Ex-WWE dev Yuke's returns to wrestling with AEW: Fight Forever in June

eurogamer.net:

Yuke's, the renowned Japanese developer responsible for nearly two decades of popular WWE games, marks its return to the wrestling genre next month, when AEW: Fight Forever launches fo Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and PC on 29th June.

Yuke's has been associated wrestling ever since its inception in 1995, and the studio's long association with WWE began in 2000, with the launch of WWF SmackDown. It continued to work on the WWE licence until 2018's WWE 2K19, when publisher 2K decided to hand the reins exclusively to the US-based Visual Concepts, which had co-developed the series with Yuke's since 2013. Unfortunately, Visual Concepts' solo debut proved so disastrous 2K made the unprecedented move of skipping the long-running series' annual release for two years in a row, only bringing it back in 2022.

So with WWE 2K temporarily out of commision, wrestling fans were quite intrigued when, in 2020, it was announced Yuke's would be returning to the genre with a game for WWE rival AEW, under the watch of publisher THQ Nordic. And we'll finally get a chance to see what the developer's been up when AEW: Fight Forever launches this June.

AEW: Fight Forever is said to take a «retro approach to design including hand-crafted animations and nostalgic arcade feel», and promises a wide variety of match types. There are single matches, tag team, three-ways, four-ways, ladder matches, Casino Battle Royale, Falls Count Anywhere, Exploding Barbed Wire Death Matches, and Unsanctioned Lights-Out, which introduces weapons and blood. There's also a career mode, online multiplayer, plus various customisation options, enabling players to fiddle with wrestler attire and appearance, move sets, entrances, teams, and arenas.

AEW: Fight Forever will be