He is really not, a fan of games sure, but he showed with the cm punk comment he does not know what he is talking about. You don’t fire someone and then reward them with a paycheck for life….. that’s insane carny shit.he constantly talk about his opinion of wrestling like he is the booker,yet never ran a wrestling company, he was talent only… good talent,deserved more from the business. But come on, every podcast if you listen he is bitter as hell,a good guy no doubt, but so bitter. Constantly trashed aew over copyright claims, yet for all he trashes them… seems to not have a clue about what happened on their last show,calls wrestlers by there wwe name when they went by a different name for all of there career and were in wwe for a cup of coffee over a 20 year career while I respect him as a person and for the years he was a wrestler, I’m done with his show, it’s tone deft and bullshit most of the time, don’t talk about wresting companies you don’t even keep up on or even watch, it makes him look stupid, and he clearly is a very smart person
I don't want wrestler dlc, would it be nice to have, yes but give more than 3 or so wrestlers for $10. What I truly would like and honestly had hoped would be in the game is an actual career mode similar to what we had in SVR, SVR 2006 and SVR 2007 where there were three storylines available either as champion, #1 contender or as neither. That would in my opinion make the game much better.
@@bipolarminddroppings There's like 4 or 5 DLC packs, mostly containing wrestlers that should have been in the base game. It would be an ok game if it weren't completely anemic.
AEW FF feels like someone remaking the N64 AKI games based on the memory of playing it for one weekend back in 2001. I wonder if the developer even played those games at all. FF doesn't even have basic features that No Mercy, WM2000, or VPW2 had. Those games had a better CAW mode. Like holy fuck what a disaster.
Tony Khan needs to play the game, so he can see how bad it is. I have Wrestling Empire on Switch. Made by one guy. 60 ppl in the ring at once. It's not the best game, but impressive for one person to create.
Stevie brought up NFL 2k vs Madden. It's a fascinating story in how the big company can body out competitors. Madden had gotten stale, not fixed issues, lacked some game modes. NFL 2k comes out, it's a great game, you have the ESPN branding and wrapping to make it feel "realer", and as mentioned they dropped it for $20 to steal market share. EA's immediate response wasn't to make a better game. Instead it was to pay the NFL a fortune for an exclusive license thereby freezing out any other competitors. It started the era of inflated licensing fees and exclusivity.
WWE 2K is Madden for wrestling gamers. No Mercy is NFL 2K5. 2K released some good games after but they didn't have the NFL license so they were panned, a lot like AEW Fight Forever.
IMO that was a D__K move EA Sports did. To this day, Madden hasn't improved on none of the features & they wanted to get the NBA license but 2K sewed that up. Can you imagine the WWE games under EA Sports?
Yukes was responsible for developing an engine for AEW. However, the ownership of the engine resides with AEW, granting them the freedom to transition it to a different developer in the event they decide to discontinue their partnership with Yukes.
@@derpderpin1568 Further to your point, I believe the new developer would need to pull the engine apart to try and figure out how it all works so they'd spend maybe as much time as starting from scratch
I'd move on. The game was trash. I had an N64 day 1 and bought every wrestling game. Times moved on. The fact the CAW was better on N64 games than AEWs is still mind-blowing to me.
I absolutely love that Stevie uses the Retromania Wrestling caricature of himself in the intro. Oh, and AEW: Fight for relevancy was made using the old, 2000, AKI engine from No Mercy.
The weird part is that last year's WWE game was also a PlayStation Plus free title this year. AEW couldn't even avoid comparisons when the game was free!
I can’t believe it was a year ago. It feels like it was five years ago. Great games never get old and bad games never felt new. Edit; and where’s the credit for Wrestling Empire? Where, Stevie?!
In 2013 I re-skinned Wrestling Empire for the indy promotion I worked for and released "Culture Shock Wrestling vs. The World" on PC. Two years later, I updated it and released "Culture Shock Wrestling: Battle-Lines 2015."
I bought the game on a sale last month, its kinda fun for me, but needed more wrestlers and an update in the current roster, more match types and a new creation mode (even no mercy had more things on creation mode than aew)
Aubrey Edwards worked in video games in some capacity or another. What does it say about the personnel process that she doesn't seem to have been involved at all
Aubrey worked in video game development before getting into the wrestling industry. That said, imagine some outsider fanboy trying to tell the dev team who made Here Comes The Pain and the SVR series how to make a good wrestling video game because HE knows better than they do. It's no wonder the reports of the dev team despising Kenny from jump.
The mechanics are there. You can feel The Def Jam Fight for New York, No Mercy, HCTP spirit in there just there's NOTHING TO DO! No reason as well for it to look like a PS2 game but damn it's so bare bones its insulting.
I agree and devs from all those projects and more like SVR 11, Day of Reckoning and Wrestle Kingdom worked on Fight Forever. They really dropped the ball on features and match types and so far are still behind the 8 ball.
The game isn't bad but it needs a ton of creation parts, match types and an overhauled career mode. It's so barebones. Instead they made a battle royal mode nobody plays, minigames that nobody plays and charges $$$ for two wrestlers and an arena. If they really don't wanna give up on the game, they need to put the budget towards a sequel into trying to salvage what they have. The gameplay also needs to be adjusted to allow longer matches. Currently every match is 5 minutes or under.
i play a lot of fire pro and on my wish list for the last several games in that series is a pre match option to tweak stats up and down for longer or shorter matches. A good wrestling game should be able to do a 5 minute squash, an 8-10 minute tv, and longer ppv matches. Of course there have to be good enough guts in the gameplay to make those matches fun.
Thats why World Tour/VPW64 and Revenge are great since you can adjust the player stats before each match in the form of the coloured bars (I believe it changes damage given and taken). It also has a quick match option that makes submissions (and possibly pins) much easier to achieve.
The more I learn about Stevie Richards and his mind for the business in so many damn different ways the more I’m shocked and impressed, I tune in to a new episode old or new about near daily now.
Unreal Engine 5 was released a couple of years after Fight Forever was announced. Switching engines mid-development is not a decision to make lightly. Fight Forever would also have been developed under the earliest versions of UE5, which is another decision to not take lightly. (The most recent version of UE5 is 5.5.1. Epic will continue releasing new versions with additional fixes and newer features, until they move to UE6.) And if you don't really benefit from the new features of UE5, then you might actually be better served by UE4; UE5 projects can potentially have higher system requirements because of stuff like support for all those new features you didn't need.
AEW should’ve made a game that was like a No Mercy N64 mod with enhanced graphics. Same retro AKI gameplay with more match features. It would’ve been a nod to the past, cheap for them to produce, and addicting to play.
Problem is you can't replicate No Mercy because it's beyond gameplay. That era was a vibe, you can't just "make No Mercy but for the modern era!" You never had wrestling games outside the arcade that let you play more than 2 people at a time. We were gathering all walks of life to bang out some No Mercy, Golden Eye, South Park, now you can just hop online and play with 90 people from Europe like nothing.
@@chrisarctor True. But if you think about it, beat-em-ups were an era too and they still sell for the audience that will always love them. AEW seems like its target audience are the older ones already playing/watching these modded throwback wrestling games. I’m wondering if they could’ve found a better way to capitalize on that.
I think you answered your question about why this game was bad when you mentioned Kenny Omega spearheaded it. Kenny Omega is a huge gamer and a big fan of video games. That does not translate over to him being able to MAKE a successful game. There is so much more that goes into game development. You see this in other areas of life as well, like when a billionaire fan purchases a stake in a professional sports team, but then the team struggles and gets run into the ground.
There was a statement from one of the Yukes employees saying how Kenny was inserting himself into stuff he didnt understand and making crazy demands of how things should be.
Hey Stevie, we had some reports along the way. It was way, way over budget and it caused some delays. Then they hit budget issues and it couldn't be delayed any more. People there said they wished they would have waited to announce it, because people started asking where the game was right after they revealed they were making one, which obviously isn't realistic. I'm shocked they haven't done a licensing thing with Fire Pro. I know AJ Styles actually tried to get TNA to do that years ago, and TNA wouldn't
It’s not the worst game ever and even plays better than some of the 2K games from over the past 10-12 years. What I think it was is the poor customization, lack of stipulations and that career mode was awful. Had they’ve done a custom campaign people would have more of a reason to stick with it. And every time when I think I couldn’t like Stevie anymore, I only is a Star Trek fan, but he had a Sega Saturn with fire pro wrestling I’ll be damned😂
Fight Forever was great for a couple hours, especially when they started the stadium stampede. Everyone was on it for a couple months. The game is good, but wwe2k series already had most the options, PLUS you can make wrestlers from any promotion, stages, what have you. They Have to come up with sumthin different, way different. Good luck aew, make a free marvel rivals type online with the same engine? I dunno
What’s so frustrating about AEW: Fight Forever…is that, at heart, it can be a really fun game. The gameplay mechanics hearken back to what made WCW/NWO Revenge and WWF No Mercy so legendary. The game has a very good roster, but the lack of variety, the limited create-a-wrestler mode, no Cage/Iron Man/Dog Collar bouts…it makes Fight Forever such a missed opportunity.
The engine itself is good. It's a good starting point. Just felt barebones. Maybe fine tuned the match length because matches ended too quick. I remember having longer matches back in the 64 days. Bigger roster.. more creation stuff.. more match types.. a career that doesnr feel like a low budget visual novel.. allow us to alter the timer for the explosive match.. If they ironed out those problems, a Fight Forever 2 coild be a good alternative to the WWE 2K games, for those who prefer a more arcade approach. Take a page from the AKI days and have the next entry be called AEW Forbidden Door. Have people from New Japan and other friendly promotions. Then release further DLC focused on those promotions. Like a modern day WCW Vs. NWO World Tour kind of thing.
