History of Wrestling Games

Written by GT Staff  on August 18, 2006

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32-bit Era: Wrestling's Modern Age
Wrestling games hit the 32-bit generation immediately and set down a path towards the modern-day grappler. One month after the Sony PlayStation hit shelves in 1995, the new console got an arcade-perfect port of WrestleMania: The Arcade Game, with a Saturn version releasing roughly the same time. A year later, in 1996, Acclaim took the core concepts of its predecessor with the baffling WWF: In Your House for PS and Saturn. Playing exactly like WrestleMania: The Arcade Game, IYH kept the action in the ring, but instead of arenas, you were placed in themed locations, like The Dungeon for Bret Hart, a fancy mansion for Hunter Hearst-Helmsley (better known as Triple H), and a royal locale for the late, great Owen Hart, who was still rolling with the King of Harts gimmick. Without question IYH was the most unusual wrestling game of the time, though it wasn't particularly good either. But without any competition from other publishers it was the best we could get - but not for long.

Surprisingly, the first legitimate wrestling title was one that lacked any sort of license. In the same year as In Your House, Activision released Power Move Pro Wrestling, based upon the same engine that would eventually become WWF Smackdown. There were no real wrestlers or federations present (as opposed to the Japanese version which had real stars from New Japan Pro Wrestling), but instead 12 fabricated characters such as The Commandant, Chaingang (who was released from prison to fight), and a Sting look-alike, amongst others. Not only was this the first real 3D wrestling game to come out in the US, it also was the most realistic at the time despite that lack of a license. Every character had a set of moves far beyond anything previously and though it was light on features, it was a far more enjoyable wrestler than its WWF competition.

In 1997, it was WCW's time. Seeing how popular the federation had become in the wake of the NWO angle, which spearheaded the 2nd major spike in popularity for the business and the first since the earliest days of WrestleMania, it was time for Ted Turner's 'rasslin' to take center stage in videogame form. On PlayStation, WCW Vs. The World (published by THQ) hit stores with the largest set of playable characters ever. Along with a bunch of real WCW stars, the game gave you dozens of extra wrestlers, most of which carried fake names but anyone who was serious about wrestling could pick out how closely many of them resembled real international stars. The 3D gameplay was a bit more refined than Power Move, though it definitely needed some fine tuning that would come down the line in the lineup of WCW wrestlers on the Nintendo 64, which at the time hadn't yet seen a grappler in its brief time on the market.

The first game made by AKI on the Nintendo 64 was WCW vs. NWO: World Tour. Essentially, the game used an existing Japanese wrestling game engine and slapped some new artwork on it; the kicker was that most in the U.S. had never seen a truly 3D wrestling game up until this point. It was indeed amazing, at the time, to see full-on 3D polygonal characters that animated fluidly when executing the various moves of professional wrestling. Since the game had heavy Japanese roots, the move selection was diverse and interesting and included various planchas, moonsaults, suplexes, and high-impact aerial attacks. As said before, the WCW/NWO license was nothing more than window dressing; the characters were moderately recognizable, but their moveset was only accurate to a certain degree. For instance, Kevin Nash, a WCW star at the time, had his basic selection of power moves (including his finisher, the "jackknife" powerbomb), but he also had some submissions and supplementary moves that only a more agile competitor could execute. Regardless of the odd use of license, this title was still heavily addicting and provided a taste of what 3D wrestling was all about.

THQ followed up those games with WCW Nitro in early 1998 for the PlayStation and, later on, the Nintendo 64. At its time, Nitro featured the most wrestlers from one federation ever, with its massive lineup of WCW stars (some who are still big names in current-day wrestling), from top draws like Hogan all the way down to the mid-card scrubs - complete with amusing "pick me" taunts on the player select screen. While Nitro had a nice feature set, the game also possessed some stiff, troublesome gameplay that made matches a chore to play. Regardless of this fact, the game was still a big seller.

In the summer of 1998, Acclaim made their WWF comeback after a year off with WWF War Zone for the PS and N64. Featuring the white-hot Stone Cold Steve Austin on the cover, War Zone was a return to the form of old for Acclaim, bringing wrestling back to the forefront instead of silly gimmicks that In Your House demonstrated in 1996. It was far more complicated than previous titles, with multiple button presses just to execute simple moves, but it was far better than past WWF entries in this era. What makes War Zone memorable, however, was its Create-a-Wrestler setup. It was somewhat basic, allowing you to create plenty of fictional and real characters, but it began a standard that is one of the main reasons why wrestling games are so popular to this day.

Once AKI got the time to fully implement the WCW license, they released WCW/NWO Revenge. This 1998 title added much more of the WCW style into the game, complete with many more characters, additional non-combatant personalities (valets, managers, etc.), and some authentic WCW venues (Halloween Havoc, Monday Nitro, and so on). The game engine was refined much further for this release, and the use of additional moves specific to the respective WCW wrestlers really made the action much more authentic. One of the most memorable modes was the Battle Royal, as this allowed you to participate in an over-the-top-rope elimination match (not quite, as you could chuck guys through the ropes). This mode provided some frantic action with up to four characters being on the screen at the same time. Nothing was more entertaining than clobbering some poor sap with a clothesline and watching him sail out of the ring. The game was not perfect, by any stretch, but it did start to draw up the blueprints of what AKI and THQ would eventually do with the game engine in the future.

