A Game More 50/50 than Tony Khan’s Booking.
Original Score Before Backloggd Rounding: 4.5/10 (Below Average)

AEW: Fight Forever is a game I’m conflicted on. A real mixed bag. On one hand, games like WWE All Stars and TNA Impact! are some of the most fun experiences I’ve ever had in a wrestling game, and much like this one, they were more arcade-like in their approach, and focused much more on fun, fast paced, high octane action, than being a 1:1 simulation of the product. The lack of content in that regard is more an annoyance I’m used to with games like this than a deal breaker. The WWE 2K series has the benefit of hundreds if not thousands of assets to recycle from entry-to-entry, while Fight Forever had to be build from the ground up. However, that does not excuse the state of this game. AEW: Fight Forever is a game that is intentionally held back, and not just due to budget or time constraints, but to emulate an N64 title that I personally never experienced, and hold little nostalgia for, and to focus on aspects of the game that I would deem unnecessary. In the end, I think taking more elements from the PlayStation 2/GameCube era of wrestling games, or modernising the old formula of WWF: No Mercy and really doing something new with it, anything would have been better than what we got, and ultimately I find myself disappointed (as you would when you were expecting the next truly great wrestling game, and you end up with a kneecapped end product).

As I mentioned, Fight Forever feels stunningly close to WWF: No Mercy, for better or worse, but it does very little to actually build upon or modernise the tried and true formula that fans have been begging to see return. I'd actually argue in some ways that it's worse. While it possesses a solid foundation, notably the core wrestling gameplay, that is sure to only improve through further updates and downloadable content releases, as it stands now, the game is lacking. While this title may have been a labour of love for Kenny Omega and AEW Games, and I have all the respect in the world for them and what their goal, their dream was, not enough was done to make the game as great as it could have been ahead of launch. Whether it needed a bigger budget, more time in the oven, I can't say. AEW: Fight Forever is lacking in several areas, including but not limited to its poor creation suite, lack of match commentary, match types, and single-player content, which again I let slide in games like TNA Impact! and WWE All Stars because of how darn fun they were. But even those games felt more polished and complete, especially with their single-player offerings.

While AEW: Fight Forever may improve over time, it’s hard to recommend or justify buying at its current full price, no matter how fun the base wrestling gameplay is. It feels more like a budget, digital title than a full fledged retail wrestling title. If you are interested in playing this game, I'd recommend waiting for a sale, and to see how dedicated to their future content plans they actually are. I can’t help but feel a public playtest beta would have done wonders for this game, but what’s done is done.

The game is pretty great. It plays like the old AKI styled game kinda an in between of No Mercy and Def Jam. There is a ton of room for improvement when it comes to match modes and general options.

But for the base core gameplay it is great. I've been waiting years for this type of arcade wrestling game.

One thing they did correct was make characters feel pretty different from each other. I'm hoping for quality of life improvements.

This game is really fun. I hate the reversal system with its two buttons and zero prompt (skill issue), but the gameplay is still really fun and I enjoy the whole 5 finishers and signatures thing.

The game suffers from a severe lack of game modes, only having Road To Elite & Exhibiton, which in itself doesn’t have many match types (no trios, only stipulation matches being Lights Out, FCA & Ladder) but I enjoy the minigames even if they made the dumb decision to lock them all behind like, 10 playthroughs of RTE.

The creation suite is also pretty barren but personally I’m not a creation person so I don’t mind it as much as most others.

Overall I find the game very enjoyable but hope the future DLC/Updates adds some more modes and that they add Daniel Garcia 🐐🐐🐐🐐

I was very excited for this because we finally have different choices in wrestling games but this in particular feels a little disappointing. Gameplay wise it’s pretty fun, reversing is the one thing I really don’t like though.

Game mode wise, there are a lot of match types which make it fun but the road to elite mode is VERY bare bones which isn’t a terrible thing but I wasn’t really impressed with a lot of the story that I saw. Went through the mode twice and don’t really feel like I want to play it again even if there are a few unlockable characters I haven’t gotten yet.

