For arguably the first time since the release of TNA iMPACT! back in 2008, the wrestling game genre has a new big contender in the form of AEW Fight Forever. While smaller games and niche fan favorites like Fire Pro Wrestling have held their own stature in recent years, this AEW Fight Forever review will pinpoint whether it can stand against the biggest and best wrestling games have to offer.
After years of development following the announcement of a console game in 2020, the launch of AEW Fight Forever has laid a foundation for what could become a new era in wrestling gaming. In this AEW Fight Forever review, we’ll break down whether the game is destined for greatness or charting a course for X-Pac heat.
In this review you will learn:
- How the Road to Elite career mode delivers
- Which areas of AEW Fight Forever need improvement
- How graphics and gameplay compare to WWE 2K23
- The Mario Party vibe that minigames bring to the table
- All editions and DLC details for AEW Fight Forever
- Our official AEW Fight Forever rating
AEW Fight Forever Review: Road to Elite is the Main Event
There’s no more appropriate place to begin our AEW Fight Forever review than with Road to Elite, and this career mode is pulling from several classic examples to inspire what turned into a massively fun experience. While the elephant in the room of the WWE 2K series has long embraced a career mode anchored solely on custom created wrestlers, AEW Fight Forever has harkened back to the days of SmackDown: Here Comes the Pain and WWE Day of Reckoning by allowing players to play career mode with members of the core game’s roster.
Of course, that option isn’t exclusive as you can still make a Custom Wrestler in AEW Fight Forever that you then take into battle in Road to Elite. In fact, the balance of using a Custom Wrestler or a member of the AEW roster actually provides two distinctly unique experiences in Road to Elite.
Playing as a Custom Wrestler puts more emphasis on the acquisition of Skill Points for the purpose of boosting your core attributes and unlocking passive or active skills to be used in matches. On the other hand, roster members cannot have their skills or attributes changed at all and this frees players to focus on other aspects of Road to Elite as well as providing more approachable gameplay for newer players.
Especially on higher difficulties, playing as a Custom Wrestler can become a particularly challenging experience as you’ll begin Road to Elite with a bare minimum build and have to power through matches (and hopefully win some) to beef up your character. All the while, the biggest asset of Road to Elite may be its relatively short duration and the replayability of seeking different storylines.
There are four chapters in Road to Elite each consisting of three potential storylines, and which one you get appears to be influenced by a combination of the wrestler you play as, the win-loss record as you work through RTE, and potentially has a good bit of random chance in the mix. The one flaw in this formula is that it can leave you scrambling to figure out how to trigger that one storyline you keep missing, and this has a tendency to make later RTE playthroughs frustrating if the storylines don’t fall as you’re hoping.
The mode also swings and misses with the inclusion of Abadon as both a competitor and as part of one of the RTE storylines as it regularly misgenders the only non-binary wrestler to ever be featured in a major wrestling game, but this is one of many issues that could (and should) be fixed in future updates. Quality of life improvements could also be made such as allowing players to have more than one active save in Road to Elite at a given time, but the foundation that’s been set down by RTE is a delightfully enjoyable career mode that most players will have a blast trying out.
Creation Suite and AEW Fight Forever roster are a good start, but more is needed
With an extended development cycle for this first console release by AEW Games, hopes were high that the Creation Suite for making Custom Wrestlers and Custom Arenas – as well as the AEW Fight Forever roster – would be full of options. Unfortunately, both areas end up feeling like they’re only a fraction of the potential this game could have.
Custom Wrestler creation is decent, but the body size options (particularly for female wrestlers) are disappointingly thin. The same goes for the varieties of gear your wrestler can wear and even the colors you can use for customizable clothing. Rather than a full gradient with adjustability, AEW Fight Forever is locked in with a handful of color swatches that leave things feeling limited with certain clothing items and especially when it comes to hair color. The beard selection for male wrestlers is another area that could use plenty of expansion.
