Upstart pro wrestling promotion AEW is full of a talented roster of performers featuring names of today and yesteryear. Often having a mixed bag of these names on their flagship programs, such as Dynamite, Rampage, and the latest program Collision, they try to have a variety of wrestling styles to appeal to everything. With the release of the new video game AEW: Fight Forever, you can simulate matches with some of your favorite wrestlers, old and new such as MJF, CM Punk, Kenny Omega, The Young Bucks, Sting, Lucha Brothers, Chris Jericho, Orange Cassidy, “Hangman” Adam Page, Britt Baker, Jade Cargill, and Owen Hart, to name a few.

AEW: Fight Forever is a 2023 pro wrestling video game. It was developed by Yukes and published by THQ Nordic. It is now available on PC, Playstation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch.

Editor’s Note: THQ Nordic provided a Playstation 4 & 5 review code supporting this review. Some spoilers for AEW: Fight Forever’s Road to Elite story mode may be present within this review.

Rain ‘Blood and Guts’ in AEW: Fight Forever.

Since its launch and subsequent televised debut in January and October of 2019, respectively, All Elite Wrestling has made several waves throughout the professional wrestling world, from making box office records since the death of WCW to signing prominent names all around the globe. And even doing what was once considered impossible by getting CM Punk back into a pro wrestling ring. AEW has accomplished a lot in a short amount of time, and they’re only getting started. The quick success and hardships that have come with said success have certainly been overwhelming for President and owner Tony Khan. And with all the hurdles that have come and gone with the development of its first console game, another layer has been added to it. Developed by Yukes with insight from the creative minds of AEW talent Kenny Omega as well as former video game dev turned AEW referee Aubrey Edwards the new title hopes to bring the classic feel of WWF No Mercy not felt since its release on the Nintendo 64 with a few modern touch-ups. Full disclosure, while I’m a proud pro wrestling fan, I enjoy watching AEW and other promotions more than I do WWE these days. Knowing this, I will review AEW: Fight Forever with the most honest and unbiased opinion of the game I can.

In the spirit of its arcade-style gameplay, AEW features mini-games, many of which are based on historic AEW moments.

THE GOOD: If you’re a fan of classic WWE/F titles such as WWF No Mercy and WWE Here Comes the Pain, then AEW: Fight Forever has the gameplay simulation above covered. It honestly feels nice having multiple major wrestling titles simultaneously again, just like during the days of the classic WWF/E and WCW video games from nearly three decades ago. The WWE 2K games are meant to be hyper-focused on realistic gameplay simulation, which is ok. AEW: Fight Forever wants to be hyper-focused on arcade-style gameplay, which is also ok. Believe it or not, even the most die-hard WWE fans have spent years begging for a return to gameplay similar to No Mercy and Here Comes the Pain, which the community still discusses at length today. This will be a huge selling point for Fight Forever as it finds its footing with the other issues currently surrounding the game.

While it hasn’t been confirmed by AEW or THQ Nordic, there’s been hints and rumors laid out that show the current plan is for the game to become either a live-service or live-service lite-like title with regular updates to its base gameplay, roster, and additional modes and mini-games for years to come until a sequel feels necessary. You know that live-service promise we’re constantly given but rarely receive authentically with a bit of a fair shot here for “Fight Forever.” A new game mode is based on the insane Stadium Stampede match, which debuted in AEW in 2020 and is coming soon. It’s a 30-person battle royale style mode where the goal is to beat your opponents into a KO finish until you’re the last player standing. The arena is based on the first match in 2020, and it looks like a nice preview of the type of content the game can provide in the future. It’s examples like this where Fight Forever’s creativity shines through. Again, returning to the now typical live-service promise, it remains to be seen if “Fight Forever” can regularly keep that momentum.

Regarding what’s actually in the base game, there’s a fair bit of that creativity here too. While simulating realism, WWE 2K doesn’t care too much for intergender matches as far as one-on-one competition. AEW: Fight Forever, being an arcade-style game, has no issue involving male and female wrestlers getting involved in the exact matches, and it’s less of an issue for them to get away with it too. The weapons system is epic with some decent variety, such as barbed wire bats, chairs, and even skateboards which you can even weaponize as you ride them. This type of chaos can be the bright moments of the game, and if there’s anything to get a big kick out of with Fight Forever, it’s a large chunk of its gameplay. You have a simple list of match types, including singles, tag, triple threat, ladder, and AEW’s signature annual over-the-top-rope match, the Casino Battle Royale. A unique match is the barbed wire death match which was once a big deal in Japan in the 90s but was attempted by AEW once and only once. As I said earlier, this match and Stadium Stampede as a near future addition will help Fight Forever stand out much more than its competitor. Just wait until they add the Blood and Guts match.