I think this game has its place and that’s as a fun arcadey wrestling game that you pick up and play at a party or get together. If I want something more realistic I’ll go to 2K23. Gameplay is what saved the game for me, but they really need to add some more content to this.

i've played a LOT of wrestling games and this is pretty easily on the lower end for me. i didn't have particularly high hopes going in, i'm not really an AEW fan but had hopes this game would feel unique and fun enough for that to not really matter. unfortunately, that isn't the case, because this game is pretty rough.

the most obvious criticism and the one being thrown around a lot is the graphics, and i agree it's pretty disgusting! i'm sure playing on the switch isn't helping, but watching gameplay for other consoles it's still just not something i like looking at. the animations and such are also awkward and extremely janky. i couldn't hit a single cody cutter that didn't clip through the head of whoever i was using it on.

my main time spent with this game was the road to elite story mode, which to be honest was just straight up terrible. it makes me question why it was even included in the first place. borderline no story at all, the few story beats they try to cram in are done in 5 seconds, and weird activities between matches were boring and tedious after 3 times. it also penalizes you for using an existing wrestler. a large majority of what you earn are credits to upgrade and build your character, but the problem is existing wrestlers don't have the ability to do that. so 80% of what you're earning is almost entirely pointless. they are generous enough to convert it to currency after the story mode but i'd prefer to just be able to buff the guy i picked even if just for the story.

the gameplay i think was hyped a bit too much for me going in. i hadn't played much of the older n64 wrestling games so i didn't have that nostalgia mindset for the gameplay here. i had heard incredible things but i just didn't really understand the hype. it wasn't bad by any means! it was still fun, but i fail to see how this is better than more modern wrestling games in any way really. i was hoping for faster more arcade-y feel and it can be that but not to the extent i wanted really. there are some highlights, like the wacky collection of items available and the more silly match types but at the end of the day i found the gameplay to be nothing super special. for sure not enough to make up for the lack of content, and clear lack of polish this game has launching as a $60 game.

it's clear kenny omega and members of this team are passionate about wrestling video games. you can tell they wanted to make something special here, and maybe they can if they get a couple more tries but this just does not cut it in today's market. if you loved the games this was based on so much that it's the only kind of wrestling game you can ever play and AEW is your favorite thing on the planet i can see you having a good time here! unfortunately, that isn't me and i didn't have a good time. i don't hate AEW but i just couldn't ever get into it. if that's you, you probably won't like this game either. unless you hate WWE with a burning passion i cannot see any world where you should buy this over WWE 2K23 which IMO is the best wrestling we've gotten in a long time, potentially ever. if you're anything that isn't a die hard AEW fan just grab that or emulate the n64 ones, you'll have a better time.

edited & changed since the original logged date:

post launch support has been dire...i was previously very optimistic about it at launch but all of that has fizzled out completely. it's not a bad game...the core gameplay itself is a good base but that all the game is...a base that lacks anything to keep you coming back to it.

lights out matches are by far the best thing about this game & one of the funnest things in any wrestling game due to the insane weapon variety along with it just gelling well with the gameplay.

other stuff just gets stale real fast honestly. better than the wwe2k games but still a dissapointment.

At its core AEW Fight Forever is a fun game. They nailed the core gameplay and atmosphere of AEW but they fell short nearly everywhere else. There's still a lot of fun to be had, but it's hard to ignore just how much wasn't very good as well.

The create a wrestler is the most bare bones I've ever seen in any wrestling game, and this I'd a HUGE part of wrestling games. The career mode was fun for awhile but overall lackluster and hindered by the fact that I just couldn't like the character I created.

Overall there's a fun game here with a ton of room for improvement. I quite like playing the game but it's missing so much of what it needs to be a great wrestling game.

Extremely fun game. The base gameplay is a ton of fun, if you’re looking for a AKI style game you’ll find it here. I’ve had a blast playing it in RTE and online so far.

Very lacking in CAW options though. You have more options in an unmodded No Mercy, and you’re surprisingly limited with what you can do with the little you have also. No kneepads and kickpads for example. They seem like they want to update the game often though and if that includes more CAW parts on top of the wrestlers we know and can assume are coming it could go up a full star.

