About two months ago the now AEW World Champion and Executive Vice President of the company Kenny Omega took to the stage to announce the launch of AEW Games.
Alongside a couple of mobile games it was announced that former developer for WWE games – Yukes would be heading up a new AEW game for current and next-gen consoles. As a huge fan of wrestling and the games that come with it, I am well hyped to see how this game turns out so here’s everything we know about the AEW game so far..
As always you can check out the video version of this article in the link below if you prefer.
As I already mentioned Kenny Omega is heavily involved in the project and given Omega’s passion for video games we can rest assured the upcoming title is in good hands. In fact Omega (speaking to IGN Japan) has openly spoke about one of the conditions for signing on with AEW was that he could lead the gaming side of the business.
His first move was to bring on Japanese developer Yukes who are known for making wrestling games since 1995 and more famed for their run of WWE games from 2000’s WWF Smackdown all the way to their final project WWE 2K19. For proof of how good Yukes are at making these sort of games, look no further than what happened when they broke ties with WWE leading to 2K releasing what is probably the worst wrestling game of all time – WWE 2K20. That steaming turd of a video game lead to WWE not having a game out in the following year for the first time in two decades. Unless you count WWE Battlegrounds which you shouldn’t..
As well as the reliable Yukes, Omega also brought in Hideyuki “Geta” Iwashita as the main advisor to the project. Iwashita is best known for his work on games such as WWF No Mercy and Def Jam Vendetta, games which most fans still view as the best wrestling games to ever grace consoles. This appointment mixed with how Omega has mentioned on more than one occasion that No Mercy is his favourite wrestling game of all time probably gives us a good idea of how the yet untitled AEW game will likely play.
In fact Kenny Omega has himself spoke about how he doesn’t want to compete with WWE and their more realistic style of gameplay, instead opting to go down a more fun retro style route of yesteryear.
He has also spoken about what sort of modes we can expect to find in the game. Straight away Omega has talked down any chance of a GM Mode given that AEW Games plan to release a mobile game titled All Elite GM in the near future. He did however confirm there will be a campaign mode, multiplayer modes and some sort of edit a wrestler mode too. Omega also briefly spoke about the roster but made sure to point out how quick the current AEW roster is growing so maybe we shouldn’t expect to see every one of the names we see on Dynamite every Wednesday night, especially the newer ones.
There’s of course always a chance of more names being added as post game DLC as this is something Yukes would do with 2K in the past but nothing has been confirmed at this point.
Finally we have of course been treated to some early footage which Omega (doing his best Steve Jobs impersonation) was quick to point out this is far from the final product. But still, looking at this gameplay footage it’s clear AEW Games and Yukes are indeed abandoning realistic gameplay in favour of a more fun retro arcade like game. How far they go with this style is yet to be seen but I can’t see it being as wacky as something like WWE All Stars or the recent disaster that was WWE Battlegrounds.
How long do we have to wait? Well the plan was apparently to aim for this year but Omega had no problem letting us know that it’ll be ready when it’s ready and they’re in no rush to have it out by a particular deadline, which is a great sign given some of the weaker WWE games Yukes have released in the past due to strict annual time constraints! The current plan is to release the game on both current and next-gen consoles but that could of course still change depending on how long it takes to get the game onto shelves.
What are you expecting from the upcoming AEW game and what would you love to see from it? Make sure to let us know in the comments below or by hitting us up on Twitter over @RespawningUK. We’ll be back to let you know as soon as there’s more information released on the game so make sure to keep an eye right here on Respawning.co.uk.