When All Elite Wrestling (AEW) launched in 2019, its main goal was to bring back traditional professional wrestling, providing an alternative to WWE’s monopoly. As such, AEW's in-ring product focused more upon athleticism and physicality than the story and character-driven “entertainment” offered by the dominant yet creatively stagnant WWE. Moreover, AEW sought to be internationally informed, welcoming a diverse array of styles and cultures from Mexico, Japan, and the various wrestling “territories” of the United States. As of 2023, AEW has succeeded in all of the above-mentioned aims.
From its very inception, there was talk of an inevitable AEW video game. In accordance with the company's founding philosophy, this game would move away from the sclerosis and the stagnation of the yearly WWE 2K games. Way back in 2019, AEW headliner Kenny Omega stated his desire to see the prospective game follow after AKI's WWF No Mercy, the 2000 N64 classic that has gone unrivaled in terms of playability and fun factor throughout the two-plus decades since its release.
Now, after four years of tantalizing teasers and deflating delays, not to mention an agonizingly slow trickle of game-related information and a heap of speculation (see, for instance, this blog's "preview" from four years ago), AEW Fight Forever has finally been released. And it is worth the wait. True to the spirit of All Elite Wrestling, Fight Forever sticks to a multifaceted approach and successfully draws the good from a number of notable wrestling video games.
Fight Forever vs. No Mercy
The most burning question among video game wrestling fans is obvious: does Fight Forever play like WWF No Mercy? The answer is, for the most part, yes. No Mercy and other AKI-made N64 wrestling games such as WCW/NWO Revenge (1998) and the oft-imported Japanese classic Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 (2000) are distinguished by their weak and strong grapple system. Weak grapples are performed by tapping A and then keying in a minor hold or strike to wear down the opponent. Strong grapples are performed by holding A and then keying in a more devastating maneuver to set-up the opponent for the finishing blow. Finishers become available when a wrestler's “spirit meter” reaches full charge, and this allows for a fleeting window of time in which said wrestler can initiate a strong grapple and then tap the analog stick, setting in motion a truly devastating move.
This is, effectively, the system in Fight Forever. Weak and strong grapples correspond respectively to tapping and holding the main action button and then keying in a hold or a grapple-based strike. Fight Forever also utilizes a spirit meter. When this meter maxes out, specials are then executed in familiar fashion via strong grapple and a flick of the right analog stick. This process feels virtually spot-on when compared to the AKI N64 originals (which this reviewer was playing mere hours before firing up Fight Forever). In addition, “signature” moves have been added, serving as the precursor to specials. They are executed by pressing the D-Pad when the spirit meter is flashing “signature” just before full-on “special” status begins.
With these welcome similarities to the AKI games, there also come differences. In Fight Forever, most specials and signatures occur from a front-grapple or, barring that, are turnbuckle activated. That is to say, there aren't really specials from positions like back-grapples and ground grapples, at least not like in the N64 AKI games, where every grapple situation opened up an opportunity for a special move when the spirit meter was maxed out. In Fight Forever, equipping multiple specials is a skill assigned to particular wrestlers, and the creation suite (see below) allows you to endow your create-a-character with this ability.
Also, standing strikes are now covered by two buttons, one for punches and one for kicks. This differs from the one-button strike system in the N64 AKI games, where tapping and holding the strike button corresponded to weak and strong strikes, which could be either punches or kicks. This change is appreciated.
On the whole, AEW Fight Forever is best described as No Mercy-adjacent. It feels like a veritable approximation of what the AKI games might have become had they continuously evolved from No Mercy in 2000 through to the present. Though many wrestling titles have tried to emulate the AKI games, this one does it the most effectively. For comparison, Fight Forever feels more like No Mercy than Def Jam Vendetta (wherein rap artists fought with a version of the AKI engine souped-up for the Gamecube and PlayStation 2). Fans of the AKI titles will find the timing almost precisely in tune with their beloved classics, even though the animations are, admittedly, somewhat quicker. The more rapid animations give the game a WWE Here Comes the Pain vibe, but this isn't a bad thing, as many fans consider that title the silver medal among wrestling games behind No Mercy’s gold standard. Whatever game you prefer, you'll approve of Fight Forever.
An Anything Goes Aesthetic
Fight Forever is also reminiscent of another wrestling game, and for some readers, this may come out of left-field. Yet undeniably, Fight Forever has something of a Wrestling Empire quality to it. Wrestling Empire is, for those who don't know, an independently built game authored by one man, the incomparable M. Dickie. Wrestling Empire delivers a so-bad-it's-good experience on account of a very fluid grappling system and madcap presentation, with exploding props and ridiculous arenas such as bathrooms and airplanes. Every match is a free-wheeling extravaganza, and Fight Forever has a bit of this feeling. Indeed, Fight Forever offers an exploding barbed-wire death-match option, which, as you might imagine, gets crazy in a hurry. Blood spills liberally. In no-DQ matches, you can hurl literal bombs at people, which explode in the ring. You can also grab a skateboard and go skating around the arena, doing ollies over felled opponents.