AEW Fight Forever has been one of my most anticipated games for quite some time and I'm glad to say that it was worth the wait. I don't know where all of these graphics dorks came from over the past few years that prioritise graphics over gameplay but ignore them and try this for yourself. For me this is the best wrestling gameplay since Fire Pro World released in 2017 and has been an absolute blast for the first 30 or so hours that I've put into this game. The art style also looks really cool in game and makes some of the not so good models look solid. What Yuke's really nailed is making each wrestler feel different from one another, something most wrestling games fail to do. There aren't that many match types to choose from here but the ones that are there are an absolute blast, with the Lights Out and Barbed Wire Deathmatch being the standouts. The amount of weapons available in the Lights Out match is utterly insane and I love that they gave this aspect of gameplay a lot of attention, I mean we finally got thumbtacks in a wrestling game for the first time in god knows how long. There are some weird omissions when it comes to match types, mainly the Steel Cage, which I'd hope is first priority for new match types in the future updates. There is also a lot of minigames to be found here which I didn't know I needed until I played them and I'm surprisingly looking forward to playing more as they are released in the DLC packs.

As for game modes there's just the one here, Road To Elite. This story mode is pretty fun, with 4 chapters each containing 3 different storylines with the outcomes depending on weather you win or lose. It's a pretty short mode that you can finish in about 2 hours which is fine but I'm hoping they release new variations of this mode with new storylines similar to Fire Pro with their Championship Road to keep the mode fresh. Jumping to my first negative and it's to do with winning championships as it's never mentioned again and doesn't play any role in the story going forward which is disappointing and was something I also complained about in WWE 2K22. There's also one particular match in here against Death Triangle that is one of the worst matches in the history of wrestling games, I seriously don’t know who thought that would be fun.

The Creation suite has been a big talking point since the games release and despite not expecting much from this area of the game, I was still let down by just how limited it is. This is something that is easily updateable and I would hope that's a main area of focus as there's really not a lot to go on. Despite CAW lacking, I actually think they did a good job with Arena and Entrance. Not having the ability to add logos is the real bummer but the stuff that is present does a decent enough job and I honestly don't know if there's anything wrong with create an entrance, it seems perfect to me with a plethora of music, titantrons, stage props, pyro, effects, even hand gestures, this aspect of the creation suite is stacked.

Overall this game is a big ball of potential and it all comes down to how Yuke's handle this game going forward. Here's a quick list of things I'd like to see through updates and DLC;
- Match Types (Steel Cage, Coffin Match, Dog Collar etc.)
- Port the Match Types from RTE to Exhibition (Multi Man variations,
Handicap, Gauntlet)
- Creation Suite (Hairstyles, Face and Body types, Body morphing, Clothing etc.)
- New Game Modes and RTE storylines
- Tweak pinfalls slightly
- NJPW & ROH DLC with Arenas, Wrestlers, Titles and RTE storylines
- Update the Young Bucks Theme
- New Titles (International, Updated Women's)
- New Attires weekly in the shop

Currently this game is really good and the gameplay is top tier, with a few updates and DLC of wrestlers to beef up this roster and we could be looking at an all-time great but again, this all comes down to Yuke's. We already know of the Stadium Stampede match coming to multiplayer which will add a lot of shelf life to the game and potentially attract a whole new audience. I'm really looking forward to seeing where this game is at in a few months' time so my rating will likely change depending on if this game gets the love it deserves or not.

Sidenote: I managed to be the 13th player in the world to get the platinum trophy and the 7th fastest achiever which is a huge accomplishment for me as a trophy hunter.

(This review is based off my 15 hours into playing where I have done most of what's available to play at launch without buying any DLC)

Wow! A good wrestling game! Not a GREAT wrestling game by any means but there's a ton of fun and interesting things about Fight Forever that I think merit a purchase from wrestling fans. Especially those frustrated by the WWE 2K series and those who remember how tight the AKI era games of No Mercy and Wrestlemania 2000 were.