That was the idea, according to an interview with Nik Sonic, if the game sold well enough. It's a shame because the last, like, three New Japan games have been mobile card games and Yuke's hasn't made a Wrestle Kingdom since around 2006 when WWE forced them to exclusively work on WWE games. That's why we haven't seen a Rumble Roses in so long, either.
Love the fact that Stevie is a fellow Fire Pro fan. If I was AEW, I'd stay out of the video game industry for awhile. If they make a 2D game like Fire Pro, they'll just look second rate and it's not worth building something new. It might be worth reskinning something out of Japan (which is what the original WCW vs the World game did with Virtual Pro Wrestling), but I don't know if anything is out there right now.
AEW doesn't have the option to reskin like the original THQ did under producer Sanders Keel. The AKI we used to know now goes under syn Sophia and last released Fashion Dreamer on the Switch. The engine and most of their employees from their wrestling days are gone. AEW has to build from scratch and there were more AKI devs on Fight Forever than Fashion Dreamer and any wrestling game since 2006 before AKI/syn Sophia shifted to Style Savvy fashion and rhythm games.
@@EliteEasyE I understand, but I don't believe any other company paid to make their own game before. It was more like someone created a game and they needed a brand. I remember hearing that Kenny Omega was a problem for THQ when working on this game. Supposedly his lack of developer knowledge role in the process caused a lot of headaches for the developer (asking for features that would cause a lot of problems well into development.) I also believe this game introduced mini-games (which seem like a silly idea for a first generation game). I bought the game but haven't played it since day 1. I never hated it, but it just didn't draw me in and didn't have much replay value. Some choices in the game seemed very odd though. I believe the storyline didn't even have voice overs.
The issue was the lack of shareable created characters. Games like Fire Pro live and die off the backs of effort by a handful of dedicated hobbyists making custom characters of every other company's wrestlers. Launching without it was so short sighted.
@@devilselbow $20 is more than the cost of the games. God I hate people who are not mathematicians like I am. I have my doctorate and am highly educated and high IQ. The state of the world when someone thinks a video game would cost negative money is beyond me, you need to go back to school..... start with grade 2, son.
I don't mean this as a slight at all but I wasn't aware Stevie was this fucking smart! I thought he was awesome when I watched wrestling back in the day but I just caught his channel recently and have been amazed at his range and knowledge on a vriety of subjects. Bro, you got me hooked on this channel now.
I platinum'ed this game on PlayStation. It was a real slog. The gameplay itself isn't the main problem (yes it needs work). The main problem is lack of content in game modes, there's just not much to do. The platinum requires a LOT of repetitive work. Road to Elite is tedious and limited. They need to move on from it.
It's the same thing I've been saying for years. They're spending SO much time on 60fps { due to reviewer pressure } and making things look pretty graphically, that the gameplay and experience both suffer. This isn't just wrestling games. This is EVERY triple-A title nowadays. So commonly that for something to actually be impressive is a rarely-found gem. Edit: I'm not even going to approach the topic of micro-transactions and cash-grab experiences. I just showered, and I don't want that stink on me. Happy New Year, Stevie & Crew 🧡
Again, thank you for asking! There are a few dedicated fans who have been waiting for a No Mercy sequel or a game comparable for 20+ years and rarely does anyone ask TK about the game. All hope was lost in the community until now.
I’m a game dev. It used Unreal 4 which for the time was perfectly fine, 5 would get you better lighting but wouldn’t change the hands on controller moving player around gameplay. But if the game a buggy mess with poor gameplay, that’s on the developer and/or publisher. Gameplay systems and content like animation are all based on direction from game publisher/director to the developer. Also knowing wrestling and money isn’t enough, you need experienced game directorship, designers and programmers who know how to make all the separate systems fit together properly. Or you get a multimillion mess.
Great comment. I hope they make another game bc the gameplay was actually solid & everything else sucked. There's something to build upon with the core gameplay. Trying to fix the current version is hopeless
Would unreal 5 be able to run on the switch, PS4 and Xbox 1? You can’t make a brand new franchise that needs people to buy it to be successful very limited
Fight Forever isn't a buggy mess. They cleaned up their issues in the first couple of patches and it stayed fixed. No Hulk Hogan mustache flip flopping like 2K. Richards and the co-host haven't played the damn game and are spreading misinformation based on here say.
Following the day of reckoning 2 model would have been more of a success. That game still holds up today graphically. I play it every once in a while still.
There were devs from Day of Reckoning on the project and it feels and looks as such. I wish Yuke's would have built Legends of Wrestlemania on that engine. They were cooking with Wrestle Kingdom games on that engine until WWE made them stop. AEW Fight Forever has Wrestle Kingdom influence as well down to the chain wrestling.
@@AztecUnshaven lol still delusional as ever I see. Remember you were promising a season 5 and cage match. Well where’s it at buddy ? You really compared this broken beta to all time great wrestling games. This trash belongs with the backstage assaults, mayhems, atttiudes, anarchy rulez, 2k20s of the world
I hope Fight Forever never dies. I remember the original idea was to release a base-game, and instead of releasing annual games (a la WWE's 2K series), annual updates would be released to the base-game. Almost like an MMO with annual expansions.
I want to add that Yukes aren't the developer they used to be as when they left after WWE 2K19 (which only new addition was a new cage match variation) they took the engine with them forcing visual concepts to rebuild the engine quickly giving us 2K20. They're was big problems between AEW and Yukes during development and Hideyuki "Geta" Iwashita who was brought in as director hadn't made a video game since 2008. EDIT: I was wrong about Yukes taking the engine but Visual Concepts were still forced to slap the game together in 2-3 months before release due to Yukes leaving.
That's incorrect. 2K is still making games on that exact same engine. Yuke's built the AEW Fight Forever engine in Unreal Engine from scratch. Whatever issues they had were early in the project. Geta, Yuke's and THQ Nordic reps were doing interviews side by side by the time they won Best Sports Game at Tokyo Gamescon.
Just grabbed 2K5 out of storage just 2 days ago and I agree, better than any Madden Game made in the last 15-20 years. Side note: Same thing for Tony Hawk 2. My freaking GOD what an addicting game.
To add a little bit as a game developer who picked up the game, the things I noted extend beyond the meat and guts of the game itself (which, ultimately, is fine and a foundation that could be built upon). First, as a fighting game or multiplayer game, you need to hit a critical mass of players to sustain - that's hard to do and harder to do with a new IP. Second, as a genre, fighting games are already a niche genre - either you cater to that audience or you try to make things for the non-core audience to get people to jump in. The game didn't really do that. Third extends from the second - fighting games are a niche genre. Wrestling games even more so. I suspect TK thought that the AEW brand would carry it further than it did, and while it might have, brands ultimately don't break through the kinds of high barrier around fighting games and wrestling as well as the barriers around the previous points. Spending prestige AAA money on fighting games is a fool's errand. It's not going to make back that kind of money; you're not going to sell 16m copies. Of the best selling fighting games of all time, it takes until number 25 to find a title that isn't a well established fighting game brand. And #25 sold 5m. Below that, it quickly drops off. Fourth compounds the third. I enjoyed the game... but I don't know who the game was suppose to be for. It wasn't inviting enough as a casual to want to engage a lot nor does it hight some of the 'meme' or spectacle fodder that might have gotten people's eyeballs on it. And yet also wasn't deep enough for core players to dig in and convert into advocates of the game. For wrestling fans, there wasn't a ton of content that made people care; for fighting game fans, well... see above. It kind of felt like it was more a vehicle for fun cameos from wrestlers you're suppose to care about. Fifth... I dunno how it's suppose to tie into AEW. Like there was nothing in it that made me want to go watch AEW. And this is important because converting those eyeballs into viewers of AEW encourages and reinforces the personal investment in both halfs. I could go further into the design and game issues, but I'm not working for them :P Ultimately, the game should have been smaller and more refined in scope. It should have funneled and encouraged people to turn their interest in the game into becoming fans of the TV shows; and for existing fans, it should have encouraged and reinforced that fandom.
WRONG EA PAID a Record Amount To Lock Down Exclusivity. NBA2k5 was ALSO $20 & they STILL have The License because Take Two PAID to Lock Down NBA Exclusivity in Response.
Many of the criticisms on AEW Fight Forever are well deserved. There are a few gameplay bugs, the creation suite has a serious lack of depth, and the season mode was awful. I hated even having the mini games because they didn't add anything to the game from a wrestling standpoint. The gameplay engine itself succeeded in being a spiritual successor to WWF No Mercy with a very AKI engine-like feel. But, there needed to be the structure of those old N64 AKI games in AEW FF. Light/heavy grapples in those old games were better in relation to how they looked and how many moves you could do. AEW FF seemed like that engine but with less polish. AEW and Yukes didn't truly continue to update the game as they promised which is the biggest issue because they focused more on DLC packs. They should've continued to refine the gameplay with fixing bugs and then expanded the creation suite modes. They also should've updated the season mode to remove some of the repetitive choices to include more options. They should've included a community creations update once they updated and expanded creation suite. It also would have helped to include a universe mode of their own for replayability. You also should be able to edit in game characters to update their gimmick and appearance changes just like older games allowed. All of that said, I believe if AEW did the above listed changes then FF could still be saved. At this point, that's not likely and AEW might be better suited to use another developer with that same engine. Only take their time with it to make sure what happened with the base game doesn't happen again. At this point, the actual AEW product is so unwatchable that they might not be in business long enough to make a sequel to FF.
