Kenny Omega Gives Reason for AEW Fight Forever Game Delay, Provides Updates on the Game, More

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PWMania.com Staff
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AEW Executive Vice President & World Trios Champion Kenny Omega recently appeared on the Swerve City Podcast to discuss the AEW Fight Forever video game.

Fight Forever recently received a “Teen” rating from the ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board). Although there were rumors of a “Mature” rating, the “Teen” rating has since been confirmed.

According to the ESRB website, “This is a wrestling game in which players compete in matches with wrestlers from the AEW roster. Players use punches, kicks, and grappling maneuvers to drain their opponents’ health. In some match types (e.g., Barbed Wire, Stadium Stampede, Unsanctioned) players can use barbed wired, baseball bats, metal chairs, and Molotov cocktails against opponents, eventually resulting in submission and/or knock outs. Blood-splatter effects can occur during matches, staining the mats; video footage of real matches also depicts blood on wrestlers’ faces and bodies. The game contains some mildly suggestive material: female wrestlers in revealing outfits (e.g., deep cleavage, bunny outfits, partially exposed buttocks); wrestlers performing taunting gestures (e.g., crotch chop, slapping buttocks). Real footage sometimes depicts wrestlers drinking alcohol and smoking. The word “sh*t” is heard in the game.”

Omega mentioned that one of the issues preventing the game from being released was the need to scale down the content in order to secure the “Teen” rating. He stated:

“It’s totally coming out [laughs]. I’m not sure how much we had to scale it back, but man, I loved it. You could make the ring look like a murder scene if you wanted to. I just hope there is still some way to get a semblance of that. I hope we don’t dumb it down too much. It was fun. It’s what we get every week on TV anyway. It could gory, but no one is getting dismembered, no one is dying. Maybe it could look that way if you beat someone up that bad. There are a lot of things we haven’t shown in the game yet. What I will say is, the game is not a wrestling simulator. I looked at other wrestling simulator games, and I know people love them, and there is absolutely a place for them, but I feel if we go the simulation route, no one is ever going to do it better than Fire Pro because they’ve had decades of practice doing that and they have a system all implemented. What Yuke’s does best is the arcade style of wrestling. What our guys do best is the animator, the guys from AKI. Having those guys cook up animations to correct old animations (from WWF No Mercy) and kind of seminar the Yuke’s people into how they go about doing their stuff rather than MoCap but taking the point of articulation to show the generation of movement or philosophy or force. It’s kind of an ongoing process.”

“It does suck that the rating has held us back a little bit because we really wanted to get it out. The longer the time goes by, this finished product that we have of a game is just going to be a little dated. A lot of the same people are going to be there and are there, but some aren’t, and you’re going to wonder why I’ve seen this guy on TV for weeks, why isn’t he in the game? It’s because the game has been done, but we’ve had to try to get our game in a position to be rated so that we can sell it. Now, I can positively say that we’re headed back into a right direction. The fun and zany stuff that I was able to implement, I hope people have fun with it. I think the game really shines when you can do the crazy stuff, but if you want to have serious bare-bones wrestling match, you can definitely wrestle the way you want to and it will look that way, but if you want to do crazy stuff and want to ride around on a skateboard and do a dropkick, you can do it. There is fun stuff like that implemented.”

Omega also discussed some of the in-game features, as well as the challenges of implementing the various weapons and how they interact with one another. He stated:

“Every kind of unique weapon has to have its own unique set of physics, and that’s a challenge. If you have a chair, great, but that doesn’t mean the chair reacts the same way a ladder does. You have to go back to the drawing board to program how it is that you interact with a ladder, how you can interact with a table. Things are on fire, maybe. Wet floor sign or garbage can, there are different things you can do with all those items. Getting those all glitch free, or as glitch free as possible. I know fans are going to have a heyday trying to find the funny stuff that they can, and I know they’re going to find it, everyone finds glitches in everything. It’ll be whatever, I’ll laugh. I would expect to, very soon, start to see some new information and video.”

There is no word on when AEW Fight Forever will be released, but it is expected to be sometime this year. The game will be available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and Microsoft Windows. A recent update on the game’s format can be found here. Here’s a recent trailer:

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