Perhaps most progressively, Fight Forever allows players to put male wrestlers into competition against female wrestlers, a feature that hasn't been in a WWE game for nearly two decades. While WWE has opted for a sort of prudery in the matter of male/female in-ring interactions, Fight Forever lavishes in intergender action. For example, the game inserts women randomly among the entrants in Casino Battle Royale matches, amping up the arcadey, anything-goes feel. All told, once you get men and women facing off in barbed-wire matches with blood all over the canvas and explosions happening left and right, Fight Forever starts to feel like Wrestling Empire, but with a far better game-play system.
Customization
From the AKI-era onward, robust customization options have been a must in wrestling games. While nobody expected Fight Forever's creation suite to meet the standard of 2K23, which has evolved over two decades, the create-a-wrestler mode is still highly serviceable. In a matter of minutes, you can fashion a unique and visually arresting character with a compelling entrance.
However, the day-one iteration of Fight Forever doesn’t offer a lot of opportunity for fine-tuning with regard to facial features and body morphing, and so creators looking to make detailed versions of wrestlers from other eras and promotions will face considerable difficulties. On top of that, the creation suite has strange quirks. You can, for instance, have your character wear a T-shirt to the ring, but he/she/they can't wear it during the actual match. T-shirts are standard fare among death-match wrestlers worldwide, so a creator is limited then, when they want to make, say, a Nick Gage or even a Kevin Owens.
Additionally, while the move-set editor has an abundance of maneuvers available to choose from, particularly the innovated signatures of AEW stars, it still feels like there's a paucity of moves in the game. To Fight Forever’s credit, there are plenty of variations of basic wrestling moves, but this seems to make up the bulk of the move-list at the expense of more esoteric holds. While Fight Forever’s move-list will not leave you hurting like the anemic offerings in Arcade Action Wrestling, the AEW title does not pack nearly the amount of moves as in 2K or Fire Pro Wrestling W (the latter of which benefits enduringly from its “Move Craft” feature).
A Matter of Consistency
If this reviewer has one true gripe with Fight Forever, it’s minor, and it involves the character models. Though the graphics have a generally agreeable look, the character designs display inconsistencies. While wrestlers like Penta El Zero Miedo and Jon Moxley look photorealistic, Kenny Omega appears very arcadey and almost kittenish, for lack of a better word. In real life, Omega is an agile heavyweight. But in Fight Forever, the impressive thicknesses in Omega’s frame, particularly in his upper torso and thighs, have been streamlined into a litheness. His Fight Forever representation gives the impression of being like unto a puppy-dog version of the real man. That said, the slightly uneven graphical style doesn’t detract at all from the fantastic gameplay.
Conclusion
Altogether, AEW Fight Forever marks a must-buy for the video-game wrestling fan, as it draws a plethora (to borrow Taz’s favorite word) of excellent elements from many memorable grappling games.
Some reviewers have compared Fight Forever unfavorably to WWE 2K23, saying that the AEW game simply can’t compete with the WWE juggernaut. To those reviewers, this reviewer says that Fight Forever doesn’t have to compete with 2K. If the 2K games are, say, Grand Theft Auto, then AEW is akin to Saint’s Row. It’s an alternative take on a genre that contains its own uniquely appealing look and feel. In real life, AEW offers wrestling and WWE offers “sports entertainment”; in the video game world, WWE provides a “simulation” of “sports entertainment” and AEW delivers wrestling action that’s actually entertaining to play. WWE 2K23 is deeper, yes, but it’s also convoluted and alienating to the uninitiated. Fight Forever, by contrast, has achieved its goal of providing an accessible video game wrestling experience on-par with the classic AKI games, and that is no small accomplishment.
Many wrestling games (most notably the reprehensible TNA Impact!) have attempted to recapture the No Mercy and Revenge experience, but every single one has missed the mark. AEW Fight Forever has hit near the center of the No Mercy dartboard, and it has added to the AKI experience in the process. This makes it necessary playing not only for the wrestling fan, but also for the non-fan. More than a few people who otherwise detest wrestling will enjoy Fight Forever’s pick-up-and-play style, which is far less involved than WWE 2K23. Just as the AKI games brought non-fans toward wrestling in the late 90s and early 2000s, Fight Forever might be able to do the same in 2023.