Remember General Manager mode from the WWE SmackDown! vs Raw games? While not perfect, they gave fans the opportunity to live out their booking fantasies but also making them aware of the dangers and frustrations that come from managing a physically demanding show like wrestling is.
AEW Games remembers how fun those modes were, which is why they went and announced AEW Elite General Manager for mobile devices last year. Some gameplay clips aside, details on the AEW mobile game have been slim—until now.
During the AEW 2.Show, Kenny Omega and Brandon Cutler revealed a new gameplay trailer for Elite General Manager. Narrated by fan-favorite referee Aubrey Edwards, who has a hand in developing the game, she details some of the scenarios that players will go through while playing the game. Fans will be happy to know that a lot of the things they loved about General Manager mode from the SvR games have stayed intact here.
Using a dream match between Kenny Omega and Darby Allin as an example, she shows how putting two popular stars in a match together will be good for drawing fans. The player can also give the wrestlers power-ups to give them an advantage during the match, with Edwards giving Allin a sledgehammer to take down Omega. This works and helps Allin become a more popular superstar, just like it would in real life, minus the sledgehammer, because fans would bitch about that for days (unless Kenny brings it in first, then that’s his just desserts.)
Before ending the video Edwards goes on to point out that you have to be aware of the stamina of each wrestler, since overworking them can result in injury, which can take them off television for weeks, maybe even months. This is another detail that harkens back to those old games and it adds a sense of realism to the proceedings, which I can’t help but like.
The only unfortunate thing about the trailer was the lack of details on how to purchase it. We don’t know if AEW Elite General Manager will be a paid mobile game or a free-to-play title. Making it free-to-play would probably be the smarter option, though one has to wonder what they will do to make money and if they will lock any progress behind a paywall, which tends to happen in most F2P mobile games.
Developed by Crystalized Games, no release date for AEW Elite General Manager has been announced, as of this writing. The game will be coming to iOS and Android devices.
Images from AEW Games
Nico Parungo is a freelance contributor for Geeky PH and previously wrote for Epicstream. He provides weekly recaps of AEW Dynamite for Smark Henry and has contributed several reviews of PWR and MWF shows. When he isn't frustrated about the WWE, he's playing video games at home and is bugging his friends with glorious puns. He's new to the world of Twitter drama but is quickly getting hooked.
