When it comes to the world of wrestling games few have made as many as Yuke’s.
They worked on WWE games yearly from 2000 up until 2018. Before that they were making wrestling games for other federations. Heck even during that they were making wrestling games for other federations.
In recent years WWE games started to dip in quality, there’s no denying that. There’s also no denying that 2K20, the first console release that Yuke’s had no involvement in for years, was… not great.
Now Yuke’s are back and making wrestling games. This time it isn’t for WWE though but their recently formed competitor, All Elite Wrestling.
AEW was founded at the start of last year and has had quite a successful rise up the ranks of wrestling. It has a solid roster of stars, has had some great matches and is making its own mark in the industry.
Competition
Before Yuke’s parted ways with WWE their senior vice president and producer, Hiromi Furuta, said in an interview with VGC the following:
“I think having no competitor isn’t healthy at all. When we had competitors in the wrestling space, we were determined not to lose and that was a great motivator for creating something great.”
“But right now, looking at the market demands, players are expecting something new every time we release a game and we feel like we haven’t achieved what we’ve really wanted to do. For example, in many cases we’re still using old assets and we’re not able to do some things in the way that we want to.”
A lot has changed since that interview took place. One of those things being that Yuke’s have that competition again. With passion and desire on their side, along with a high profile wrestling company, there’s no knowing what they might do.
What to Expect from AEW GameS
The console game from Yuke’s is just a small part of what AEW will be offering game-wise. There will also be two mobile games. AEW Elite General Manager, allows players to book their own shows, similar to the classic GM mode in Smackdown games. There’s also AEW Casino: Double or Nothing which is out this winter. It seems like a mobile casino game that doesn’t seem like anything amazing but it may be fun. Oh there was also a T-shirt announcement. It looks alright.
Kenny Omega wrapped up the announcement video by saying that AEW has recruited the mind behind WWF No Mercy and Virtual Pro Wrestling, Hideyuki Iwashita!
You can watch the full video of the announcement of the AEW games below, including footage of the upcoming game from Yuke’s. In the action, you can see early footage showing Kenny Omega, Chris Jericho and Hikaru Shida.
Featured image credit: AEW