game is both in the modes where people were super excited for and that customization and story and both are bare bones, poorly done or in some cases just completely dumb. Customization locks you into 6 very specific templates with the option of changing these templates equating to just making them the other templates. These particular templates and faces are actually just faces from the roster. A guy I created just looks like Jeff Hardy but muscular, make up and with a faux-hawk (hair styles and beard styles are lacking as well, you also can only have ONE tattoo.)
The story in story mode seems to have multiple paths it can go in 4 chapters (which each chapter having four paths), but no matter who you play as, be it a customized wrestler or a roster member, you have an unknown past but get signed by AEW for no reason, act like a complete mark around all wrestlers, can’t keep any friends and end up in impossible scenarios. I played as a customized and as Sting, in both I got beat up by Death Triangle in a 3 on 1, but you can only pin PAC to beat it in what feels like an unbeatable match that you still must play through. Having Sting eating as restaurants and going to local sightseeing and then acting like a common fan among other wrestlers was weird. It was weird as a customized character too though… you’re just a dork, but as Sting? Wowsa. Look at Sting marking out with all these AEW talents.
For comparison here is my Custom guy in some the same exact photos/poses.
Let’s get back to some good even though there’s the one thing in it I shake my head at. The eating out and sightseeing segments. Some ridiculous writing, the sightseeing features the lowest polygon photos one could find… (Look at the Liberty Bell above) but the eating stuff is really fun and tells you about national food with good photos and write ups. The only write up that really scratches my head is the one for the Juicy Lucy. I don’t know who wrote this caption but they need to get out more if they’ve never had one outside MN. I had one in Dallas last year, in between watching wrestling matches at a bar pub right outside Fair Park. The food tour still is really fun.
and of course as I said the Juicy Lucy and the Juicy Lucy I had in Dallas proving the spread of the concept.
A Juicy Lucy I had in Dallas, TX
At the end of the day that is the thing I can say about AEW Fight Forever, it’s really fun. It’s not “good” by a long shot, it has a ton of issues, it is not something I would return to over and over in hopes of unlocking everything, but… it’s fun if your kind of fun is that.
AEW Fight Forever is available for PC on Steam, PS4 & PS5, Nintendo Switch and XBoxOne and XSeries.