Creating a moveset for your Custom Wrestler can also be a frustrating experience as the massive list of moves isn’t sorted well, so it’ll likely take some time to check out your options and find your favorites. Some of these same issues spread to the Custom Arena creation, but there’s a major boost there thanks to unique and sometimes hilarious prop options for your stage designs. Custom Arena could use more, but it feels more fleshed out than a good chunk of the clothing options in Custom Wrestler.
Finally there’s the AEW Fight Forever roster ringing in with about fifty wrestlers in total, depending on whether you’ve unlocked the hidden characters or snagged the pre-order bonuses. The good news is that the existing roster is all fun to play and full of some great options, but key stars both new to AEW and several that have been with the company since day one (like Sonny Kiss) are nowhere to be found.
The good news on all of these fronts is that AEW Fight Forever does not in any way appear to be a title that THQ Nordic and AEW Games are going to stop improving. The first update incorporating fixes on all platforms has already dropped with more expected down the line, and free DLC has already been announced with the Stadium Stampede “Battle Royale” mode set to hit the game at some point.
While THQ Nordic and AEW Games have not confirmed one way or the other, there have been rumors for months that AEW Fight Forever may end up becoming a foundational title that will see major updates and roster additions over a lengthy period of time rather than becoming an annual release ala the WWE 2K series. AEW Fight Forever left us wanting more in several areas, but that’s something they might actually deliver on down the line.
Minigames and Multiplayer bring a chaotic Mario Party vibe to wrestling gaming
One of the surprising reveals in the lead-up to AEW Fight Forever being released was that the game was set to include a series of minigames. Now that the title is finally here, there are even more than expected with 15 different minigames able to be unlocked in AEW Fight Forever.
You’ll begin with a select few, but completing Road to Elite helps unlock new minigames until players can complete the full set. The styles vary with a trivia based game, a rhythm game, and several fun platformer style challenges. While the controls of some of them can get a bit frustrating, they’re definitely minigames that get more fun when playing with friends than when playing against the computer.
Multiplayer, particularly in multi-person matches, offers a similar experience with the chaos being part of the experience if you’re just diving in with your buddies. Unfortunately, that chaos gets more frustrating when you’re playing by yourself and up against the often seemingly unbeatable computer. Even on lower difficulties, matches with more than two competitors can become a grind with even a relatively successful match seeing a pin stolen by another competitor because of a poorly timed animation.
To some extent, that’s likely just going to remain the nature of these matches and it’s something that rings true similarly in other major wrestling titles. However, refinement of small gameplay aspects and of the AI on different difficulties could help balance this out in future updates. As it stands, the chaos of AEW Fight Forever is going to be more fun if you’re taking it less seriously, but there is plenty of risk of frustration at the moment.
How do the AEW Fight Forever gameplay and graphics compare to WWE 2K23?
Something that may be the elephant in the room for longtime wrestling game fans is how AEW Fight Forever directly compares to the biggest competitor in the market, WWE 2K23. However, that’s a question that’s in dire need of context that the rapid growth of All Elite Wrestling makes a bit too easy to overlook.
For core graphics, AEW Fight Forever doesn’t bring the same realism or complex lighting work that models or environments in WWE 2K23 or even WWE 2K22 brought to the table. That’s not necessarily a bad thing though, as the stylized nature of AEW Fight Forever aids the look of the game at every turn and leaves the graphical difference feeling like an afterthought in short order.
On top of that, players need to remember how different these two games are when it comes to sheer gaming industry scale. While some of the same developers that have worked on the WWE 2K series in the past contributed to the creation of AEW Fight Forever, THQ Nordic as a studio is a fraction of the size of Visual Concepts and doesn’t have the same resources, technology, or sheer workforce size that 2K brings to their own series.
From the very beginning, AEW Games made it clear that AEW Fight Forever wasn’t intending to be just another WWE 2K game with an AEW roster. They wanted to harken back to the era of WWF No Mercy, SmackDown: Here Comes the Pain, and Day of Reckoning and keep the focus on the gameplay and fun of the experience rather than frantically trying to push the hardware until the game breaks.
