AEW’s first announced back in November 2020 that it had partnered with former WWE 2K developer Yuke’s and WWF No Mercy director Hideyuki “Geta” Iwashita in order to develop the promotion’s first console game on all major platforms. News and updates about the game and its release date have been scarce, but Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful Select managed to uncover a few details about its development on Thursday.ย
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Sapp confirmed that the game will feature a story mode, one that is created by a combination of wrestlers from the AEW roster and members of the Yuke’s team who helped create the story modes for the SmackDown vs. Raw games. It was also noted that while Yuke’s will be developing, the game’s publisher still hasn’t been announced and it is expected that more details about the game will be unveiled once it has a publisher.ย
WarnerMedia, which AEW is currently partnered with for its weekly episodes of AEW Dynamite and AEW Rampage, owns a video game publisher in Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (aka WB Games). The publisher releases titles from a wide variety of studios it owns such as Rocksteady Studios, NetherRealm Studios, WB Games Montreal and Monolith Productions.ย
Kenny Omega recently spoke with the Wrestling Observer and explained how AEW’s first game will differ from WWE 2K22, which just dropped last week. He said, “It is coming along though, and for us, at least for me, there’s a, there’s a large emphasis on just the wrestling aspect of the game. We want the wrestling too, and it’s tough to get that balance, but we want it to feel like, how a match would flow with, within a video game. So you know the matches will go, probably go, probably in general, go a little quicker. 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.”
He then added, “We’ll never be to compete with the production value of WWE’s game. 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.”