Yeah, the game was pitched as a return to AKI style wrestling game, I think at first they were even trying to get AKI (now called syn Sophia) to make it but ended up going with Smackdown developer Yuke's and a few people that worked on some of those AKI games. Although Wikipedia list Hideyuki Iwashita (he was the director on WCW/NWO Revenge, WWF Wrestlemania 2000, WWF No Mercy, and Def Jam: Vendetta) as the director of Fight Forever, while MobyGame list him as Gameplay Advisor. I think most of those old AKI wrestling guys may have left syn Sophia by this point, people just waited too long to go back to them, ‘cause they were still doing stuff in their wrestling engine as late as 2012...they made a couple PSP Yakuza spin-off games for Sega. It’s too bad Kudo Tsunoda took over the Def Jam games, immediately let go of AKI because he didn’t think wrestling and hip hop went together, (despite Def Jam: Fight for NY being a success and not really being a full on wrestling game anymore) and then drive that franchise into the ground with Def Jam Icons. AKI might still being doing what they did if they had a big series like that to work on. Also weird EA never brought them back after Icons flopped. I did find the story mode they tried doing in Fight Forever to be kind of weird. Honestly, I’d just rather have something like what Wrestlemania 2000 did with Road to Wrestlemania. Like I wasn’t crazy about how No Mercy changed things up from a regular season mode like you’d get in sports games at that time that 2000 had to this little story mode that had a few branching paths but was also just the same thing every time. I played Road to Wrestlemania endlessly like I played the season modes in Sega 2K sports games endless, the No Mercy one you just kind of play a few times before going back to get regular modes.
The story mode was a combination of Road to Wrestlemania (same writer for SVR 09,10,11) and No Mercy with the humor and vibe of a Yakuza game. They only had a short time to make it so they centered it around 4 blocks which related to four PPVs a year AEW had in the early years. The mode also showcases and pays tribute to major events in those first years. It was finished about a year before the game came out.
If you pay attention he was saying the game is dated but way more playable than modern games, graphic and roaster wise the game is dated, but gameplay wise it’s still one of the best.
In my humble opinion as somebody who has no lifed tons of wrestling games, I think wrestling games in general but specifically AEWFF are sorely missing the ability to actually play with your friends and have fun and laugh. Whether it’s on one tv or online these games were at their best when you can play with your friends for hours. 2K online hasn’t worked since before 2019. AEW online was awful and barebones and their peak was introducing BR which in concept is great but that functionality of how much fun you can have with a friend just isn’t there. A working online mode and more freedom to play the game how you want with who you want is why AEWFF ultimately died. And the gameplay I guess 💀
Unreal was likely chosen for multiple reasons. A pretty generous licensing model, it's very versatile and it's easy to find staff that have experience with it. Keeps costs down, ultimately. They wouldn't have used 5 because the game was in development for years. It also doesn't add anything that would benefit the type of game they were going for. Yukes engine would have needed porting to new hardware.
@EliteEasyE Are they? I guess that explains 2k20 being a buggy mess. Presumably the new developer had no idea how to work with a 15 year old Japanese game engine.
@nathandts3401 As far as I understand it and they rebuilt it between 2K20 and 2K22 as they advertised in one of their 2K22. Just as Yuke's rebuilt it every few years.
It’s terrible ! The game offers more mini games than match types. The CAW is abysmal. The story mode is terrible. The AI is atrocious. There’s literally nothing to do and they had the audacity to lock old modes like Tournament / towers behind a paywall.
It is when you want to play it online competitively - lack of simple game modes (like tornado tag) and 'ring out' that lets your opponent magically go to the outside of the ring at will, creates an imbalance in the gameplay. Mechanically it is fun I enjoyed it offline, but online it is trash and they don't seem to care. No online lobbies either, which would have made it easier to find players to play with.
I imagine he doesn't know anything about them considering AEW Fight Forever feels enough like that, that anyone knowledgeable enough would have felt it. The punching combos work exactly the same and the grappling strikes are the same. Some of the devs from Day of Reckoning worked on Fight Forever including the lead gameplay designer.
@@EliteEasyEFF sucks ass. That's not my subjective opinion, thats a fact. For every person like you saying it's good, theres a thousand saying it's TNA level bad.
Man I so agree Stevie I invested time an money in Fight Forever an now it's collecting dust. Now like you said about Fire Pro Series of games still has the old school graphics but is hands DOWN from an overall game is One of the BEST Wrestling Games you can get I have Fire Pro World an I still got my PS2 copy of Returns as well as a digital copy on ps3 an amazing series. AWESOME VID
I know its the unpopular opinion but I really enjoyed the game. I like the gameplay a lot whereas 2k’s simulation gameplay has gotten really boring to me. It just lacked features. I wish it didn’t copy no mercy’s short entrances. I wish it had a larger roster, more arenas, more in depth creations, and a bigger season mode. I would buy whatever game they make next
I think you nailed it. At its very core the gameplay is really fun, and the idea of making a wrestling game that isn't simulation makes perfect sense, but there were a lot of choices in execution that holds it down. 🙁
@@EliteEasyEfight forever is a simulation of a street fighter game. All about punch, kicking and winning a match in less than 3 minutes 😅 am absolute joke and easily one of the worst wrestling games ever
I actually prefer the gameplay to the WWE games. What ruined it for me was the lack of content like match types, the terrible story mode, the overpriced DLC, etc. How is there still no cage match? Where's the Blood & Guts match?
Idk what's worse Retromania or AEW Fight Forever. Retromania will announce dlc and drop it 2 years later with no added features. It got so bad they were forced to tell folks it wasn't actually the spiritual successor to wrestlefest. AEW is like Fortnite trash.
i bought the game when it came out and to me it is a perfect analogy for aew itself: it promised a return to what we used to love about wrestling(games), and you can see that there was potential there,,, but instead what we got was the wrestling itself being mechanical, instead of personality and fun,no customization,not just bare game modes but lot of hokey goofy stuff that had barely anything to do with a wrestling game one of the things in it,i kid you not,was a TRIVIA GAME. And a lot of based around stuff you would have to be a meltzer-type to know
I think the problem is Yuke's. It's questionable if they're still capable of making a good wrestling game. But who else makes wrestling games? Who else are you gonna get?
They made a solid game gameplay but there's pretty questionable decisions. Did they forget how to make a CAW, give match options? Make matches in Road to Elite available in exhibition. Tag matches are possible but Texas Tornado is missing? Very strange stuff that could have been fixed in a couple patches.
Here’s what went wrong. It was their first attempt & it felt like it. It was a good foundation to build upon but it lacked a lot of gameplay options. Fans coulda been forgiving but AEW as a brand was starting to decline post brawl out. Combine that with WWE being on the rise plus the 2K game also being good again.
The wrestling code is the 1st game for that group of developers and it looks 10x better than aew. So please spare me the 1st attempt excuse. The wrestling code also has a dev team of less than 10 people and no where near the budget FF had & yet its still more promising
@@MR.__G 10X better? C'mon...Wrestling Code has potential but the animations make it look like they play fighting. UPW looks better at this point in my opinion. I'm hoping they both succeed.
@@wild360 yes the graphics look better, presentation looks better, the selling looks better, animations look better. They just have to speed it up a bit. It’s truly sad how WC has no where near the budget or team that FF has and have a more promising game
The game is suffering from the same issue as the company...Tony Khan. Tony must not have learned much from his dad. I have been studying business in recent months and one thing I have learned is you need a budget, you need to plan plan plan, and you need to be honest with yourself. Tony is very dishonest when it comes to admitting failure. Accept the failures, fix them and move on. If he was a start up and not a billionaire he would have already been out of business. Either he has some serious denial issues ( which he does) or he may also have mental illness. If he stays at the helm AEW will be a dead brand very soon.
3:56 I assume they didn't go with Unreal Engine 5 because last-gen consoles can't run it well without some tweeking, *especially* Nintendo Switch, which can barely run Unreal Engine 4 as it is. WWE has almost no presence on Switch, and combine that with Switch being hugely popular in Japan I think it was important to Kenny that this game released on Switch.
I was SOO excited for it, but when I finally saw it, I saw it was nothing like No Mercy. The graphics were fine, but the gameplay was nothing like I wanted it to be. With a wrestling game, the gameplay has to be good, and if it's going to be a classic, it has to be GREAT.
Bingo. I keep seeing nonsensical comments from people that didn't even play Fight Forever. Stevie's comments are also way off base, and show clearly he didn't even play it. Punk was never removed from the game lol. Also the claim of "full of glitches" is flat out untrue. Most glitches in the game were cleaned up almost 1 year ago, and it's WAY MORE bug free than any 2K game. The budget is also way more modest than a 2K game (2K wrestling games go past 100 million dollars). Fight Forever's gameplay engine is built from the ground up and is easily the most fun wrestling engine since Day of Reckoning and No Mercy. But of course, it's always easier for lazy youtubers to avoid facts and just ride the hate train bandwagon to get those clicks.
Yep the gameplay is fantastic. These guys didn't play and are trashing the games based off what WWE fanboys are saying who didn't give it a chance because it doesn't have a WWE license.
@@AztecUnshavenstay off the drugs Aztec. The crazy thing is you’re still probably creation wrestler on that abysmal CAW 😅 this incomplete game is an abomination and shouldn’t be compared to the games you mentioned
Short back-and-forth, one finisher, match over. All sorts of absurd things in that match, too- Such as RNG reversals. I don't care if that was in No Mercy, it's just horrible design.
