AEW: Fight Forever needs to fight harder to get our attention

This is the year we got a very playable and pretty looking WWE 2K22, but it is also the year AEW gets to show WWE that they can keep up with them in the game race. Will Fight Forever be up for the task.

Tony Khan must know how important this game release is for the fans. Fight Forever is going against an undisputed king of wrestle gaming, who has sat on the throne unchallenged for many years. Even when the WWE phoned in a few games in 2018-2020 they were still unchallenged. Fight Forever should know that this battle will be uphill.

In the last update, AEW proudly touted that Nyla Rose and Kris Statlander were playable characters. They showed some of the game footage of the two female wrestlers duking it out. With this reveal, I have to say that the needle did not move on my excitement meter. It’s good news that Fight Forever will have its most prominent female wrestlers, but I can’t say anything about this reveal that made me want the game.

Upon further inspection, the alpha footage of them fighting looked wooden. In the scene they showed, Kris gives Nyla a knife edge chop and she stands there like a block of wood.  The scissor kick Kris pulls off on Nyla also looks stiff. This is, of course, early footage, but it does definitely not change your allegiance from WWE 2K22 to Fight Forever footage.

AEW’s Fight Forever is banking on gameplay. Kenny Omega has already admitted that their game won’t be competing graphically with the competition. We also know that AEW is doing a slow and deliberate reveal of content. We can confirm Kenny Omega, Owen Hart, Chris Jericho, Darby Allin, Jungle Boy, Hikaru Shida, Kris Statlander, and Nyla Rose will be in the game. With the promise of a September release, one wonders if AEW is prepared for the gaming rat race. As hungry fans beg for impressive footage, character reveals, and gameplay modes, the information is coming at a drip.

The other side of the coin is the wild speculation about the game on social media. There was a rumor on the Game Marks Podcast that AEW Fight Forever is only going to contain the roster that it had at the beginning of its inception. Another criticism is that AEW is gearing for an art style closer to WWE Battlegrounds. Different blogs are claiming that Sting, Adam Cole, and Bryan Danielson have also been confirmed. Sportster claims that Yukes and Kenny Omega are fighting over creative differences.  I can see why the hopefuls get worried when they hear this.

I want this game to succeed. I want my kids to grow up in a world where they can choose between a WWE or AEW game with equal confidence. At the moment, Yuke’s and AEW are not ready to win over the WWE 2K22 crowd. Just having your game produced by the creator of WWF No Mercy is not enough.

With very few gameplay details offered, a shadowy publisher not being revealed, the promise of a story mode, and a few wrestlers that need a graphical touch-up, we need more from the creative team if we are going to be rushing to Game Stop for a preorder.

Then again, maybe there’s an update that will blow us away.