If you like wrestling games, then the name Yuke's will be instantly familiar. This Japanese development team has been involved with some of the best grapplers ever made, including New Japan Pro Wrestling: Toukon Retsuden, WWE SmackDown! vs. Raw and, more recently, the official WWE games up until publisher 2K shifted development to subsidiary Visual Concepts (with alarming results, it should be noted).
Following the termination of its agreement with 2K, Yuke's has been hard at work on a new wrestling IP with a different organisation, which has now been revealed as All Elite Wrestling. Founded in 2019, AEW is something of a rookie on the professional wrestling circuit, but it has already secured legendary talent such as Kenny Omega, Chris Jericho and Cody Rhodes, son of the famous Dusty Rhodes.
At a special event to announce the establishment of AEW's video game division, Omega – Executive Vice President of the wrestling outfit – revealed early footage of the game dressed in a Steve Jobs-style outfit. Omega explains that he wanted to be part of the company's video game division from day one, and that he hopes the forthcoming game will follow in the footsteps of the likes of "fun" titles like NBA Jam, No Mercy and Virtual Pro Wrestling.
The game is coming to "current and next-gen consoles", which means the Switch is in with a shot; the visuals shown certainly look like they could be reproduced quite faithfully on Nintendo's machine, at least.
The last of the mainline WWE games to come to Switch was WWE 2K18, but we've also had the light-hearted WWE 2K Battlegrounds since then.
Comments 48
Sounds promising, loved No Mercy and Yuke's work but the art style is a little weird to me. It's like a realistic version of Dragonball where they are overly pumped up.
@Damo it's Omega not Ortega.
Kenny Omega, not "Ortega".
C'mon now.
@tsdenizen Just caught this and fixed - Kenny Ortega directed High School Musical, so it's safe to say it's NOT the same person, right?
@jump ditto on the art style. I care way more about how it plays than how it looks, but the character models look like cheap rubber pleasure dolls. Could change a lot though, seems to be very early in development.
It's footage from a pre-alpha build, with cinematic camera angles, so I'll wait and see how it will look when it's done. I guess gameplay will be great and that's the most important thing.
If it's fun, I'll buy it... better than what WWE is doing with their games right now.
The art style looks the opposite of a serious wrestling game that I think many people were expecting. Although is a bit ironic that they had to wait to get Yukes as a developer after telling people constantly that they were AKI for ages. Although I did point out at the time that they hadn't made a big budget game in over a decade and people when crazy at me and said I had no idea what I was talking about.
I guess they are trying to give it the chunkiness of the n64 character builds. It reminds me of wwe allstars, which was pretty good but I’m really hoping they capture the no mercy feel. Good luck.
Gosh, that screen-shot is wince inducing! Looks like his chest has been hastily sewn up after an operation or something! Ouch.
Every WWE game Yuke’s worked on for the past 10 years was horrendous. They never once released a game where the online even worked.
Just release No Mercy on the eshop with updated roster and online play, I don't even care if it has N64 graphics in fact that would add to the charm, Wrestling fans would flip their lids.
@MEGAMAN_D N64 games on NSO with online functionality would definitely be a win even if it was just the base game in the case of No Mercy.
Side note: Was the game WWF No Mercy or WWE No Mercy? If the former, that could be an issue...
@VoodooTrumpet that’s because their publisher and WWE worked them to work to the bone, forcing them to do yearly games Madden style. The quality is going to drop when you don’t have time to fix bugs, work on the engine and everything else. It was so bad that Yukes OWNED New Japan Pro Wrestling at one point and didn’t even have time to make games for their actual wrestling company. The horror stories on this relationship are unreal.
With this, they are getting all the time in the world to make the game they want to make. Meanwhile WWE games have gotten solidly worse without them, showing it’s definitely the publisher (currently 2K) and WWE that are really driving the lack of quality in the games. Before that, the series was pretty much the only thing keeping the original THQ afloat for a while.
I’m not worried about the visuals as this was a one minute demo that is pre pre pre Alpha. If given the chance to go back to the TR4 gameplay for the Dreamcast or SvR2006, it will be light years ahead of any wwe game that has come out in the past decade.
Graphics look like an updated No Mercy....count me in if the rest of the games match up. There's a market for these games when they are fun.
I’m a big AEW fan so I’m excited to see the roster, costumes, and venues they use. Hopefully there will be a Jericho Cruise ship level!
Good ol Yukes. 2K should have never let them go.
@NotoriousWhiz it would be an issue releasing an old wrestling game regardless of the name on it. Due to the likeness of many people in the game that no longer work for the company so it order to republish anything like that they would have to come to agreements with the people themselves or those who represent them. It's why most old sports games don't get remastered simple because most of the licenses for things in the game have expired and will probably cost more to include them as they are no longer part of one unified organisation.
@Zenszulu Makes sense. Well there goes my hopes and dreams.