It missed so much that most wrestling games had like cage matches. And with the WWE games giving you so many options in match type, creation section, and match types that fans expect all wrestling games to have most of that stuff and AEW FF had not even half of that
I actually like the game ,its not something you sink hours into its a pickup and play and have a fun time like a super smash bros or mortal kombat if they fix it up a bit and make the create a wrestler system better its a whole different story for this game
Pleasantly surprised to see Stevie know so much about video games. Fight Forever was a failure and they need to go back to the drawing board and develop a better, more fun game with depth.
Clearly they have not. He can barely describe the other games he's talking about and seemingly has forgotten his role in the absolute stinker that is WWE Raw 2.
The difference with playing on PC/Steam for a game like Madden is that you can mod the game which makes it significantly better than whatever the console version gets
How is it a spiritual successor when it has less match types, less arenas, smaller roster, less belts, a worse CAW and a worse story mode lmao !! You fanboys these days have a special type of delusion embedded in ya brains.
@@MR.__G it controls like No mercy, similar looking to the older no mercy games AKI games, some of the original developers on the no mercy games worked on this.
@@justincantrell09 so because a game has similar controls that makes it a spiritual successor ? That’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard. Look at all the things I mentioned that no mercy does much than Ff despite coming out 23 years ago. Its amazing how fanboyism can really blind ppl like you from reality
Can you set rules like pinfall, two out of three falls, countout, DQ, first blood/excessive blood loss, time limit, finisher match etc. in exhibition yet like it was possible in No Mercy? Are weapons still becoming annoyingl see-through when you drop them? Are there full entrances yet? Do matches last longer?
I'm playing FPW World now for 7 years and i don't think that there will be any other wrestling game with such a long time care, except maybe a future second FPW World.
I've been going back and forth on if I should buy it. You think it's worth it? I loved the original FPW when I was living in Japan in the mid/late 90's.
@MrSpeed-lt8gr The pc version is worth the buy. Workshop there delivers an uncountable amount of extra content for free. You can build your own rosters and manage them as you like and mods and everything else gives you more freedom than most other wrestling games.
AEW's lacking creation suite and the attributes for said creations being locked behind going the stale Road to The Elite mode is what killed it for me.
The fact that the first N64 WCW/nWo World Tour cartridge is still light years ahead of this crap tells me everything about the state of the games industry in modern times..
As a guy who just wants more wrestling games out there, AEW Fight Forever felt more like Day of Reckoning beta than a No Mercy spiritual successor, which isn't the worst thing. They did fix a lot of bugs but the content and the lack of it hurt it a lot. I feel like the problem is they wanted this to be more handled like they do modern fighting games and that's just not normal I would like to say the one thing it did right was online, best online play in a wrestling game yet lol
Guarantee Toybox Tony hasn’t spent a sixth of a second thinking about this game since it came out. It had all the pieces, and none of the priorities. If Yuke’s was given a fair shot at a sequel (without Kenny goddamned Omega pretending to be a producer) it could have grown into something legitimately awesome, but… it’s an AEW product. Destroying goodwill from the fans, squandering potential and failing to put people in charge who could contribute to a competent result is practically their brand at this point.
LMFAO Yukes who made every Smackdown from the very first to WWE2k19....The same Yukes that people cried needed to be removed from making WWE games because they were making the same game over and over.... They weren't suddenly going to make an amazing game because they suddenly had a new smaller wrestling company to make a game for. When people want the WWE games stripped from them and given to another developer, not much was going to change
The Peak of Wrestling Games to me was Smackdown Here comes the pain. I still play in on PC via emulator in 4K. I can pick it up and play season mode with my created guy and get different stories or rivalries heel or Babyface and never get the same experience. I actually got a different storyline when I lose in faction storyline and wrestle Vince I never got in my life at insurrection PPV. We need a AEW game that copies that. It fits the AEW formula
The only good things about this game: omega got diverticulitis after naming the F5 diverticulitis in the moves list, and punk is getting paid royalties
That move has been called "Deep Sea Diverticulitis" since the Smackdown vs Raw game. That's crass to say it's good someone got that disorder... Also, Excalibur came up with that name in PWG.
AEW: Fight for a Few Minutes
true total 30 mins, then 2k23 was also bad then disney speedstorm, after those games i didn't touch my consoles anymore
Aew:2 minute job match
@theelitegamer1980 why did you think disney speedstorm was ever going to be good
AEW MJF bidding war for Türkiye Hair transplant 2025.
AEW: Pay per view Forever
Stevie being so in touch with games and the games industry threw me off guard but nice
So true he's gaming nerd
He is really not, a fan of games sure, but he showed with the cm punk comment he does not know what he is talking about. You don’t fire someone and then reward them with a paycheck for life….. that’s insane carny shit.he constantly talk about his opinion of wrestling like he is the booker,yet never ran a wrestling company, he was talent only… good talent,deserved more from the business. But come on, every podcast if you listen he is bitter as hell,a good guy no doubt, but so bitter. Constantly trashed aew over copyright claims, yet for all he trashes them… seems to not have a clue about what happened on their last show,calls wrestlers by there wwe name when they went by a different name for all of there career and were in wwe for a cup of coffee over a 20 year career while I respect him as a person and for the years he was a wrestler, I’m done with his show, it’s tone deft and bullshit most of the time, don’t talk about wresting companies you don’t even keep up on or even watch, it makes him look stupid, and he clearly is a very smart person
@@Lashes.541 nobody reading all of that
He doesn't actually know what he's talking about though, when it comes to game development I mean
@@Lashes.541none of what you said had anything to do with the original comment
Punk is still in the game. He was just taken off the cover. Also the problems I keep hearing are lack of depth in game modes and overpriced DLC.
The dlc is the issue, tge furst few should have been released with the base game.
They made DLC? That sums up the whole game, it should never have existed.
I don't want wrestler dlc, would it be nice to have, yes but give more than 3 or so wrestlers for $10. What I truly would like and honestly had hoped would be in the game is an actual career mode similar to what we had in SVR, SVR 2006 and SVR 2007 where there were three storylines available either as champion, #1 contender or as neither. That would in my opinion make the game much better.
Listen! They can’t make money without CM Punk, be there or not
@@bipolarminddroppings There's like 4 or 5 DLC packs, mostly containing wrestlers that should have been in the base game. It would be an ok game if it weren't completely anemic.
They tried so hard to imitate the N64 style games that it ended up being confused and soulless
AEW FF feels like someone remaking the N64 AKI games based on the memory of playing it for one weekend back in 2001. I wonder if the developer even played those games at all. FF doesn't even have basic features that No Mercy, WM2000, or VPW2 had. Those games had a better CAW mode. Like holy fuck what a disaster.
@@UncomfortableShoessad thing is the developers made the 64 games.
And nothing like those games.
No, deadwafflez, the same company made it. Companies tend to change the composition of employees quite a lot over the course of decades.
I did a quick search of the internet and it said yes people involved with WCW/NWO Revenge and No Mercy worked on the game.
Tony Khan needs to play the game, so he can see how bad it is.
I have Wrestling Empire on Switch. Made by one guy. 60 ppl in the ring at once. It's not the best game, but impressive for one person to create.
Tony will love it
I love that game, I play the cell phone version and it's better than all the 2K games. Lol
Wrestling empire is genuinely great!
AEW FF on Nintendo Switch is good. Wrestling Empire is an unplayable mobile style game.
@@systerkenocope
Stevie won my heart the second he said, "ESPN NFL 2K5."
Stevie brought up NFL 2k vs Madden. It's a fascinating story in how the big company can body out competitors. Madden had gotten stale, not fixed issues, lacked some game modes. NFL 2k comes out, it's a great game, you have the ESPN branding and wrapping to make it feel "realer", and as mentioned they dropped it for $20 to steal market share. EA's immediate response wasn't to make a better game. Instead it was to pay the NFL a fortune for an exclusive license thereby freezing out any other competitors. It started the era of inflated licensing fees and exclusivity.
WWE 2K is Madden for wrestling gamers. No Mercy is NFL 2K5. 2K released some good games after but they didn't have the NFL license so they were panned, a lot like AEW Fight Forever.
IMO that was a D__K move EA Sports did. To this day, Madden hasn't improved on none of the features & they wanted to get the NBA license but 2K sewed that up. Can you imagine the WWE games under EA Sports?
It would probably have more micro transactions and lootboxes than 2K Battlegrounds.
@@lk8181
Also I would like to add that when EA pulled that move with the NFL, they had manage to piss EVERY video game company off when they did that
@CraigSmithII and those companies retaliated trying to get exclusive licenses of their own.
Yukes was responsible for developing an engine for AEW. However, the ownership of the engine resides with AEW, granting them the freedom to transition it to a different developer in the event they decide to discontinue their partnership with Yukes.
It's not worth keeping. The entire thing needs to start over again from scratch.
@@derpderpin1568 Further to your point, I believe the new developer would need to pull the engine apart to try and figure out how it all works so they'd spend maybe as much time as starting from scratch
I'd move on. The game was trash.
I had an N64 day 1 and bought every wrestling game. Times moved on. The fact the CAW was better on N64 games than AEWs is still mind-blowing to me.
@@-The-Darkside😅😅😅😅😅😅😅
I absolutely love that Stevie uses the Retromania Wrestling caricature of himself in the intro.
