Update – 15/07/21 – Action Arcade Wrestling now has a fully confirmed release date… you’ll be able to get hands-on come August 10th 2021, at least on Xbox One and PS4. Should you be looking to play on Nintendo Switch, you’ll need to wait a little longer.
2K may have already ditched their simulated wrestling affairs for something a bit more fun with WWE 2K Battlegrounds, but that doesn’t mean they’ve got the genre sewn up. At least not if you’re in the teams of VICO Game Studio or Reverb Triple XP that is. For it is they who are looking to muscle their way in on the scene with the madness of Action Arcade Wrestling.
Inspired by when wrestling games were fun – you know, something circa of 2000 with WWF Smackdown 2 – Action Arcade Wrestling from VICO Game Studio and Reverb Triple XP will look to allow you the chance to grab your favourite luchador mask and head to the ring, with a launch on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4 and Nintendo Switch this Spring.
When it does drop, you’ll find a wrestling wonderland, one that will have you playing out proceedings as one of more than 30 extraordinary wrestlers, all of whom will come with their own unique abilities. This will see the likes of El Universo wielding cosmic powers, the futuristic K-FaY13E pushing out laser beams, and Biohazard dropping radioactive attacks. This is about as far away from the likes of the WWE series of games as you are likely to get.
If those options aren’t to your liking, then you’ll still be sorted – the AAW Wrestle Lab will let you go wild with hundreds of customisable options, letting you build your ultimate wrestling hero or villain.
“We wanted to capture everything we loved from the fast-paced arcade wrestling games we grew up with in Action Arcade Wrestling,” states Eugene Tchoukhrov, lead programmer and producer at VICO Game Studio. “It was really important to make this game fun to control, easy to get into, and have a lot of outlandish antics – if you aren’t into dressing up in fancy tights while body slamming your friends with electricity, you aren’t living life to the fullest!”
Should you be up for some madness, and don’t think that the upcoming RetroMania Wrestling will be able to provide it, then perhaps Action Arcade Wrestling will. We’ll be sure to keep you up-to-date with things as the Spring 2021 release on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4 and Nintendo Switch gets closer. For now, enjoy the trailer and hope for a Smackdown later in the year.
