In the late 90s and early 2000s, professional wrestling was at the peak of its popularity. The Monday Night Wars were in full swing, and some of the industry's biggest stars ever were in the spotlight. This era is also when professional wrestling video games were arguably at their best as well, with WWF No Mercy in particular remembered as one of the best pro wrestling video games ever made. Both pro wrestling and video games have changed dramatically since then, but one new game looks to recapture the magic of titles like WWF No Mercy, and that's Wrestling Empire.
Wrestling Empire wears its WWF No Mercy inspiration on its sleeve, most obviously by mimicking the dated art style of that game. It wouldn't look out of place on the Nintendo 64, and while that means Wrestling Empire is full of janky animations and laughably outdated textures, it lends a certain charm to the game. And even though Wrestling Empire is bowling shoe ugly (as legendary commentator Jim Ross would put it), it makes up for it by maintaining a high frame rate. The actual Wrestling Empire gameplay is incredibly smooth, even when players overload the ring with 30 wrestlers at one time.
Since Wrestling Empire is not an officially licensed WWE or AEW game, the roster doesn't include any actual real world wrestlers. However, it does have hundreds of parody wrestlers that are effectively the same as their real-world counterparts, both in terms of looks and wrestling style. Instead of John Cena, there's Jimi Sierra. Instead of Kazuchika Okada, there's Reign Maker. Stone Cold Steve Austin is Redneck Rosteen, Sting is Vulture, Hulk Hogan is Hal Coogan, and the list goes on. So while players may not necessarily find their actual favorite wrestler on the roster, they will almost certainly find their Wrestling Empire equivalent.
Like many other pro wrestling video games, Wrestling Empire has an extensive Editor that players can use to change up the roster how they see fit. Using this editor, Wrestling Empire players could change the names of the parody wrestlers so that they match their real world counterparts, though doing so would be a rather laborious process considering the sheer number of wrestlers available. Wrestling Empire's deep roster is impressive, and it's sure to appeal to pretty much any professional wrestling fan.
Wrestling Empire's roster is separated into distinct wrestling promotions, all of which reflect real world promotions. While well-known American wrestling promotions like WWE are represented, some Mexican promotions are also parodied in the game, as is New Japan Pro Wrestling. This means that Wrestling Empire's roster should appeal to both casual fans of professional wrestling, as well as those who are deeply invested in the industry and watch more than sports entertainment-style wrestling.
Players could spend hours in Wrestling Empire customizing the wrestlers, but the game's suite of customization options extend well beyond the fighters. Players can also freely edit the arenas they're fighting in, changing up the location, switching the ring rope colors, and even determining the crowd size. Hilariously enough, players can even get rid of the live crowd entirely and replace the spectators with WWE Thunderdome-style digital screens, as seen on current WWE television while the company deals with COVID-19 restrictions. So while Wrestling Empire's graphics make it look dated, it's definitely a wrestling game built for 2021.
Having all these editing tools and a massive roster of wrestlers doesn't mean much if the in-ring action doesn't back it up, though that's where Wrestling Empire admittedly stumbles quite a bit. While it perfectly emulates the art style of classic wrestling games, it doesn't really play like the games it emulates. There may be some method to the madness, most of the time the actual wrestling is pure chaos. Sometimes grappling an enemy results in a slam, other times that same exact input sees an opponent thrown into the ropes. Counters seem to happen for no rhyme or reason, and submission holds occasionally last an absurd amount of time. Sometimes it works perfectly, other times it's a complete mess.
Wrestling Empire's wrestling is too sloppy and unpredictable for players to really get into it, and it becomes very repetitive in a short amount of time. It also doesn't help that, while there's technically a lot of different match types to choose from, they all boil down to being basically the same. There are standard wrestling matches, Royal Rumble rules, tag matches, weapon matches, and cage matches. Each of these different match types have their own variants that players can choose from, and players are always free to tweak the rules how they see fit, but they're all still basically the same experience. Wrestling game staples like ladder matches are missing, and so players may lose interest with the in-ring action quicker than expected.
Something else that hurts Wrestling Empire's longevity is its lack of online multiplayer options. While Wrestling Empire makes clever references to modern wrestling trends like the aforementioned Thunderdome and even All Elite Wrestling owner Tony Khan, its lack of online multiplayer makes it feel dated. Local multiplayer for up to four players is an option, and while that can be great fun, a game like this launching in 2021 without online multiplayer seems like a massive missed opportunity.
With no online multiplayer and repetitive core gameplay, Wrestling Empire fans may get bored of the game quick, but there is one mode that may very well keep them coming back for more. Wrestling Empire's Career mode takes another page out of WWF No Mercy's playbook, allowing players to change the course of their career through decisions they make and how they perform from one show to the next. Players can accept or decline offers to be in tag teams, sign a contract with one of the game's many fictional wrestling companies, and more. This mode also becomes tedious after awhile, but it at least offers some structure beyond playing random exhibition matches.
Wrestling Empire is repetitive and its lack of online multiplayer is disappointing. However, it has one of the deepest rosters in the history of wrestling games, and despite modeling itself after a game that's over 20 years old, still manages to perform better than some modern day wrestling games that have much bigger budgets. If nothing else, it's something to keep pro wrestling fans busy while they wait for the next WWE 2K or the upcoming AEW video game.
Wrestling Empire is out now for PC and Switch. Game Rant reviewed the game on Switch.