Oh, and AEW: Fight for relevancy was made using the old, 2000, AKI engine from No Mercy.
The game was free on Playstation Plus at one point. I played one match and un-installed it😂
A lot of games are free on PS Plus. This isn't an insult
I got new Indiana Jones game to play for free cause of game pass and it just came out.
Still not cheap enough. Ha.
So was wwe 2k
The weird part is that last year's WWE game was also a PlayStation Plus free title this year. AEW couldn't even avoid comparisons when the game was free!
I can’t believe it was a year ago. It feels like it was five years ago. Great games never get old and bad games never felt new.
Edit; and where’s the credit for Wrestling Empire? Where, Stevie?!
I freaking love Wrestling Empire 🤣🤣🤣 I can go through a downward spiral without actually going through one
There was so much anticipation for over a year then they dropped some “hot garbage”-the rock
In 2013 I re-skinned Wrestling Empire for the indy promotion I worked for and released "Culture Shock Wrestling vs. The World" on PC. Two years later, I updated it and released "Culture Shock Wrestling: Battle-Lines 2015."
Gameplay was solid just lacked content
💯
I bought the game on a sale last month, its kinda fun for me, but needed more wrestlers and an update in the current roster, more match types and a new creation mode (even no mercy had more things on creation mode than aew)
And it never came.
Meh WWE 2k more fun and unique than this kids game
AEW FF is very fun but just needs more.
Kenny Omega liking video games doesn't make him a video game developer
He was a creative designer he brought in the WWF No Mercy director for the nuts and bolts.
@@EliteEasyE Yes but why was he involved at all?
Aubrey Edwards worked in video games in some capacity or another. What does it say about the personnel process that she doesn't seem to have been involved at all
@neilbiggs1353 She worked on the mobile games
Aubrey worked in video game development before getting into the wrestling industry. That said, imagine some outsider fanboy trying to tell the dev team who made Here Comes The Pain and the SVR series how to make a good wrestling video game because HE knows better than they do. It's no wonder the reports of the dev team despising Kenny from jump.
The mechanics are there. You can feel The Def Jam Fight for New York, No Mercy, HCTP spirit in there just there's NOTHING TO DO! No reason as well for it to look like a PS2 game but damn it's so bare bones its insulting.
I agree and devs from all those projects and more like SVR 11, Day of Reckoning and Wrestle Kingdom worked on Fight Forever.
They really dropped the ball on features and match types and so far are still behind the 8 ball.
The game isn't bad but it needs a ton of creation parts, match types and an overhauled career mode. It's so barebones. Instead they made a battle royal mode nobody plays, minigames that nobody plays and charges $$$ for two wrestlers and an arena. If they really don't wanna give up on the game, they need to put the budget towards a sequel into trying to salvage what they have. The gameplay also needs to be adjusted to allow longer matches. Currently every match is 5 minutes or under.
All true, but I did have fun with Stadium Stampede lol
Soon as I saw the minigames I had a bad feeling about it. I hope they put serious work in to actually complete the game
i play a lot of fire pro and on my wish list for the last several games in that series is a pre match option to tweak stats up and down for longer or shorter matches. A good wrestling game should be able to do a 5 minute squash, an 8-10 minute tv, and longer ppv matches. Of course there have to be good enough guts in the gameplay to make those matches fun.
Thats why World Tour/VPW64 and Revenge are great since you can adjust the player stats before each match in the form of the coloured bars (I believe it changes damage given and taken). It also has a quick match option that makes submissions (and possibly pins) much easier to achieve.
Stevie Richards had a Sega Saturn. Bro might just be my favourite wrestler now
I had a Sega Saturn too! Am I now your favorite non-wrestling person? hehe :)
He might have lost points for owning one of those 😂😂😂😂
@@traywyatt spoken like someone that's never owned one
Fire pro 6ms forever
I loved the Saturn I still have my saturn
Stevie is right 2k5 20$
Game needs a lot of things
- choose your battle royal entrants and order
- expanded CAW gear
- “universe” mode of its own
- lotssss of match types
I had fun playing through fight forever but there wasn't much to go back to after getting through the stories and blowing stuff up a few times.
@@lloydvasser4889 Wrestlemania X8 on the game cube had more and that is over 20 years old.
The more I learn about Stevie Richards and his mind for the business in so many damn different ways the more I’m shocked and impressed, I tune in to a new episode old or new about near daily now.
Fire pro is the ultimate wrestling game for me.
Fire Pro World is so GOATED, especially on Steam with the community STILL going strong.
Top tier wrestling game. Every wrestler from every era you can imagine. Just so much fun.
Unreal Engine 5 was released a couple of years after Fight Forever was announced. Switching engines mid-development is not a decision to make lightly. Fight Forever would also have been developed under the earliest versions of UE5, which is another decision to not take lightly. (The most recent version of UE5 is 5.5.1. Epic will continue releasing new versions with additional fixes and newer features, until they move to UE6.) And if you don't really benefit from the new features of UE5, then you might actually be better served by UE4; UE5 projects can potentially have higher system requirements because of stuff like support for all those new features you didn't need.
Fair point
AEW should’ve made a game that was like a No Mercy N64 mod with enhanced graphics. Same retro AKI gameplay with more match features. It would’ve been a nod to the past, cheap for them to produce, and addicting to play.
Problem is you can't replicate No Mercy because it's beyond gameplay. That era was a vibe, you can't just "make No Mercy but for the modern era!" You never had wrestling games outside the arcade that let you play more than 2 people at a time. We were gathering all walks of life to bang out some No Mercy, Golden Eye, South Park, now you can just hop online and play with 90 people from Europe like nothing.
If you want to play No Mercy, you should play No Mercy
@@RudeBoyKyle94 word. Problem is AEW roster not on there
@@chrisarctor True. But if you think about it, beat-em-ups were an era too and they still sell for the audience that will always love them. AEW seems like its target audience are the older ones already playing/watching these modded throwback wrestling games. I’m wondering if they could’ve found a better way to capitalize on that.
@@chrisarctorSearch Ultra Pro Wrestling
AEW Fight Forever is a good game but it lacks a good CAW and match types
I think you answered your question about why this game was bad when you mentioned Kenny Omega spearheaded it. Kenny Omega is a huge gamer and a big fan of video games. That does not translate over to him being able to MAKE a successful game. There is so much more that goes into game development. You see this in other areas of life as well, like when a billionaire fan purchases a stake in a professional sports team, but then the team struggles and gets run into the ground.
Or when they launch a wrestling promotion.
Lol, nice
There was a statement from one of the Yukes employees saying how Kenny was inserting himself into stuff he didnt understand and making crazy demands of how things should be.
interesting point considering so many wrestling fans think they could run a company better than tony khan just because they are fans LMAOOOO
Oh, you mean like the Khans and The Jags, or whatever's the name of that Bri'ish soccer team?
Hey Stevie, we had some reports along the way. It was way, way over budget and it caused some delays. Then they hit budget issues and it couldn't be delayed any more. People there said they wished they would have waited to announce it, because people started asking where the game was right after they revealed they were making one, which obviously isn't realistic. I'm shocked they haven't done a licensing thing with Fire Pro. I know AJ Styles actually tried to get TNA to do that years ago, and TNA wouldn't
Did Stevie just announce a retromania sequel?
I can't see anything online about one.
Probably wasn't supposed to say anything yet and forgot.
I got fight forever for Christmas last year and loved the first three months of it this year I’ve maybe played fifteen minutes lol
It’s not the worst game ever and even plays better than some of the 2K games from over the past 10-12 years. What I think it was is the poor customization, lack of stipulations and that career mode was awful. Had they’ve done a custom campaign people would have more of a reason to stick with it.
And every time when I think I couldn’t like Stevie anymore, I only is a Star Trek fan, but he had a Sega Saturn with fire pro wrestling I’ll be damned😂
Fight Forever was great for a couple hours, especially when they started the stadium stampede. Everyone was on it for a couple months.
The game is good, but wwe2k series already had most the options, PLUS you can make wrestlers from any promotion, stages, what have you.
They Have to come up with sumthin different, way different. Good luck aew, make a free marvel rivals type online with the same engine?
I dunno
What’s so frustrating about AEW: Fight Forever…is that, at heart, it can be a really fun game. The gameplay mechanics hearken back to what made WCW/NWO Revenge and WWF No Mercy so legendary.
The game has a very good roster, but the lack of variety, the limited create-a-wrestler mode, no Cage/Iron Man/Dog Collar bouts…it makes Fight Forever such a missed opportunity.
I hope they continue to improve it
@ me too. It would be cool to see more content, more variety.
The engine itself is good. It's a good starting point. Just felt barebones. Maybe fine tuned the match length because matches ended too quick. I remember having longer matches back in the 64 days.
Bigger roster.. more creation stuff.. more match types.. a career that doesnr feel like a low budget visual novel.. allow us to alter the timer for the explosive match..
If they ironed out those problems, a Fight Forever 2 coild be a good alternative to the WWE 2K games, for those who prefer a more arcade approach.
Take a page from the AKI days and have the next entry be called AEW Forbidden Door. Have people from New Japan and other friendly promotions. Then release further DLC focused on those promotions.
Like a modern day WCW Vs. NWO World Tour kind of thing.
That was the idea, according to an interview with Nik Sonic, if the game sold well enough.
It's a shame because the last, like, three New Japan games have been mobile card games and Yuke's hasn't made a Wrestle Kingdom since around 2006 when WWE forced them to exclusively work on WWE games. That's why we haven't seen a Rumble Roses in so long, either.
