10 Ups & 4 Downs For AEW: Fight Forever - REVIEW

Ups...

10. The Sleek, Simple Presentation

AEW Fight Forever Menu Screen Eddie Kingston
THQ Nordic

This is meant as a compliment, but AEW: Fight Forever employs the K.I.S.S. mantra extremely well in certain components of the game - as in, Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Fight Forever is super sleek and smooth when it comes to its menu screens. There's a crispness and fluidity to the game from the moment you load it up, with the main Fight Forever title card accompanied by a nice video - which is skippable - that gives a brief history lesson on the evolution of All Elite Wrestling.

There's no lag whatsoever when it comes to bouncing from the Exhibition option, to Online, to Road to Elite, etc, and the whole menu screen is nice on the eye. Likewise, it's also fun to see quick character cards pop up during load screens, where you'll be served up an image of a certain wrestler and a quote about them.

Another nice visual touch is how a wrestler's entrance will have their nameplate joined by a slice of trivia about them, much like we often see on AEW programming. Similarly, that wrestler's current streak will also be included on there, which takes into account how many wins and losses they've had since you first played the game.

Of course, many knocked the gameplay graphics of Fight Forever in the months leading up to its release. While the in-game graphics obviously don't match what you'd expect from, say, a high-end PS5 release, those graphics manage to produce just enough charm to make the clear nostalgia-driven designs work really well. Granted, there are some wrestlers whose models and avatars do look a little off, but the majority of talents featured in Fight Forever look pretty darn great.

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Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.