AEW Fight Forever: Update on Game's Release, Franchise's Future
AEW Fight Forever will mark All Elite Wrestling's first step into the world of console video games. Fans have been eagerly awaiting the confirmation of the game's release date, and while Fightful Select's latest report was unable to provide one, it did offer a pretty big insight into the game's future. Per Evil Uno, who has been helping with the game's development, this game will not be the first installment in an annual series but rather a singular title that will "constantly evolve over time."
"This is instead of an annual or recurring release that would require the purchase of a new game for each edition. He even said that the 'Fight Forever' name plays into that," Sean Ross Sapp wrote, adding that Uno confirmed the initial roster will have more than 50 wrestlers at launch.
Fight Forever was first announced back in November 2020 with the confirmation that Yuke's would be the developer and that WWF No Mercy director Hideyuki "Geta" Iwashita had been brought in to assist with development in order for the game to have a similar gameplay feel to the classic Nintendo 64 pro wrestling games developed by AKI. Omega has discussed in numerous interviews how the game is not attempting to be similar to WWE's annual 2K series.
"We'll never be to compete with the production value of WWE's game," Omega told the Wrestling Observer back in March. "You look at 2K22, it's absolutely gorgeous. So I'm excited to see all their bells and whistles when it finally releases. But for us, rather than pushing, pushing the envelope massively or anything like that, we just want the wrestling to feel like how it used to feel for the people who would play wrestling games back in the day. And just have fun with fellow wrestling fans, or, you know, people that just want to have fun with their buddies.
"Maybe they don't know who Luchasaurus is. Maybe they don't know who Chris Jericho is. But, you know, they'll be able to pick a character on the screen and go like, 'oh, this guy is fun to play as'. That's sort of the feeling that I want to, as sort of a creative designer, to bring that to video games," he added. "But, we want them to feel like the user is able to assume the role of their favorite AEW Superstar and/or whoever it is that they create in the create-a-wrestler mode and when they mix it in in the ring in whatever match type that they choose, that they're having a fun time and they feel like they're in control of their person and that the moves have impact. They feel everything, and that it's fun. But at the same time, if you want to be really competitive about it, you know there is that there too."