Love the fact that Stevie is a fellow Fire Pro fan.
If I was AEW, I'd stay out of the video game industry for awhile. If they make a 2D game like Fire Pro, they'll just look second rate and it's not worth building something new. It might be worth reskinning something out of Japan (which is what the original WCW vs the World game did with Virtual Pro Wrestling), but I don't know if anything is out there right now.
AEW doesn't have the option to reskin like the original THQ did under producer Sanders Keel. The AKI we used to know now goes under syn Sophia and last released Fashion Dreamer on the Switch. The engine and most of their employees from their wrestling days are gone.
AEW has to build from scratch and there were more AKI devs on Fight Forever than Fashion Dreamer and any wrestling game since 2006 before AKI/syn Sophia shifted to Style Savvy fashion and rhythm games.
@@EliteEasyE I understand, but I don't believe any other company paid to make their own game before. It was more like someone created a game and they needed a brand.
I remember hearing that Kenny Omega was a problem for THQ when working on this game. Supposedly his lack of developer knowledge role in the process caused a lot of headaches for the developer (asking for features that would cause a lot of problems well into development.) I also believe this game introduced mini-games (which seem like a silly idea for a first generation game).
I bought the game but haven't played it since day 1. I never hated it, but it just didn't draw me in and didn't have much replay value. Some choices in the game seemed very odd though. I believe the storyline didn't even have voice overs.
I'm still having fun with Stardew Valley. Not only is it over 8 years old now but it was developed by one person.
The issue was the lack of shareable created characters. Games like Fire Pro live and die off the backs of effort by a handful of dedicated hobbyists making custom characters of every other company's wrestlers. Launching without it was so short sighted.
Exactly. It’s not 2003. I’m not going to google CAWs and copy formulas.
Spiked Chunsoft with a big budget could create something incredible. Fire Pro and King of Coliseum gameplay still holds up today.
Right now Steam is doing its massive Winter sale and AEW Fight Forever is 75% off for both Editions. $9.99 for base game. $14.99 for Elite Edition
Stream?
@@devilselbow $20 is more than the cost of the games. God I hate people who are not mathematicians like I am. I have my doctorate and am highly educated and high IQ. The state of the world when someone thinks a video game would cost negative money is beyond me, you need to go back to school..... start with grade 2, son.
@patron7906 you have that douchebag autism smh.
@patron7906 your douchey autism is showing.
@patron7906 your autism is showing
I don't mean this as a slight at all but I wasn't aware Stevie was this fucking smart! I thought he was awesome when I watched wrestling back in the day but I just caught his channel recently and have been amazed at his range and knowledge on a vriety of subjects. Bro, you got me hooked on this channel now.
I platinum'ed this game on PlayStation. It was a real slog. The gameplay itself isn't the main problem (yes it needs work). The main problem is lack of content in game modes, there's just not much to do. The platinum requires a LOT of repetitive work. Road to Elite is tedious and limited. They need to move on from it.
It's the same thing I've been saying for years.
They're spending SO much time on 60fps { due to reviewer pressure } and making things look pretty graphically, that the gameplay and experience both suffer.
This isn't just wrestling games. This is EVERY triple-A title nowadays. So commonly that for something to actually be impressive is a rarely-found gem.
Edit: I'm not even going to approach the topic of micro-transactions and cash-grab experiences. I just showered, and I don't want that stink on me.
Happy New Year, Stevie & Crew 🧡
Well I didn’t know my interview would get this much coverage..
Again, thank you for asking! There are a few dedicated fans who have been waiting for a No Mercy sequel or a game comparable for 20+ years and rarely does anyone ask TK about the game. All hope was lost in the community until now.
@ no problem at all
I’m a game dev. It used Unreal 4 which for the time was perfectly fine, 5 would get you better lighting but wouldn’t change the hands on controller moving player around gameplay.
But if the game a buggy mess with poor gameplay, that’s on the developer and/or publisher. Gameplay systems and content like animation are all based on direction from game publisher/director to the developer.
Also knowing wrestling and money isn’t enough, you need experienced game directorship, designers and programmers who know how to make all the separate systems fit together properly. Or you get a multimillion mess.
Great comment. I hope they make another game bc the gameplay was actually solid & everything else sucked. There's something to build upon with the core gameplay. Trying to fix the current version is hopeless
Would unreal 5 be able to run on the switch, PS4 and Xbox 1? You can’t make a brand new franchise that needs people to buy it to be successful very limited
Fight Forever isn't a buggy mess. They cleaned up their issues in the first couple of patches and it stayed fixed. No Hulk Hogan mustache flip flopping like 2K. Richards and the co-host haven't played the damn game and are spreading misinformation based on here say.
@@EliteEasyEyou didn't pay attention then , Stevie said he played it
@LoPhatKao He copped to barely playing if you paid any attention
Following the day of reckoning 2 model would have been more of a success. That game still holds up today graphically. I play it every once in a while still.
Fight Forever is very similar to day of Reckoning already lol.
There were devs from Day of Reckoning on the project and it feels and looks as such.
I wish Yuke's would have built Legends of Wrestlemania on that engine.
They were cooking with Wrestle Kingdom games on that engine until WWE made them stop.
AEW Fight Forever has Wrestle Kingdom influence as well down to the chain wrestling.
@@AztecUnshavenpeople actually played the heck out of day of reckoning. Nobody was playing this garbage besides you and 6 others after the 1st month
@MR.__G Lol keep telling yourself that Manny! I see that this game still keeps living rent free in your head over a year later.
@@AztecUnshaven lol still delusional as ever I see. Remember you were promising a season 5 and cage match. Well where’s it at buddy ? You really compared this broken beta to all time great wrestling games. This trash belongs with the backstage assaults, mayhems, atttiudes, anarchy rulez, 2k20s of the world
I hope Fight Forever never dies. I remember the original idea was to release a base-game, and instead of releasing annual games (a la WWE's 2K series), annual updates would be released to the base-game. Almost like an MMO with annual expansions.
I want to add that Yukes aren't the developer they used to be as when they left after WWE 2K19 (which only new addition was a new cage match variation) they took the engine with them forcing visual concepts to rebuild the engine quickly giving us 2K20.
They're was big problems between AEW and Yukes during development and Hideyuki "Geta" Iwashita who was brought in as director hadn't made a video game since 2008.
EDIT: I was wrong about Yukes taking the engine but Visual Concepts were still forced to slap the game together in 2-3 months before release due to Yukes leaving.
That's incorrect. 2K is still making games on that exact same engine. Yuke's built the AEW Fight Forever engine in Unreal Engine from scratch.
Whatever issues they had were early in the project. Geta, Yuke's and THQ Nordic reps were doing interviews side by side by the time they won Best Sports Game at Tokyo Gamescon.
Just grabbed 2K5 out of storage just 2 days ago and I agree, better than any Madden Game made in the last 15-20 years.
Side note: Same thing for Tony Hawk 2. My freaking GOD what an addicting game.
They took PUnk off the cover, but jokes on them. Jade Cargill is still on the cover, hahaha
To add a little bit as a game developer who picked up the game, the things I noted extend beyond the meat and guts of the game itself (which, ultimately, is fine and a foundation that could be built upon).
First, as a fighting game or multiplayer game, you need to hit a critical mass of players to sustain - that's hard to do and harder to do with a new IP.
Second, as a genre, fighting games are already a niche genre - either you cater to that audience or you try to make things for the non-core audience to get people to jump in. The game didn't really do that.
Third extends from the second - fighting games are a niche genre. Wrestling games even more so. I suspect TK thought that the AEW brand would carry it further than it did, and while it might have, brands ultimately don't break through the kinds of high barrier around fighting games and wrestling as well as the barriers around the previous points.
Spending prestige AAA money on fighting games is a fool's errand. It's not going to make back that kind of money; you're not going to sell 16m copies. Of the best selling fighting games of all time, it takes until number 25 to find a title that isn't a well established fighting game brand. And #25 sold 5m. Below that, it quickly drops off.
Fourth compounds the third. I enjoyed the game... but I don't know who the game was suppose to be for. It wasn't inviting enough as a casual to want to engage a lot nor does it hight some of the 'meme' or spectacle fodder that might have gotten people's eyeballs on it. And yet also wasn't deep enough for core players to dig in and convert into advocates of the game. For wrestling fans, there wasn't a ton of content that made people care; for fighting game fans, well... see above. It kind of felt like it was more a vehicle for fun cameos from wrestlers you're suppose to care about.
Fifth... I dunno how it's suppose to tie into AEW. Like there was nothing in it that made me want to go watch AEW. And this is important because converting those eyeballs into viewers of AEW encourages and reinforces the personal investment in both halfs.
I could go further into the design and game issues, but I'm not working for them :P Ultimately, the game should have been smaller and more refined in scope. It should have funneled and encouraged people to turn their interest in the game into becoming fans of the TV shows; and for existing fans, it should have encouraged and reinforced that fandom.
NFL 2K5 is still my favorite sports game ever, but them pricing their game at $20 is the reason the NFL gave the exclusive license to EA
Greatest ever.
Is that the one where you had your own pad and you could decorate it with stuff you earned in game???
@Kalbuir66 thats the one!
2k5, NHL 94, NBA Jam, Tecm0 B0wl, Baseball Stars, etc.
WRONG EA PAID a Record Amount To Lock Down Exclusivity. NBA2k5 was ALSO $20 & they STILL have The License because Take Two PAID to Lock Down NBA Exclusivity in Response.
