There have been some stellar wrestling games over the years, but it is difficult for many games to supersede the classic Nintendo 64 wrestling Titles from THQ. The game that started that journey was WCW vs nWo: World Tour, which was released in the United States in November of 1997, and as the calendar moves over to December, the game that would in many ways revolutionize wrestling games for a whole generation of fans is celebrating its 25th anniversary, and fans took to Reddit to share their thoughts on the game and why they loved it so much.
World Tour was released during the heyday of WCW, which was taking the fight to WWF with Monday Nitro and the rise of one of wrestling’s most iconic factions the nWo. That’s why the group got the nod for the cover, which featured Hollywood Hulk Hogan and The Giant, and like WCW’s approach to TV was winning, so were their games, as World Tour gained fans for its ease of play and grappling options compared to WWF’s game at the time.
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The game would go on to be a huge hit and would spawn a sequel titled WCW/nWo: Revenge, which has become the most well-known of the series and threw in all sorts of new features and graphical enhancements to the already standout formula.
The biggest asset the game had was its grappling system, which was simple to learn and offered welcome depth that allowed anyone to jump in and start having a great time. It was a bit limited on modes and didn’t have as large a roster as you would expect from today’s games, featuring 13 WCW stars and 9 nWo stars, as well as created promotions and a number of wrestlers from the Japanese version of the game. Stars like Hogan, Sting, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Lex Luger, Rick Steiner, Ric Flair, Eddie Guerrero, DDP, and more were all included in the game, though DDP and Macho Man Randy Savage were hidden at first.
These days we’re used to 60 plus wrestlers being available in a game’s roster, but in the next games fans would gain the ability to create wrestlers and the roster would increase, so things only got better as the franchise continued. AEW’s first wrestling game Fight Forever is clearly inspired by games like WCW vs nWo: World Tour and Revenge, and the latest trailer does seem to capture some of that same tone and feel, but we’ll have to wait and see how it plays when it finally releases next year.
Were you a fan of World Tour? Let us know in the comments or as always you can talk all things wrestling and gaming with me on Twitter @MattAguilarCB!