Interesting! This game could be a dark horse. It might even make 2K to step up their own games. I wish Yukes and AEW.
I might actually get this if it play like here comes the pain, or No Mercy. Does anyone remember Def Jam fight for New York? I would love a HD port of that game.
@illmatic20xx : Def Jam was amazing!! I think it was EA that published those games. Gameplay was seamless and some of the hits were brutal. A ridiculous premise with rappers wrestling, but I wouldn't mind going into a street ring with Busta Rhymes just to power bomb Jay Z again.
@illmatic20xx Def Jam Fight for NY was the best fighting game of it's generation! I still play it to this day! The cuspide of AKI's engine. You could do some really crazy stuff in that game, and the story mode was awesome. But its multiplayer mode is LEGENDARY. Wasn't Def Jam supposed to announce something related to the game?
If it has the gameplay of WCW/nWo Revenge, I'm sold!
@tsdenizen My thoughts exactly: that's an image of a blow-up doll. Just pinch a little hole in it and victory is yours.
Maybe there's a light at the end of the tunnel for wrestling fans.
I'd be interested in playing a new Aki style wrestling game, but not one with AEW's horrible roster.
A Switch release isn't guaranteed, though it should be noted that Tony Khan is apparently a big Nintendo fan.
The apparent lack of a PC version is kinda weird.
@NotoriousWhiz @Zenszulu Not only that but you also have some controversial people like Chris Benoit and Jimmy Snuka in the older games as well and that will start arguments if they were to remove them as they most likely will with people who will claim it's not the same.
I hope that taking their time to develop a game works, Yuke’s WWE games were hit or miss with more misses than hits. Personally I haven’t enjoyed a WWE game since the early PS2 days.
Graphics/art direction doesn't really matter if the gameplay is good. Look at WWE 2K20 which has photorealistic graphics but buggy as hell.
I hope this game has a solid legends roster.
@KryptoniteKrunch Well the do have Jake the Snake, Tully Blanchard and Arn Anderson signed among many others who work in back.
Not such thing as a good WWE game...now, if you said a WWF game.
@Edu23XWiiU They teased a new entry on Twitter asking what city would people like to see the next entry, but nothing else.
@Tasuki : The Brainbusters would be a very nice addition. I don't think either Tully or Arn have been in any wrestling game that I recall. A create a wrestler similar to Fire Pro would be a great idea.
I assume Bret Hart would be in the game as the ultimate legend, since he's popped up on AEW a few times, notably to present the world championship belt.
@Tasuki two people in No Mercy that would have to be left out are Chris Benoit and the Fabulous Moolah because of her controversy after she died. You also have people like Chris Jericho, Billy Gunn, Dean Malenko, Matt Hardy, Tazz, Jim Ross and Earl Hebner who are in the game who are all contracted to AEW currently so I can't see both sides coming to an agreement on that. It would be more effort than it is worth to get an old wrestling game remastered for modern systems.
Outlaw Indie Mudshow
@PizzaCat
Twinkle Toes McFingerBang
@illmatic20xx yeah, I read about that too. Too bad, they would sell a lot if they'd make a sequel now
Honestly, I'm hoping this will be a good game, for now, it definitely has my interest. The last WWE game I bought was 2K19, their recent video game releases (WWE 2K20/Battlegrounds), haven't really interested me.
I am kind of excited for the new game. I am not a big fan of Yikes, though. The AKI games are the best.
@Zenszulu You also have Ken Shamrock and D'Lo Brown who are contracted with Impact Wrestling as well.
@Tasuki thanks for that I actually forgot to list them. People do seem to think it would be as easy as simply republishing these old games though. Many don't actually think about who is actually in the games because the rights to their likeness are contractually part of the WWE any longer and only a small percentage of wrestlers in the games will be for something 20 years old now.
@Zenszulu Right people seem to think that the rights stick with the game or something not the person. Heck that was even the case for the GoldenEye remake they made for the Wii years ago. The reason the went with Daniel Craig instead of Brosnan was because they would have had to pay for Pierce's likeness.
Yukes? Pffft. AKI any day of the week. Its a shame they never got the chance to create a sequel to No Mercy.
Kenny "Ortega" has some very weird looking chest muscles in that screenshot.
@Tasuki it's also the reason why so many movie and anything based on a show eventually gets delisted from digital stores as some IPs switch holders unless they get an unlimited usage of it like most of the Lego games do as they never seem to disappear even the oldest ones.
Aww
I was hoping it was going to be AKI given how clued up Kenny et al are with gaming history and culture.
Still optimistic about this one if Yukes aren't just reskinning their old engine for the 428th time.
Can we get Fire Pro on Switch already though. Would be absolutely perfect!
I said "What's up NL?" And they said "Yo, what's up?" And I said "What's up NL?!" And they said "Yo, Jay, what's up?!" "Roll the footage boys.". Lolll the video is just great, the music is so cheesy and emotionally charged, it just doesn't sound right for wrestling.
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