I had fun with it. Problem is I really wanted to play online with my family members.....and there's no 4 man ladder match or cage match
When I hear Stevie I hear a regular guy like me. I love that about him ❤
Many of the criticisms on AEW Fight Forever are well deserved. There are a few gameplay bugs, the creation suite has a serious lack of depth, and the season mode was awful. I hated even having the mini games because they didn't add anything to the game from a wrestling standpoint. The gameplay engine itself succeeded in being a spiritual successor to WWF No Mercy with a very AKI engine-like feel. But, there needed to be the structure of those old N64 AKI games in AEW FF. Light/heavy grapples in those old games were better in relation to how they looked and how many moves you could do. AEW FF seemed like that engine but with less polish. AEW and Yukes didn't truly continue to update the game as they promised which is the biggest issue because they focused more on DLC packs. They should've continued to refine the gameplay with fixing bugs and then expanded the creation suite modes. They also should've updated the season mode to remove some of the repetitive choices to include more options. They should've included a community creations update once they updated and expanded creation suite. It also would have helped to include a universe mode of their own for replayability. You also should be able to edit in game characters to update their gimmick and appearance changes just like older games allowed.
All of that said, I believe if AEW did the above listed changes then FF could still be saved. At this point, that's not likely and AEW might be better suited to use another developer with that same engine. Only take their time with it to make sure what happened with the base game doesn't happen again. At this point, the actual AEW product is so unwatchable that they might not be in business long enough to make a sequel to FF.
Whats he talkin bout cm punk is in the game
Yea these guys never played it
Right before release they were going to take him out and left it by taking him off the cover.
Try listening.
@@-The-Darkside in listened he said he wasn't in the game you might want to listen to your own advice.
Yeah, the game was pitched as a return to AKI style wrestling game, I think at first they were even trying to get AKI (now called syn Sophia) to make it but ended up going with Smackdown developer Yuke's and a few people that worked on some of those AKI games. Although Wikipedia list Hideyuki Iwashita (he was the director on WCW/NWO Revenge, WWF Wrestlemania 2000, WWF No Mercy, and Def Jam: Vendetta) as the director of Fight Forever, while MobyGame list him as Gameplay Advisor. I think most of those old AKI wrestling guys may have left syn Sophia by this point, people just waited too long to go back to them, ‘cause they were still doing stuff in their wrestling engine as late as 2012...they made a couple PSP Yakuza spin-off games for Sega. It’s too bad Kudo Tsunoda took over the Def Jam games, immediately let go of AKI because he didn’t think wrestling and hip hop went together, (despite Def Jam: Fight for NY being a success and not really being a full on wrestling game anymore) and then drive that franchise into the ground with Def Jam Icons. AKI might still being doing what they did if they had a big series like that to work on. Also weird EA never brought them back after Icons flopped.
I did find the story mode they tried doing in Fight Forever to be kind of weird. Honestly, I’d just rather have something like what Wrestlemania 2000 did with Road to Wrestlemania. Like I wasn’t crazy about how No Mercy changed things up from a regular season mode like you’d get in sports games at that time that 2000 had to this little story mode that had a few branching paths but was also just the same thing every time. I played Road to Wrestlemania endlessly like I played the season modes in Sega 2K sports games endless, the No Mercy one you just kind of play a few times before going back to get regular modes.
The story mode was a combination of Road to Wrestlemania (same writer for SVR 09,10,11) and No Mercy with the humor and vibe of a Yakuza game. They only had a short time to make it so they centered it around 4 blocks which related to four PPVs a year AEW had in the early years. The mode also showcases and pays tribute to major events in those first years. It was finished about a year before the game came out.
No Mercy is dated? Blasphemy. They could put out that exact same game with a roster update and people would be thrilled.
Just smooth over the rough edges, pack it full of custom options.
@@jasonlevesque6340 mega dated. Here comes the pain and Shut your Mouth were better.
If you pay attention he was saying the game is dated but way more playable than modern games, graphic and roaster wise the game is dated, but gameplay wise it’s still one of the best.
@@CMc-v7zNah you haven't played no mercy. I guess!
It is dated. It's near 30 years old.
I loved the WCW games, wm 2000 and no mercy etc.
They're still fun, for two minutes..
In my humble opinion as somebody who has no lifed tons of wrestling games, I think wrestling games in general but specifically AEWFF are sorely missing the ability to actually play with your friends and have fun and laugh. Whether it’s on one tv or online these games were at their best when you can play with your friends for hours. 2K online hasn’t worked since before 2019. AEW online was awful and barebones and their peak was introducing BR which in concept is great but that functionality of how much fun you can have with a friend just isn’t there. A working online mode and more freedom to play the game how you want with who you want is why AEWFF ultimately died. And the gameplay I guess 💀
Unreal was likely chosen for multiple reasons. A pretty generous licensing model, it's very versatile and it's easy to find staff that have experience with it. Keeps costs down, ultimately.
They wouldn't have used 5 because the game was in development for years. It also doesn't add anything that would benefit the type of game they were going for.
Yukes engine would have needed porting to new hardware.
And 2K is still using the Yuke's engine.
@EliteEasyE Are they? I guess that explains 2k20 being a buggy mess. Presumably the new developer had no idea how to work with a 15 year old Japanese game engine.
@nathandts3401 As far as I understand it and they rebuilt it between 2K20 and 2K22 as they advertised in one of their 2K22. Just as Yuke's rebuilt it every few years.
@@EliteEasyE Assuming all the comments were in Japanese I can imagine it was a rough time trying to figure out what did what.
Passion and love aren't always enough when you are making a commercial product. They can often be a hindrance. Blowing deadlines and milestone's.
58 seconds ago is crazy, that algorithm like you
Fight Forever seems like a game that's gonna get modded crazy in a few years and then it'll probably be amazing
@@dreaomine1008 Nah... its not good enough.
Why add pointless minigames instead of focusing on wrestling. At least it wasnt yet another lootbox similator.
I picked this up for £14.99 to play over Christmas with my family. Reading all the comments, it can't be that bad surely?
Its not bad, it's just meh but sometimes that can be worse when it comes to generating playing interest.
Play and form your own opinion
It’s terrible ! The game offers more mini games than match types. The CAW is abysmal. The story mode is terrible. The AI is atrocious. There’s literally nothing to do and they had the audacity to lock old modes like Tournament / towers behind a paywall.
It is when you want to play it online competitively - lack of simple game modes (like tornado tag) and 'ring out' that lets your opponent magically go to the outside of the ring at will, creates an imbalance in the gameplay. Mechanically it is fun I enjoyed it offline, but online it is trash and they don't seem to care. No online lobbies either, which would have made it easier to find players to play with.
Should have made it just like No Mercy with the same game modes, plus online and it'd have been fine.
I wonder what Stevie thinks of the GameCube wrestling games...
I imagine he doesn't know anything about them considering AEW Fight Forever feels enough like that, that anyone knowledgeable enough would have felt it.
The punching combos work exactly the same and the grappling strikes are the same. Some of the devs from Day of Reckoning worked on Fight Forever including the lead gameplay designer.
@@EliteEasyEyeah, that is the most comparable game to AEW. I do not own it anymore but that absolutely would be the best comparison.
@@DanlowMusic 💯
@@EliteEasyEFF sucks ass. That's not my subjective opinion, thats a fact. For every person like you saying it's good, theres a thousand saying it's TNA level bad.
Man I so agree Stevie I invested time an money in Fight Forever an now it's collecting dust. Now like you said about Fire Pro Series of games still has the old school graphics but is hands DOWN from an overall game is One of the BEST Wrestling Games you can get I have Fire Pro World an I still got my PS2 copy of Returns as well as a digital copy on ps3 an amazing series. AWESOME VID
I know its the unpopular opinion but I really enjoyed the game. I like the gameplay a lot whereas 2k’s simulation gameplay has gotten really boring to me. It just lacked features. I wish it didn’t copy no mercy’s short entrances. I wish it had a larger roster, more arenas, more in depth creations, and a bigger season mode. I would buy whatever game they make next
2K is a simulation of a fighting game. AEW Fight Forever is an actual grappler.
I think you nailed it. At its very core the gameplay is really fun, and the idea of making a wrestling game that isn't simulation makes perfect sense, but there were a lot of choices in execution that holds it down. 🙁
@@EliteEasyEfight forever is a simulation of a street fighter game. All about punch, kicking and winning a match in less than 3 minutes 😅 am absolute joke and easily one of the worst wrestling games ever
Hey Aubrey 👋🏻
I actually prefer the gameplay to the WWE games. What ruined it for me was the lack of content like match types, the terrible story mode, the overpriced DLC, etc. How is there still no cage match? Where's the Blood & Guts match?
Idk what's worse Retromania or AEW Fight Forever. Retromania will announce dlc and drop it 2 years later with no added features. It got so bad they were forced to tell folks it wasn't actually the spiritual successor to wrestlefest. AEW is like Fortnite trash.
At the very least, Retromania is actually fun to play. Needs more added to it for sure, but still fun.
@BenJohnson0531 they both lost their charm after a week. I still can't believe I paid 24.99 for Retromania
I believe they developed an entire new engine based on the old No Mercy engine … that alone increased development costs more than you can imagine.
I saw it at Gamertop for $5.00 brand new
I got it for free on PS5 and haven't touched it
Refused to accept it as a free game on PS5
@@Coldstone47034that’s just dumb
i bought the game when it came out and to me it is a perfect analogy for aew itself:
it promised a return to what we used to love about wrestling(games),
and you can see that there was potential there,,,
but instead what we got was the wrestling itself being mechanical,
instead of personality and fun,no customization,not just bare game modes but lot of hokey goofy stuff that had barely anything to do with a wrestling game
one of the things in it,i kid you not,was a TRIVIA GAME.
