Kenny Omega is recognized as one of the best professional wrestlers in the world and currently holds the distinction of being one half of the AEW World Tag Team Champions, as well as an executive vice president for the company. At AEW’s latest pay-per-view event, Fyter Fest, Omega successfully defended his title on both nights of the event alongside his tag team partner Adam Hangman Page.
In addition to being a tag team champion and one of the best wrestlers on the planet, Omega is also well known for his avid love of anime, video games, and Japanese culture. The Canadian-born otaku recently served as a host at FunimationCon 2020 for a live My Hero One’s Justice 2 Esport challenge, and spoke with CBR ahead of the event, in which he provided an update on the highly anticipated official AEW video game.
“Oh, absolutely. Right now everything’s in a very preliminary phase,” said Omega. “I can’t talk too much about it, of course, because I really want to have something of material to show people when the time is right. And we’re working at such an incredible pace right now. I think maybe we’ll have something to show sooner than what people would expect. Not saying anything playable, but at least something to show people.”
When it comes to the gameplay, playability, and level of difficulty, Omega has a very specific vision for the game.
WWF No Mercy was as close to perfect as wrestling games have ever gotten.
“And for me, I believe there needs to be a sense of being in the ring, that you’re controlling your favorite wrestler or controlling your create-a-character,” said Omega. “But it’s not so much a simulation where the movements are slow. I want to recapture the sort of fun factor that we used to have back in the day, whether it be WWF WrestleFest, WWF No Mercy, WWF WrestleMania 2000, Virtual Pro Wrestling 1 and 2. I want a very simplified system that allows for pick up and playability. However, I want the moves and the structure of the game to be so crisp and the potential for it to be deep, to the point where you can have a match that actually resembles something of a pro wrestling match where the moves look the way they should, the characters move the way they should.”
“But at the end of the day, a game needs to be fun. I want a game where I can take my favorite character and do all of his moves and decimate my opponents. But I want to be able to call over a friend that never games and with a very simple explanation, I want him to be able to pick up a controller and be able to feel like he’s in control of his movements and his destiny as well. I don’t want people to take the literal words from this to assume what the game is going to be like. But one thing I appreciate in a fighting game, like Street Fighter, it’s got a very difficult entry barrier to play at a top level. It’s almost impossible. You can’t be a dude off the street and do it. It takes a lot of practice time and a lot of grinding. You have to be like a math magician on the spot to calculate frames and advantages and all that. When people assume control of their favorite wrestler or their latest creation, I want them to feel like it’s not difficult to do the moves they want to do. I want them to feel like they can perform the way they want to perform.”
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