Do you remember playing WWE Legends of WrestleMania and WWE All Stars and going “hey, I wish there was these two games were part of a trilogy and that the third game was kind of like what would happen if you mixed of Super Smash Bros. and professional wrestling”?
Ok, so that probably didn’t happen. But according to this really interesting story released by WWE on Friday, there was an idea for a game called WWE Brawl (you may remember seeing the trailer before the game got canceled). It sounds like an interesting idea, as WWE superstars and divas fought each other in various settings outside of a wrestling ring like subway platforms.
WWE teamed up with THQ on the game, which was supposed to be released in 2012. It was set in the fictional Brawl City, here is a general synopsis for the game:
Loosely, the in-game story took on a Street Fighter-like plot, revolving around versions of John Cena, Kelly Kelly, Triple H and others as they fought their way through a grand conspiracy perpetrated by a fictionalized big boss version of Mr. McMahon, who was possibly working with a villainous version of WWE Hall of Famer Edge.
The story itself experienced constant revisions throughout the process, and remained unsettled when production of WWE Brawl ceased in 2012. However, the general direction for each Superstar story remained true from the early going.
“In short, the WWE Universe would be transplanted into its own fictional world focused around [Brawl City], its own fictional metropolis,” Rushbrook said via email. “The Superstars would have their own identity and life in that city (in line with their WWE personas) — jobs, histories and all that. Conflicts would arise and there would be fights.”
Additionally, the various characters in the game were super mocked up versions of WWE’s various in-ring competitors. You can check out a few of them right here, but they really did a good job making everyone look like themselves only like 10,000 times more fictional (especially Triple H, who looks like Jaime Lannister with a beard, and Big Show, who doesn’t really have knees).
As for why the game was canceled, well, no one really knows. The story blames “bad timing, an unsteady global economy and the sheer difficulty in producing a game of this magnitude,” and says that the game was about six to 12 months away from being completed when the plug was pulled.
One of the animators who worked on the game said “It was a shame that it never saw the light of day.” Do you agree?
(via WWE.com)