After hours and hours of gameplay across several days to prepare for this AEW Fight Forever review, there was only one chaotic glitch in a match. The few crash issues and bugs that players have been running into are already being remedied. This game may want to expand features down the line, but it’s cleaner and runs smoother than a WWE 2K game has at launch in years. Even WWE 2K23, a far cry from the debacle of WWE 2K20, had its issues around launch thanks to rushed development cycles and overworked developers.
As for the core gameplay itself, the biggest knock on AEW Fight Forever is the lack of prompts in the reversal system. Executing moves is intuitive enough and the style is similar enough to the WWE 2K games that players of those won’t take that long to adjust to the AEW Fight Forever control scheme, but nailing the timing of the reversal system is a much bigger struggle in this title.
On-screen prompts are an option, but they only appear after you’ve successfully nailed a reversal rather than telling you when to actually press the reversal button. Despite this flaw which could be remedied with prompts being added in a future update, the gameplay itself remains fun and feels properly varied when you try out different wrestlers. AEW Fight Forever is definitely not WWE 2K23, but fans shouldn’t have expected that, and it delivers in areas like career mode and minigames that the WWE 2K series just doesn’t.
AEW Fight Forever release date, platforms, editions, price, DLC, and microtransactions
For those still on the fence who need the logistical details, our AEW Fight Forever review will take a slight detour to outline exactly when the title arrived and what options potential buyers need to keep in mind. After months of speculation, the AEW Fight Forever release date ended up being June 29, 2023.
AEW Fight Forever is available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Nintendo Switch. There are no features gated to next-gen versions of the game, and the more stylized graphics allow it to look and play about the same on systems with less powerful hardware.
The AEW Fight Forever Standard Edition is available on all platforms for $59.99, but players can snag the AEW: Fight Forever Elite Edition for $79.99 to get the Season Pass for access to at least three different DLC packs and potentially more in the future.
Here are the details on each paid DLC and how much you can get them for separately:
- Matt Hardy DLC Pack – $4.99 (adds Matt Hardy and Broken Matt Hardy to roster)
- FTR: Revival Pack – $11.99 (adds Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler to roster, adds JoinUs and Deth Race-X minigames)
- Limitless Bunny Bundle – Price TBA, Release Date July 25 (adds The Bunny and Keith Lee to roster, adds MJF Car Thrash and Sloth Sling minigames)
- Hookhausen Very Handsome, Very Evil Pack – Price TBA, Release Date August 22 (adds Hook and Danhausen to the roster)
- AEW Fight Forever Season Pass – $29.99 (includes FTR: Revival Pack, Limitless Bunny Bundle, and Hookhausen Very Handsome, Very Evil Pack)
While prices are not yet confirmed for the two upcoming DLC packs, the combo of two wrestlers and two minigames will likely make the Limitless Bunny Bundle the same price as the FTR: Revival Pack with the Hookhausen Pack potentially being just a bit cheaper. However, the combined price of all three will likely end up being higher than the cost of just getting the AEW Fight Forever Season Pass by itself.
There are no other editions planned and no microtransactions in AEW Fight Forever, and as of now there’s no word on them being added for any reason in the future.
AEW Fight Forever Review and Rating: Is it worth it?
Now that the dust has settled on our AEW Fight Forever review, the only questions remaining are how the rating looks and whether this game is worth it for fans. There are undoubtedly going to be some fans hesitant over the sheer graphics comparison or the uncertainty of a new gaming franchise, but AEW Fight Forever is undeniably a great game that’ll bring lots of fun for players.
It’s also a game that needs more, from the creation suite to the roster and some general refinement, but there is plenty of room for improvement with future updates and DLC already on the horizon. This isn’t a perfect game, but it has the potential to become one in the coming months by continuing to grow and remedy some of the issues we’ve outlined in this AEW Fight Forever review.
AEW Fight Forever had massive shoes to fill as it dove into a genre long dominated by only one real option, but wrestling fans finally have something else from a major company to turn their attention towards. If you want to enjoy wrestling games again, AEW Fight Forever deserves a chance to fill that void for players.
Official AEW Fight Forever Rating: 8 out of 10
This AEW Fight Forever review was based on gameplay from the Standard Edition on Xbox Series X|S