The True Story Behind N64's WWF Backlash Game That Never Happened

When asked by fans, AKI (now known as Syn Sophia) said that they'd still be open to working with WWE and following up on their magnum opus. That won't happen unless the company get sick of current partners 2K and Visual Concepts, or decide that some sort of retro revisionism is necessary.

Being honest, few would complain if WWE ditched 2K (2K20 was a dismal product that may have done irreparable damage to the series) and breathed new life into Backlash. They could even get away with binning that name in favour of calling the game something more modern, or using the never-officially-finished Hell In A Cell gameplay as a dangling carrot to lure older fans back in.

That'd go a long way to letting long-term customers know that WWE won't settle for 2K's nonsense. Syn Sophia are up for it, and they'd surely put a lot of effort into ensuring that No Mercy's cherished legacy was maintained.

Back to erm...Backlash for a second. The only scrap of footage AKI and THQ released for the game was a mystical screenshot in a 2001 issue of GamePro magazine; the screen is almost impossible to find, leading many fans to believe that it didn't actually exist at all or that the mag used a doctored image from No Mercy.

In it, The Undertaker and Kurt Angle could be seen fighting atop HIAC. That teased what might be possible, and the magazine also claimed that Backlash would feature six-man tag-team matches and make use of the N64's memory expansion feature to help multi-man matches run without a hitch.

The story of AKI doesn't quite end there.

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