AEW: Fight Forever

When Yukes and Kenny Omega stated they were looking to bring back the glory days of N64 wrestling titles I was on-board. As a fellow student of those times, there’s a clunky charm to AEW: Fight Forever with its meaty feeling moves and arcade-style action. However, those days were far longer ago than I care to think about, and younger players will have gotten used to a more fluid and fully featured sports entertainment game. If you can work around some of the more pressing quirks there’s fun to be had here, but this feels more like a base to build off of for the hopeful sequel down the line.

AEW as a promotion is my favourite. Their talent and presentation are a spectacle, and I was hoping for that same feeling from the AEW: Fight Forever game. I enjoyed it, and I’d recommend it to wrestling fans with a few caveats. It’s not a full game yet, but it’s also not a standard full priced game either, so that’s the fair trade off. It has great bones and there is something enjoyable there, it’s just not fully formed. It needs much more content for its creation suite, and more content overall. If you don’t play online, there just isn’t enough there to stay interested long term. That being said, I’m hopeful for the future of the IP and hope to see more from them. Also, there really was something special about when I saw my create a character join AEW and I got that “Ophelia Payne is All Elite” graphic. That is my favourite memory of AEW: Fight Forever.

AEW: Fight Forever is a sports simulation title that will appease a massive fan base. This excellent wrestling game has a deep career with excellent customisation options. Moreover, it can be enjoyed casually off and online.

AEW Fight Forever is an enjoyable and competent wrestling game that we've been having a good time with so far. The Road to Elite career mode is fun, and the wild match types with their huge varieties of weapons are a blast to play with friends. There are definitely some downsides such as the barebones creation suite along with a general lack of game modes, but if you're an AEW fan or you're simply looking for a decent alternative to WWE 2K23, Fight Forever is well worth adding to your wishlist this summer.

Yuke's comeback to the wrestling genre is a welcomed sight so is AEW: Fight Forever, although it still has many aspects to improve in the future.

AEW: Fight Forever nails the gameplay mechanics, but struggles in several other areas, with a lackluster presentation and gaps in the roster. It doesn't hit the lows some of the recent WWE 2K games, but it also can't match that series' current high.

As a huge fan of the AEW product, it’s hard for me not to be disappointed in Fight Forever. The gameplay on offer here is certainly a solid, if flawed, base to build off for future updates. There just isn’t very much to do at present. The game does succeed in capturing the overall fun-loving spirit of the promotion, and If the developers stick to their plans to add modes, wrestlers, and additional creation suite options (as well as putting time and effort in to squash the clipping and AI issues) they could have something good here in 6-8 months. As it stands now, there is no doubt that Fight Forever is fun to play but if you’re someone who favors the creative side of wrestling gaming or if you intend to spend nearly all your time playing the game on your own, you’re going to run out of things to do pretty quickly. It may be helpful in that case to wait for some future updates before jumping in.

A decent first outing for All Elite Wrestling, but the game lacks the game modes and customization options to really hang with the heavyweights.

Despite its problems, AEW: Fight Forever is a good start for an AEW game. It’s really nice to see WWE finally have some more competition. Let’s hope that the developers can address some of the problems in a future update and add some more content to the game in the months ahead. As it stands, the game is mainly only good for online or couch co-op with a friend. The Road to Elite single player mode is way too short and repetitive to hold up for long. The game has a better feel to it online when compared to a WWE game, so it has it beat on that. If you want a good single player experience however, WWE games far outweigh Fight Forever with content and just overall things to do.

AEW: Fight Forever possesses the foundations for it to be an excellent blast from the past, but fails in building upon them. It’s not a bad game, I just feel as though there are too many areas in which it’s lacking substance and so longevity is an issue.

A midcarder to the WWE 2K23 main event, AEW Fight Forever lays down some solid foundations and is fun to play, but without much depth it falls short.

I have mixed feelings about AEW: Fight Forever. It's really fun to play and it's top-notch arcade wrestling when everything works in the ring, but unfortunately that doesn't always mean it's not pretty devoid of content.