PLATFORM: PC, PS4/5, SWITCH, XBOX ONE/SERIES (REVIEWED) | RELEASE DATE: 29TH JUNE
By Chris Jackson
When All Elite Wrestling was formed in 2019, one of the company’s goals was to bring an element of competition back to the wrestling world, pitting themselves against the all-conquering WWE in the realms of live events, merchandise, TV ratings and anything else you’d care to mention. It was only a matter of time before AEW tried their hand at videogames, and Fight Forever is the result of a collaboration between several of AEW’s most notable roster members (who also happen to be massive gaming nerds) and the folks at Yuke’s, the developers who took care of WWE’s flagship titles from the year 2000 all the way up to 2019. Taking many of its cues from AKI’s highly-revered WCW and WWF (now WWE) titles of the late 90s, Fight Forever feels like a throwback to a simpler time where gameplay was prioritised over the many bells and whistles that we’ve all become accustomed to over the years.
In terms of available match types, your standard one-on-one and tag matches are here, along with three ways and four ways. One-on-one matches can be played under “Lights Out” rules where copious amounts of (often quite amusing) weapons are allowed and there are no disqualifications, while Falls Count Anywhere matches allow you to take the fight all around the main arena. Other than those two variations, you’re restricted to standard rules in all other match types, with no options to remove countouts or rope breaks or anything along those lines, which is a bit of a shame. Elsewhere, you can choose to participate in a one-on-one ladder match (multi-man ladder matches are available in career mode, but not in exhibition), an exploding barbed wire death match (where the ropes are replaced with barbed wire that explode upon contact), or solo and team variations of AEW’s signature rumble-style Casino Battle Royale match. There might not be the same amount of match types as the more established titles in the genre, but it’s certainly a decent effort to get things off the ground, and all of them can be played online in ranked, casual or private matches if you want to take on some actual real-life players.
To deal damage to your opponents, you’re given three buttons that perform a variety of moves in conjunction with the left thumbstick. Of these three buttons, only one is used for grapples while the other two are solely used for strikes. Restricting the types of moves that can be assigned to the controls can make movesets feel a bit limited, with each wrestler having an abundance of kicks and punches but only a fairly limited amount of DDTs, suplexes and throws. The usual array of running moves, top rope attacks, signatures and finishers are all here too, of course, and wrestlers can also perform a variety of other moves depending on which skills they have, so some roster members will be more suited to individual playstyles than others.
A creation suite is available for those wanting to make their own wrestlers (and arenas), customising their appearance and equipping them with your favourite moves, although the cosmetic options on offer are rather limited. At first, your created grapplers are fairly underpowered, and you’ll need to take them through the game’s career mode to beef up their stats a bit (although strangely, a second playthrough with the same character seems to reset everything you’ve already earned, so it seems like any upgrades you’ve equipped are immediately lost upon starting a new career with that same character). Known as “Road To Elite”, you’ll fight your way through four months’ worth of AEW programming, with storylines progressing along different routes depending on how well you perform in the ring. A full playthrough will only take a few hours, but it’s good fun while it lasts and you’re encouraged to return for repeat playthroughs to see all of the available storylines and also to earn money gives access to some extra customisation options from the in-game shop. Playing the Road To Elite mode also unlocks additional minigames, which serve no real purpose other than providing some admittedly quite enjoyable distractions – running around the ring trying to collect casino chips while avoiding bombs, answering AEW trivia questions, replicating a sequence of poses, scoring home runs by belting wrestlers dressed as giant baseballs, and more besides.
Apart from maybe not always looking incredible (some of the character models definitely hark back to the mid-2000s era…), everything Fight Forever attempts to do is generally really good fun, although its lack of options, restricted movesets and limited match types may well dampen the enthusiasm sooner rather than later. The lack of commentary during matches may or may not be a plus depending on your personal preferences, but other missing elements and quality of life features (having to scroll through colossal lists of moves that can’t be split into categories seems to be a massive oversight, to give just one example) do feel like they’re holding the game back from what it could have been. There are plans for Fight Forever to be supported with new content for the next three years, so time will tell if future additions will see the game reach its full potential. For now, it’s an undeniably fun but rather limited offering that might not quite keep you fighting forever but will still provide a decent amount of entertainment.