I won't lie, some of this game is jank like the overworld map in story mode and other little things that clearly had low/no budget. Some of the outside environments look like were pulled from No More Heroes 3 on the Switch. That said, there's clearly visible passion and talent behind Yukes even after years of being tied up contractually making 2K wrestling games that are near worthless -- now that they are free from that, they are letting loose here and seeing what sticks. It's refreshing to see Yukes do new & old stuff even if it doesn't all land.

The roster is missing huge key players that you know will be DLC, some of the minigames are a bust and the story mode (which I should emphasize plays like the HERE COMES THE PAIN era of WWE games) all could be better but the game has made sure it's built upon a solid foundation which can be built upon and you'll see it too if you check it out. It's fun! -- and I can't genuinely remember the last time I had fun with a wrestling game (maybe Smackdown vs Raw 2009??).

If the story mode gets expanded in the future DLC I am 100% back in. For now, AEW Fight Forever will be one of my go-to games if I have company over. The value here is worth the price of admission, but the jury is still out if the DLC will be worth anything.

O gameplay é fácil de pegar e fluído, tem várias modalidades de luta e é bem divertido. Mas entraram demais na ideia da nostalgia e fizeram o resto todo ser sem graça e ultrapassado. Sem falar que qualquer partida com mais de dois lutadores se torna um caos completo e tu acaba perdendo por um descuido bobo.

Tinha potencial pra ser um dos melhores games de wrestling atualmente, mas acabaram desperdiçando. Podiam apresentar gráficos e interface melhores, uma customização mais ampla e somar isso com a gameplay arcade, iam se sair muito melhor. Uma pena.

Fun little game that should grow into something great as both official support and the PC mod scene matures. It's definitely something I'll leave installed to fire up and play a match or two at times. I also had some fun with Road to Elite and would like to see this expanded upon with maybe a year 2 or year 3 of AEW to run through instead of just year 1. Of course, some sort of long term universe mode would be great too. A general booker mode would be nice too and I wouldn't be surprised we see something like this down the line despite this skewing more arcade than sim. I suppose the greatest praise I can offer is I bought the Elite Edition and didn't feel like I wasted my money. Looking forward to Stadium Stampede and beyond.

This is just extremely ok, it's kinda fun to play and I like the vibe, but at that price it's clearly lacking any meaningful content and there's some glaring roster omissions.

Other than Exhibition it basically only has 1 mode which is meant to be super replayable but after about 5 playthroughs you start seeing through the cracks.

One of the only games where going for the Platinum actually soured my experience.

Hoping the updates they've promised build more on the foundations they've already got. The Stadium Stampede mode looks cool!

Right off the bat, the entire time the game was being developed, it was credited that it would play like the old N64 wrestling games (WCW vs NWO Revenge, WWF Wrestlemania 2000, and WWF No Mercy) and that was what brought me into wanting to play it. Did it succeed? Well...es and no, but mostly yes.

I honestly would say the gameplay is much closer to something like Def Jam Vendetta mixed with the base controls of the WWE 2K games before they got overly complicated, which to say the gameplay actually feel pretty good, mostly. I'll definitely take these controls over anything WWE has been doing to their games over the years.

Aside from just the controls, the gameplay has the different types of matches, most you'd expect out of a wrestling game and a few that are odd, but arcade-ish which kinda describes the game as a whole.

The selling point to me besides the controls was the Road to Elite which is the career mode. This allows you to use any of the wrestlers and go through a career mode or use your own created wrestler (male or female) and go through the story and build up your stats and title collection. The create-a-wrestler is actually pretty decent. It's not very robust, but it does the job enough to not overwhelm newcomers and still give a smooth experience.

At first when the game was being shown off, I thought the graphics were ugly, but seems it got polished and looks good to me, it's somewhere between wrestler toys and close to realistic, if that makes any sense. I really like the design of the characters, although to be fair I don't know but maybe 10% to 20% of the roster, but for what was shown they looked good.

I gotta say, the music shocked me...after years of hear EA and 2K choices of songs in WWE and boxing and other sports games, I feel like AEW chose some really amazing music.

