AEW: Fight Forever (NSP, XCI) ROM + v1.9.0 Update + 8 DLCs

AEW Fight Forever is a professional wrestling video game developed by Yuke’s and published by THQ Nordic. It is the debut title on home consoles and personal computers based on American professional wrestling promotion All Elite Wrestling (AEW).

Plans of a game for the promotion were reported as early as October 2019 and officially announced in November 2020, with the game being the first wrestling game developed by Yuke’s since 2018 with WWE 2K19 before the studio ended its working relationship with WWE. The game is heavily inspired by previous console generations of wrestling games, particularly WWF No Mercy for the Nintendo 64, with an arcade-style gameplay with exaggerated wrestler appearances and presentation, as opposed to the more realistic simulation style of the developer’s most recent wrestling games.

The game was released on June 29, 2023, for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch and received mixed reviews, being praised for its throwback style of arcade gameplay, but criticized for limited presentation, modes, and customization.

GAMEPLAY

Fight Forever features arcade-style gameplay, with different match types including singles matches, tag team matches, ladder match, Casino Battle Royales, and Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch. The game also features online play and intergender wrestling, the first Yuke’s game since WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009 to do so. During November 10, 2020, at the AEW Games 1.0 Special Event, Kenny Omega confirmed that the game would be a spiritual successor to games like WWF No Mercy and Virtual Pro Wrestling, with gameplay in the style and veins as the AKI engine that ran those games.

A career mode entitled “Road to Elite” allows players to take a member of the AEW roster or their own created wrestler through the AEW schedule spanning across four blocks, taking place throughout 2019 and 2020, with each block corresponding to each of the four major AEW pay-per-view events: All Out, Full Gear, Revolution, and Double or Nothing, with three storylines per block, for a total of sixteen storylines.

Each block has four weeks, with the first three weeks taking place in AEW Dynamite and the fourth week being a PPV event. During each week, the chosen wrestler has four turns, simulating the daily life of an AEW wrestler, with an option to take on optional matches taking place in AEW Dark and AEW Rampage, as well as facing off against Kenny Omega (as a partner in 2v2 mini-games) and/or The Young Bucks (Nick and Matt Jackson) in mini-games.

Video packages chronicle the history of AEW, with the story beginning with Double or Nothing in 2019, placing the male player character in the Casino Battle Royale for a spot in the inaugural AEW World Championship match or the female player character in a Fatal-4-Way Match for a spot in the inaugural AEW Women’s World Championship match at All Out. The story changes as a result of matches won or lost, and other player choices. Character upgrades are carried through to the rest of the game, with players encouraged to play through the mode multiple times with different wrestlers.

An in-game shop allows players to use currency earned through completing challenges to unlock creation suite parts (including entrance motions inspired by NJPW and WWE stars), alternative attires, and unlockable wrestlers. Additional minigames and an “Elite” difficulty were originally unlockables in the shop, but these were available to all players. The game features a full creation suite, including wrestlers, entrances, teams, and arenas. Players can change camera angles, use visual effects, and set off pyrotechnics and various special effects during entrances. Fight Forever also features fifteen mini-games in the base game, with four additional mini-games being made available as DLC.