All Elite Wrestling has been been around since 2019 and since then we have seen a total of five different games in relation to the company itself. Between 2021-2024 there has been four mobile games and one game that appeared on home consoles known as AEW: Fight Forever. There were many hardcore pro wrestling fans who had high hopes for AEW: Fight Forever when it was first announced back in 2020. However, AEW: Fight Forever had stalled in development for years before its official release. The constant delay was partially due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 which negatively affected almost everything business related in general. Development footage regarding AEW: Fight Forever started surfacing online back in 2021 and was originally expected to be released in 2022. The release of AEW: Fight Forever was delayed for whatever reason and the game ended up coming out in 2023.

While 2023 was arguably one of the best years that All Elite Wrestling had as a pro wrestling promotion AEW: Fight Forever ended up receiving a underwhelming reception. While AEW: Fight Forever was praised for paying homage to classic pro wrestling games like WWF No Mercy and WWE Smackdown: Here Comes The Pain the gameplay and graphics looked and felt outdated. Also, AEW: Fight Forever felt like it lacked depth due to its lack of offline gameplay content and limited creation suite when it came to developing new characters. The Career Mode in AEW: Fight Forever felt short and uninspired and the Exhibition mode lacked variety in relation to match types. While certain match types like the The Exploding Barbed Wire Death Match and the Casino Battle Royale were fun they start to lose their appeal after a while.

While roster in AEW: Fight Forever was stacked it features certain wrestlers who either left the promotion or was missing from AEW television. It should also be noted that AEW: Fight Forever was going up against WWE 2K23 which also came out in 2023. WWE 2K23 was considered to be one of the strongest entries within its series since 2K19. WWE 2K23 had a higher replay value and more depth because there were seemingly countless offline gameplay options that players could choose from. When AEW: Fight Forever was first announced it came out the same year WWE 2K20 came out. WWE 2K20 was arguably the worst pro wrestling game ever made due to constant glitches, crashes and other gameplay issues. Surpassing, WWE 2K20 in terms of quality was obviously no problem for Yuke’s & THQ Nordic but nobody expected the WWE 2K series to improve the way it did in just a few years. In 2023, more pro wrestling fans preferred WWE 2K23 over AEW: Fight Forever and as a result the company had lost a substantial amount of money within the past few years.

In fact, it was recently reported that AEW: Fight Forever had lost at least $30 million since its release. AEW: Fight Forever is considered to be a commercial failure because it only fell significantly below desired sales expectations. The financial loss that AEW: Fight Forever had suffered since its release makes pro wrestling fans question whether or not there will ever be another AEW console game for PlayStation or Xbox. Its quite possible that AEW will just stick to mobile games in the future. Also, getting a new developer and publisher could help AEW with future help consoles games. During the mid 2000’s Electronic Arts developed games like Def Jam: Vendetta and DJ: Fight for NY which are both considered to be all-time classics. If we ever got a new AEW game licensed by Electronic Arts with modern graphics, arcade-like gameplay, extensive modes and deep storytelling it would make for a worthy alternative to the WWE 2K series. At the moment it does not look like a brand new AEW console will be coming out anytime soon. But it does seem like AEW has been gaining more momentum than usual against WWE. If AEW’s revenue continues to increase and they are able to keep their TV spot in the midst of the Warner Bros-Paramount merger maybe another video game could possibly be on the horizon.