Core gameplay mechanics for the wrestling itself is more or less what you’d come to expect for modern games. You have your grapples, strikes, and dedicated reversal buttons for both strikes and grapples. There are also the usual rope breaks, count-outs, and DQs. Escaping a pinfall requires you to mash the face buttons as best you can while escaping a pin or submission requires timing with a meter. You have the body health system where depending on how much you’ve been attacked, the damage reflects between the colors of yellow, orange, and red being the worst. If your head is in red, you’re privy to being busted open or made to bleed, and AEW: Fight Forever, like its titular promotion, features a ton of it. Strangely, signature moves and finishers are performed with the d-pad and right analog stick. It can be confusing and even challenging to get the hang of specials requiring more effort with opponent placement, but I respect the team for going a bit out of their way to add an original flare to this mechanic. You must perform a wake-up taunt with the right analog stick to gain a finisher bar. Sometimes you can get lost in performing individual finishers, like tag team finishers; for example, I still haven’t completely figured it out.

Unlock new characters, attires, and more by completing objectives and purchases with the in-game currency.

The shop, which is expected to be routinely updated with new unlocks, opens with a few familiar entrance animations, moves, and a handful of playable characters & alternative attire, among other things, to start. For now, you can purchase these items with in-game currency called AEW Cash which you earn by accomplishing specific goals and weekly challenges, such as winning your first exhibition match. While it’s not entirely pleasing to go out of your way to unlock everything in the shop, I must say an extensive array of content is available for purchase. Hopefully, once regular content refreshers begin, this will be the norm. There have been hints of a battle pass-like deal coming to the game in a future update. It should be fine as long as it’s reasonable and has a solid amount of content people want. The old rule of thumb for live services is not to be egregious with the monetization and to give people what they want to earn/buy, not have to/are feeling forced to buy.

Continuing to support its arcade approach is the inclusion of mini-games. There’s a lot of breathing room to grow with the mini-games, and it shows off that potential with some of what’s here on day one. However, others, like the AEW quiz mini-game, drag the other mini-games down simply by association due to a lack of creative inspiration. The baseball and poker mini-games can be fun for some laughs, and some of the newer, upcoming mini-games, such as the Dethrace-X skateboarding mini-game, which just released, add an extra bit of oomph to this portion of Fight Forever. The current plan is for nineteen mini-games between the base game & DLC. That number can always change due to demand or if the team is inspired to do so.

The career or story mode allows you to choose your own created wrestler or one of your favorite AEW talents to carve your path to becoming World Champion. It takes place between 2019 and 2020 of AEW’s then circumstances of events. The story has slight differences between male and female talents, having alternative paths to take and about sixteen possible storylines to follow. You can also unlock characters to purchase in the shop by completing story mode-based challenges. The story is mainly told through video packages and some vocalized text, with characters moving and reacting as they speak. The game tries to spread things out by occasionally giving you optional matches and even opportunities to hang out with other talent. It’s a bit of a quick play for an entire run, but if you want to do something like unlocking the characters tied to this mode or want to be a completionist, you can get a fair bit out of it. I’m unsure if they have any plans for Road to Elite via DLC, but they should consider it.

Relive the AEW canon or create your fantasy moments in ‘Fight Forever.’

THE BAD: Some issues can (possibly?) be fixed later, but the fact that they’re present hurts the game. You have some simplistic problems, such as a lack of match types and game modes and a slightly too majorly out-of-date roster full of gimmicks that have been defunct for quite some time. For example, Kris Statlander still has the alien gimmick she changed nearly a year ago. The more alarming issues are some wild game-breaking and basic bugs and glitches. One of my friends told me he couldn’t even hit start while a replay was on. Otherwise, it’d just completely freeze or shit can the game. There’s also the weird choice of seconds-long entrances when one of the drawing allures of a wrestling game is simulating a wrestler’s entrance to the utmost level of reality. While a bit unique, the mini-games out of the box are pretty lackluster, but more are set to be released as DLC over time, so maybe this will change. The addition of the shop seems to confirm plans to transition the title into a live service. But there’s a way to go about it in a non-insulting manner, and hopefully, this is the course they take with Fight Forever.

While it’s neat that the story mode Road to the Elite allows you to choose your character, including your CAW (create-a-wrestler), its presentation can sometimes be nonsensical. Many of the storylines have no sense of canon to them as you progress, which is rather eyebrow-rising as it indicates that it wants players to take different paths and make many different choices as they play. The writing is also pretty basic and silly, even for pro wrestling standards. If you aren’t looking to be a completionist for a single run, it’ll take you about four and a half hours to complete or about eight hours for the former.

AEW will be an interesting live-service-type title to keep an eye on. However, its day one problems are glaring for some.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: AEW: Fight Forever, like the soft reboot for WWE 2K with its release in 2022, has a solid foundation. It will be a mixed bag of reactions from fans of pro wrestling games, critics, and even the more hardcore AEW die-hards. I think the central saving grace for the title will be consistency in quality of life and roster & match type update content that will be released for quite some time. As it currently stands ‘Fight Forever’ has a few too many glitches and some clunky gameplay that holds it back, but the potential is there, and for a first attempt with much fewer resources compared to its competitor, it’s a hell of a first go at it.