1999 is best seen as a year of transition all across the board. THQ put out a sequel to WCW Nitro, with WCW/NWO Thunder for PlayStation, which played the exact same way, only a whole lot slower and clunkier than previously imagined. Acclaim followed up War Zone with WWF Attitude, a game that was more revered for its depth than its gameplay, which was even more plodding than War Zone and not nearly as fluid. However, thanks to a deep Create-a-Wrestler, Attitude set the bar for customization, and it seemed a whole lot of people were playing just to create their own stars. Attitude featured one special trait: it was the first wrestling game for the Sega Dreamcast, though it was little more than a high-res version of the game you could have played for PlayStation and Nintendo 64 a few months earlier.

The biggest story of the year was the shifting of licenses. After over 10 years with Acclaim, the WWF inked a deal with THQ. The WCW license, which had been in THQ's hands for just a few years, went to Electronic Arts. Acclaim wasn't about to be left in the cold, so they took the extreme route, acquiring the rights to make wrestling games for now-defunct Extreme Championship Wrestling. The fruits of their labor were immediately evident; in late 1999, EA released WCW Mayhem, for N64 and PlayStation. It was a step back from those great Aki N64 games, but it was steps ahead of the Nitro/Thunder games. The game was fast, fluid, and designed in a way that put momentum over a mere health bar, if you wanted to pull off the finishing maneuvers. In EA fashion, the game had plenty of depth, and had some cool unique features like quests for all of WCW's title belts, and an underutilized pay-per-view setup where punching in a code would let you play out real WCW matches in-game.

Aki and THQ combined for the release of WWF WrestleMania 2000. This game used the upcoming pay-per-view of the same name to center its career storyline. As either a created superstar or an official WWF grappler, your task was to go through the various weekly shows (RAW, Smackdown!, Sunday Night Heat) and compete in single, tag, and gimmick matches to prove yourself. Eventually, you would get a shot at some of the pay-per-view events and this would build towards a potential title match at WrestleMania 2000. Many WWF superstars were included for this game, and most of the show and pay-per-view arenas and stages were present (the one omission was the official WrestleMania 2000 stage, as that pay-per-view hadn't actually happened). The Story mode did have some wacky match booking that didn't jive with much logic, but actually most of what seemed illogical at the time has since come to pass in the new age wrestling landscape. Create-a-wrestler was a big part of this title and it didn't skimp on the choices; creating a grappler could take a couple of hours if you really wanted to get your moves down right. Some of the gimmick matches might have been missing from this game (many of which would appear in future wrestling titles), but it still packed a punch with its Career mode and four-player action.

In early 2000, THQ released WWF Smackdown exclusively on PlayStation. The game has become the standard bearer for modern wrestling games and also the single most popular wrestling franchise. Featuring a huge list of wrestlers and a decent create-a-wrestler system (though far from the quality of the Acclaim CAW engine), it was backed up by a simple but fast-paced gameplay engine. No longer did you have to press five buttons to do a headlock, and thanks to the 'Smackdown' meter, you didn't have to worry about confusing commands to pull off finishing moves. It was really a breath of fresh air after two very complicated and sluggish Acclaim WWF games. Though it was a first try, it demonstrated the roots of the 'Madden' of wrestling franchises.

Also in this timeframe, Acclaim puked out their initial ECW game, ECW Hardcore Revolution, which hit on the PS1, N64, and Dreamcast. Much to the disappointment of the rabid ECW fan base, this 'extreme' grappler was nothing but WWF Attitude with different wrestlers and a couple thrown-in game modes like barbed-wire matches. It wasn't exactly extreme. It at least had the CAW system in place. Though the next-generation was upon us during that time, the wrestling action mostly stayed to the current generation in the latter part of that year. Acclaim tried again with ECW Anarchy Rulz, but even the changes done to this PS1 and Dreamcast game didn't do any good, and thus was the very last ECW game released, suffering the same fate as the promotion itself would.

Not to be forgotten, EA released their second (and ultimately last) WCW game, in the bizarre WCW Backstage Assault. Clearly not learning the lessons of disasters like WWF In Your House, Backstage Assault had no ring to speak of. All the action took place backstage, letting wrestlers use all the makeshift weapons to their hearts' content. It was strange, to say the least. At a point, this game was going to hit the PlayStation 2, but it was quietly canceled after the game bombed, and ultimately WCW was bought out by the WWF in 2001.

However, while those games were quite forgettable, neither WWF game suffered the same fate, and one of them became perhaps the best wrestling game made: WWF No Mercy. Not only did this game improve upon all previous THQ/AKI releases, but it also channeled all of its predecessors' successful elements into one game. The gameplay in the AKI Nintendo 64 titles had been solid all along, but WWF No Mercy showed that there was still a great deal of room to grow. Reversals were now used effectively more than ever, and many animations were added to display specific reversals that were tailored to very unique moves. Features like increased submission tactics, knockouts, turnbuckle interaction, and weapons from the crowd really helped center the gameplay and kept it squarely in the wrestling world.

Many remember this title specifically for its insanely fun ladder match; this mode allowed up to four grapplers to duke it out and try and climb a ladder to grab a belt hanging high above the ring. This was certainly one of those game experiences that just had the "it" factor, as you could do all manner of moves with the ladder - jump off it, use it as a weapon, slam others onto it - and the constant jockeying for advantage between the combatants created some truly memorable sequences. The career mode and create-a-wrestler in this title were also fleshed out, and they were fine tuned for their usability and interface. The career allowed for branching storylines, and you could progress differently based on the many choices you had to make. The creation features were much more robust, and it still took a large chunk of time to fine-tune your grappler and all of his moves. AKI and THQ came through big with WWF No Mercy, and it is still considered a benchmark to which all other wrestling titles are judged.

Along with No Mercy, WWF Smackdown 2 also released, with an improved roster, a monstrous career mode, and an Acclaim-topping CAW engine. However, it wasn't really much different in the gameplay department and actually felt more like an expansion pack. But it was good, and all rejoiced.