Now this game does have it's flaws, but it's like everything good has a "but" to it.

- The controls are good as I said, but I felt they tried to hard to make EVERY button do something, when some actions could have been condensed like Irish Whip and Run could have just been the same button like every other Wrestling-ish game did.

- It has plenty of match types, but I think road to elite does a poor job of explaining stipulations or even showing you the match type after you got into it.

- Road to Elite has abysmal writing...some characters talk like their real counter parts do, but some of them have awful writing, that or if they REALLY talk like that...ugh... also my own character's dialogue was awfully written.

- As much fun as I had with it for the time I had played, I kinda felt the game needed more to it.

For AEW's first attempt at a game, I think they did a very good job for what they were going for. If what I read is true and this is just a test run to an ongoing set of games or ideas they wanna do, then they got my support, just as long as they take what they did here and improve on it, the next game could be promising, but like the company itself, it's a bit of a diamond in the rough.

Like what you may have heard already, this is a game that has a good chunk of good but is extremely held back by design choices, clunkiness, and seeming to be really stuck in the past in the worst ways.


This game heavily relies on it being No Mercy like. Don't get me wrong, I get the point they want to do and while No Mercy isn't my favorite, I did like the PS2 games and am open to a game combining realism and arcade-ish gameplay.


However, I feel like the execution in gameplay is overall alright but weirdly extremely similar to the WWE2K games with slight differences. I don't mind the controls being the same because I really like the WWE2K controls but the differences end up feeling superfluous and clunky (like the run button on circle or not really having a reversal besides jamming triggers).


I know the intention was to make the game more beginner friendly but I feel like this design motto really just makes the game more bullshit. For example, the WWE pin system goes by a bar that you have to time to land. While it can be impossible extremely far into the match, you at least have a chance.


In AEW, they reverted back to the button mashing system. On paper, this would be great so someone wouldn't have to learn a new mechanic to escape. However, in execution, it ends up feeling like a pin is a gamble and you have no real control on if you escape or not no matter how hard you press the buttons.


This way of trying to revert to the past has made pins feel completely bullshit even compared to WWE. I highly doubt a beginner would even enjoy this system as they would get frustrated over having no real control.

I will say I do like some button choices, mainly with making dragging opponents 10000x easier than in WWE games. Sacrificing an actually good run button for it may of not been worth it but like the wise words of Taz, I digress.


I do like the momentum system as it encourages players to constantly engage. Plus, it can ensure you can recover if you're able to land a few hits in, something that can feel like an impossibility in the WWE2K games. This makes matches feel more skillful and actually help cater to casual audiences so they're not just dominated.


However, this momentum system is held back by the pin because it can feel like attempting to experiment will lead you to lose completely if someone just quickly lands a pin on you. It seems like even if you do recover, you still have permanent damage that will pretty much ensure you stay down if you get pinned.

I do enjoy the extreme matches, I feel like these will be the highlight of the game for majority of people. Unlike WWE, the game has extreme amounts of blood and you can do some pretty brutal shit against your opponent. This really makes playing a match extremely fun.

This also helps hide how outdated the movement feels because when they said old wrestling games, they meant it. The movement feels like rock 'em sock 'em robots. It's really hard for me to feel like something goes smoothly in this game, especially with running. I wish they would have tried making this way more smoother as this was a huge issue in WWE2K yet its like 10x worse here.

Now, despite seeming like controlling an android, the matches do move fast which is appreciated and helps with a pick up and play style they wanna go for.

As you can probably tell, this game has major highs and dips just throughout it only by talking about gameplay. It's like a Monkey's Paw and I feel like the epitome of this analogy is the Creation Suite.

Everyone knows the WWE games are kings of the creations, they give you near unlimited opportunities to make whoever you like. No matter how mid a WWE game can be, creation can really help spice up even the worst ones.


AEW decided to ignore 20 years of progress, despite being made by the same studio as those games with great creations, and instead revert back to a N64 styled character creator where options are extremely limited. If you want to make somebody beyond the real life interpretation of the default Mii, good luck.


