So, both CP and Jordan went into the recent release of Nightmare Fuel Simulator 2019—or WWE 2K20. It was a glitchy mess that I, fortunately, did not pick up. That being said, wrestling games and sports games, in general, should have some time between releases and I’m not talking a year.
A “Freeing Experience”
When your biggest selling point is the updated roster—which could honestly be done via downloadable rosters and DLC of people who should be in the game—and a hit or miss story mode, two years between games doesn’t sound unreasonable.
Former developer Yuke’s even said they felt that they weren’t putting up their best work and that WWE was pushing them to release games annually. Visual Concepts noted that working without Yuke’s was a freeing experience but no one asked the studio to go full Scooby and Shaggy and release the thirteen ghosts onto the world, here.
Some of that stuff was frightening and most of it was just weird.
A Yuke’s and AEW Team Up
With the former New Japan Pro-Wrestling co-owner no longer working with WWE on games, many have called for Yuke’s and AEW to do a game together. Mind you, most of this comes following Kenny Omega saying that he’s working on something to get AEW its own game, disappointment in WWE 2K20, and people being hype about AEW.
That said, I’m mixed on the idea of the two teaming up. I mean, if the mechanics are more like old school Yuke’s where things just worked and there wasn’t a ton to learn for the player or to mess up for the developer, I’m 100-percent on board.
My thing is when will it be announced? If a partnership is announced next month, then that gives All Elite Wrestling a lot of time to have enough of a season for Yuke’s to work with.
I will say that if Yuke’s is at the top of the list to work with, AEW picked well. Another good pick would’ve been syn Sophia, the former AKI Corporation. That said, All Elite Wrestling worked very fast to score a national television deal, so it isn’t unrealistic to be working with Yuke’s at all.
As far as the pairing being a good idea, I’ll say it isn’t a bad one. Far from the worst idea and I’ve seen Acclaim pre-Legend of Wrestling, EA doing WCW games (I even got Backstage Assault for Christmas one year), and the TNA Impact game.
My Initial Prediction for Yuke’s
When the company said it would be working on an alternative to the WWE 2K series, I figured it would bring back Power Move Pro Wrestling. That title debuted on the original PlayStation in 1995 with a New Japan license and hit the states the following year.
I can see them using the name as a means to get back to their roots as far as careful pacing to working on games. That is unless the company has a good relationship with New Japan. Actually, the game could be Power Move Pro Wrestling in the east and have an AEW license in the west.
Starting with WWF SmackDown, Yuke’s was developing wrestling games for the company annually while also doing other titles—including non-WWE wrestling games, so it will be interesting to see what they come up with and how a possible working relationship with AEW will pan out.
