One of the earliest wrestling games makes its long-awaited comeback this Spring.
After an extended absence from the gaming world, Japan’s long-running Fire Pro Wrestling is going back to basics with Fire Pro Wrestling World, announced this past weekend at GDC 2017. Where the unaffiliated 2012 “Fire Pro Wrestling” for the Xbox 360 relied on 3D visuals, the use of Xbox Live Avatars and button-mashing gameplay, the upcoming “official” installment will include the original timing-based grapple mechanics from the early Japanese-exclusive games, and 2D sprites and arenas.
Fire Pro Wrestling made its Japanese-exclusive PC Engine debut back in 1989. Despite its failure to to gain mainstream attention in North America, Human Entertainment’s strategic-wrestling simulator saw numerous installments across the PC Engine, Super Famicom, Arcade, Mega Drive, Game Boy Advance, WonderSwan, Sega Dreamcast, PS1, PS2 and more; the series finally saw its first overseas installment under Spike Chunsoft with 2001’s Fire Pro Wrestling for the Game Boy Advance.
The Fire Pro Wrestling series may hold some reverence among eclectic gamers, as “Suda51” Goichi Suda’s first project as a game developer was Super Fire Pro Wrestling 3 Final Bout.
Fire Pro Wrestling World will release in Q2 2017 through Steam Early Access first, followed by a PS4 release via PSN.
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