However, despite this, AEW actually features a ton of creation QoL improvements not seen in WWE. You can have tons of attires, you can set up entrance props and be able to set off your own pyro, I believe you could even make your own finishers. Plus they have a whole store of creation parts that ideally would help expand the Creation Suite even more with affordable parts.


However, none of those improvements really matter if the creation itself just sucks which kind of shows the point of this game.


Going back to entrance creation, yeah its cool they have so much customization for an entrance, even surpassing WWE2K in some cases, but it doesn't matter since they decided they loved No Mercy so much that they made entrances like 2 seconds long.


The majority of entrances you don't even hear the actual theme song, just like the slight buildup like Cody Rhodes, CM Punk, or Chris Jericho. They did shorten the themes like for Kenny Omega but its few and far between and its always awkward.

I know many would argue this doesn't matter but like entrances help set a mood for a wrestler. Sure, you can not care for entrances and that's why WWE gives an option to turn them off if you want. However, considering they spent resources making random ass minigames they could have maybe put resources into making full entrances


and the real kick in the balls is that no mercy had full entrances so this 2023 game is getting its ass eaten by the nintendo 64. You heard more of the 5 second loop of The Rock's theme on No Mercy than Rhodes' Kingdom in AEW.


As for the story mode, I think its actually alright. I think the base of it is completely fine and I don't mind activities being more superfluous as I would rather not deal with a workout minigame or managing a wrestler diet on the road lol. I can live with those being more opportunities for cutscenes.

However I feel like they give extreme focus to this story mode despite the fact its not that deep. You can't mess with your created characters' stats like WWE, you have to grind story mode for them. Issue being this story mode is extremely repetitive and decently long for one playthrough, nevermind like 10 to unlock some characters.


They're trying old NES bullshit tricks of making the game slightly different to count as a new story when you replay but that's obviously not really worth it and doesn't make it an actual "infinite game."

I'd say stop huffing their own farts with the story mode's super epic dialogue variants and just accept one playthrough being enough for everyone lol. Besides its leech on created character, which doesn't matter anyway because create a character sucks, the story mode is okay just not really worth replaying like marketing wants you to believe.


As for minigames, they exist. They're kind of frustrating to see considering how extremely lackluster major areas of the game are but ignoring that, they're just nothing special. They can work well to make the story mode a lil more exciting but like you're never gonna wanna replay them after seeing them all lol.


Now despite everything, this would make a great $30 game if you can find it for that price. Its still fast paced and fun with nice no rules modes to help keep it spicy. There's also a lot of hidden unlockables and details you can find along with not having any microtransactions or overreliance on DLC like WWE2K.


However, for a $60 dollar game, it's nowhere near worth it. I'd honestly say just go with WWE 2K23 if you don't have it already because this is not the new king of pro wrestling games as of now. However, they did say they will continually update this game so some aspects of this review could be outdated.


If the game is really changed, honestly it'd probably max out at a 3. The core gameplay is still extremely clunky and stiff for me to give it a great score and I highly doubt that can ever be fixed but in being fair, I give WWE games similar score so hey they would match.

First off I love that this is a spiritual sequel to the AKI N64 games. Stepping into the ring after all this time feels intuitive, even though I lost my first match due to me not being able to find the run button, chalk that one up to impatience. Plenty of match options to enjoy, from 1-on-1 to Battle Royale etc. The create-a-wrestler is a bit of a step backwards from the older games, and I wonder if the lack of detail is deliberate to stimmy any potential copyright shenanigans. Career mode is long and gets a little boring and repetitive, with some odd bugs which will hopefully get ironed out later. Lots of wrestlers to play with, feeling like the women get good representation, as opposed to simply being tacked on for novelty value. I don't quite know what's going on with Chris Jericho's character model though, unless that's what he looks like in real life now, in which case sorry Chris. Overall it's okay. Definitely not worth full price, so probably best waiting until it gets more content beyond the obligatory Matt Hardy.

*Edit
So, a couple of months later where are we? Absolutely nowhere except disappointed by a series of piss-poor DLCs. Looks like my original score needs to be ammended. Do they even care about the future of this game? What's going on?