Everything We Know About The AEW Video Game

Even more hardcore gaming fans that love pro-wrestling would probably agree that recent pro-wrestling games have been a little stale for a while now. 2K’s WWE series was bringing enough fans in every year to justify it for a while but this year, due to a poor performance from WWE 2K20 and ongoing complications from the pandemic, WWE 2K21 was canceled. Instead, the company opted for WWE 2K Battlegrounds, a version of the game that took itself less seriously. Fans appreciated the change.

But if it’s a change that gamers are after, November brought some even better news.

All Elite Wrestling, the company that’s shaken pro-wrestling up for a couple of years now, announced AEW GAMES. They will launch two mobile games and a console game. If that news wasn’t exciting enough, developing the console game is none other than Yuke's. The Japanese developer developed all of the WWE games from WWF SmackDown! in 2000 all the way up until 2K19 and made some of the fan-favorite UFC games like UFC Undisputed 2009 and 2010. Also working on the game is Hideyuki “Geta” Iwashita who is best known for his work on WWF No Mercy.

The trailer states that the game is in early development and that the final product may look different and with that kind of cautionary warning, you could assume that it would look buggy in some form, but it was quite the opposite. The game looked tremendous and got fans very excited.

Off of the 60 seconds of gameplay that we see, it looks like the game will mix arcade-style fighting with wrestling in a way that hasn’t been done in a long time, especially not at the mainstream level. Realism was welcomed in the pro-wrestling game industry, but this change feels refreshing and is coming right at the right time.

We only see a few wrestlers in the trailer. Two of those are Chris Jericho and Kenny Omega, who look like they’re in the match of their lives before Women’s World Champion Hikaru Shida surprises Omega with an attack. That confirms that inter-gender wrestling will be a thing. There’s also a tease at the end of The Meltzer Driver as performed by CAWs that haven’t been created yet.

At the press conference, Kenny Omega talked the game up in a big way. “I want to reimagine games,” he said. “I want to give wrestling fans the game they want… I want a game to be fun”. CEO Tony Khan said “we make a point to listen to our fans” and “this is just the beginning of a new era for gaming for wrestling fans around the world”. He also called AEW GAMES “revolutionary” and when you see what they’re done with programmed since their debut in January of 2019, it’s hard to argue.

Along with the console game, as previously mentioned, two mobile games were announced. One of them is called AEW Elite General Manager, which, as the game suggests, will allow gamers to take on the role of GM and book some epic shows and dream matches. It will arrive in the winter. The other is called AEW Casino Double Or Nothing and is expected later in 2021. With development being handled by KamaGames, it will feature AEW-branded versions of blackjack, roulette, and other classic casino games, with cool features like AEW music, sounds, gift packs, and more.

The versatility is presented right from the launch of AEW GAMES is impressive and has us optimistic about the future. Naturally, a war has broken out this year between fans of WWE and AEW, respectively, but it’s safe to say that this news is good for fans of both companies, not that you ever have to pick a side. Competition in this industry is key and might be what both companies need to make the wrestling games that we all loved growing up.