And a lot of based around stuff you would have to be a meltzer-type to know
The Aki/THQ games are the best
💯 and Fight Forever is the closest since
@@EliteEasyEshame it's a joke 😂😂😂😂
This game blows
I think the problem is Yuke's. It's questionable if they're still capable of making a good wrestling game. But who else makes wrestling games? Who else are you gonna get?
No
They made a solid game gameplay but there's pretty questionable decisions. Did they forget how to make a CAW, give match options? Make matches in Road to Elite available in exhibition. Tag matches are possible but Texas Tornado is missing? Very strange stuff that could have been fixed in a couple patches.
Mr. Richard’s I love you even more! Bro is really a gamer
Here’s what went wrong. It was their first attempt & it felt like it. It was a good foundation to build upon but it lacked a lot of gameplay options. Fans coulda been forgiving but AEW as a brand was starting to decline post brawl out. Combine that with WWE being on the rise plus the 2K game also being good again.
Exactly. The basic in ring action was fine. The presentation was just lacking compared to it's contemporaries.
The wrestling code is the 1st game for that group of developers and it looks 10x better than aew. So please spare me the 1st attempt excuse. The wrestling code also has a dev team of less than 10 people and no where near the budget FF had & yet its still more promising
@@MR.__G 10X better? C'mon...Wrestling Code has potential but the animations make it look like they play fighting. UPW looks better at this point in my opinion. I'm hoping they both succeed.
@@wild360 yes the graphics look better, presentation looks better, the selling looks better, animations look better. They just have to speed it up a bit. It’s truly sad how WC has no where near the budget or team that FF has and have a more promising game
AEW: Fight for one second
AEW: Fortnite wannabe Forever
The game is suffering from the same issue as the company...Tony Khan. Tony must not have learned much from his dad. I have been studying business in recent months and one thing I have learned is you need a budget, you need to plan plan plan, and you need to be honest with yourself. Tony is very dishonest when it comes to admitting failure. Accept the failures, fix them and move on. If he was a start up and not a billionaire he would have already been out of business. Either he has some serious denial issues ( which he does) or he may also have mental illness. If he stays at the helm AEW will be a dead brand very soon.
AEW already does ratings lower than late stage Dixie TNA. It'd be dead if Tony wasn't the son of one of the richest people on the planet
3:56 I assume they didn't go with Unreal Engine 5 because last-gen consoles can't run it well without some tweeking, *especially* Nintendo Switch, which can barely run Unreal Engine 4 as it is. WWE has almost no presence on Switch, and combine that with Switch being hugely popular in Japan I think it was important to Kenny that this game released on Switch.
Very good point
I was SOO excited for it, but when I finally saw it, I saw it was nothing like No Mercy. The graphics were fine, but the gameplay was nothing like I wanted it to be. With a wrestling game, the gameplay has to be good, and if it's going to be a classic, it has to be GREAT.
AEW FF wasn't that bad. Just lacks content. It has the best gameplay in a wrestling game in years.
Bingo. I keep seeing nonsensical comments from people that didn't even play Fight Forever.
Stevie's comments are also way off base, and show clearly he didn't even play it. Punk was never removed from the game lol. Also the claim of "full of glitches" is flat out untrue. Most glitches in the game were cleaned up almost 1 year ago, and it's WAY MORE bug free than any 2K game.
The budget is also way more modest than a 2K game (2K wrestling games go past 100 million dollars).
Fight Forever's gameplay engine is built from the ground up and is easily the most fun wrestling engine since Day of Reckoning and No Mercy.
But of course, it's always easier for lazy youtubers to avoid facts and just ride the hate train bandwagon to get those clicks.
Agreed.
Yep the gameplay is fantastic. These guys didn't play and are trashing the games based off what WWE fanboys are saying who didn't give it a chance because it doesn't have a WWE license.
@@AztecUnshavenstay off the drugs Aztec. The crazy thing is you’re still probably creation wrestler on that abysmal CAW 😅 this incomplete game is an abomination and shouldn’t be compared to the games you mentioned
Short back-and-forth, one finisher, match over. All sorts of absurd things in that match, too- Such as RNG reversals. I don't care if that was in No Mercy, it's just horrible design.
It missed so much that most wrestling games had like cage matches. And with the WWE games giving you so many options in match type, creation section, and match types that fans expect all wrestling games to have most of that stuff and AEW FF had not even half of that
I actually like the game ,its not something you sink hours into its a pickup and play and have a fun time like a super smash bros or mortal kombat if they fix it up a bit and make the create a wrestler system better its a whole different story for this game
Pleasantly surprised to see Stevie know so much about video games. Fight Forever was a failure and they need to go back to the drawing board and develop a better, more fun game with depth.
On the road to 100k Subscribers!
I enjoy it and still play it semi regularly in some down time.
Has Stevie played it? He talked about it being the worst wrestling game ever, and I just cannot for the life of me understand that take.
Of course not. He and James have a hateboner for the company and will make up shit to support it.
Clearly they have not. He can barely describe the other games he's talking about and seemingly has forgotten his role in the absolute stinker that is WWE Raw 2.
The difference with playing on PC/Steam for a game like Madden is that you can mod the game which makes it significantly better than whatever the console version gets
It's a spiritual success to WWF No Mercy, don't see what you don't like it. Controls are great!
Yep
How is it a spiritual successor when it has less match types, less arenas, smaller roster, less belts, a worse CAW and a worse story mode lmao !! You fanboys these days have a special type of delusion embedded in ya brains.
@@MR.__G it controls like No mercy, similar looking to the older no mercy games AKI games, some of the original developers on the no mercy games worked on this.
@@justincantrell09 so because a game has similar controls that makes it a spiritual successor ? That’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard. Look at all the things I mentioned that no mercy does much than Ff despite coming out 23 years ago. Its amazing how fanboyism can really blind ppl like you from reality
@ when making this game, they stated many times, the old AKI games were what they wanted to make. How hard is that to understand?
Can you set rules like pinfall, two out of three falls, countout, DQ, first blood/excessive blood loss, time limit, finisher match etc. in exhibition yet like it was possible in No Mercy? Are weapons still becoming annoyingl see-through when you drop them? Are there full entrances yet? Do matches last longer?
I'm playing FPW World now for 7 years and i don't think that there will be any other wrestling game with such a long time care, except maybe a future second FPW World.
I've been going back and forth on if I should buy it. You think it's worth it? I loved the original FPW when I was living in Japan in the mid/late 90's.
@MrSpeed-lt8gr The pc version is worth the buy. Workshop there delivers an uncountable amount of extra content for free. You can build your own rosters and manage them as you like and mods and everything else gives you more freedom than most other wrestling games.
AEW's lacking creation suite and the attributes for said creations being locked behind going the stale Road to The Elite mode is what killed it for me.
The fact that the first N64 WCW/nWo World Tour cartridge is still light years ahead of this crap tells me everything about the state of the games industry in modern times..
When you have too much technology in systems developers over complicate things
They're about at the same point in their devolvement cycle ..
@@StJohnSBGaming has changed over the years...
As a guy who just wants more wrestling games out there, AEW Fight Forever felt more like Day of Reckoning beta than a No Mercy spiritual successor, which isn't the worst thing. They did fix a lot of bugs but the content and the lack of it hurt it a lot. I feel like the problem is they wanted this to be more handled like they do modern fighting games and that's just not normal
I would like to say the one thing it did right was online, best online play in a wrestling game yet lol
Guarantee Toybox Tony hasn’t spent a sixth of a second thinking about this game since it came out.
It had all the pieces, and none of the priorities. If Yuke’s was given a fair shot at a sequel (without Kenny goddamned Omega pretending to be a producer) it could have grown into something legitimately awesome, but… it’s an AEW product.
Destroying goodwill from the fans, squandering potential and failing to put people in charge who could contribute to a competent result is practically their brand at this point.
LMFAO Yukes who made every Smackdown from the very first to WWE2k19....The same Yukes that people cried needed to be removed from making WWE games because they were making the same game over and over....
They weren't suddenly going to make an amazing game because they suddenly had a new smaller wrestling company to make a game for. When people want the WWE games stripped from them and given to another developer, not much was going to change
Raw vs Smackdown 2008 was the peak of wrestling games. Benoit and Kurt Angle are the only issues the game had. Last minute removals.
The tna game was better
TNA not that bad, I actually like it
@ldrdatribeoflife5072 I played the shit out of it
The Peak of Wrestling Games to me was Smackdown Here comes the pain. I still play in on PC via emulator in 4K.
I can pick it up and play season mode with my created guy and get different stories or rivalries heel or Babyface and never get the same experience. I actually got a different storyline when I lose in faction storyline and wrestle Vince I never got in my life at insurrection PPV. We need a AEW game that copies that. It fits the AEW formula
The only good things about this game: omega got diverticulitis after naming the F5 diverticulitis in the moves list, and punk is getting paid royalties
That move has been called "Deep Sea Diverticulitis" since the Smackdown vs Raw game. That's crass to say it's good someone got that disorder... Also, Excalibur came up with that name in PWG.
@TheTruthDragonNJ09
It was called Cyclone 1 or 2. What do you mean?
@TheTruthDragonNJ09 ?????? It's called the Cyclone bruuuuuh!!!
CM Punk wants kids to change genders. Disgusting