Some people may not know but AEW referee Aubrey Edwards was also a video game developer prior to working for All Elite Wrestling. She worked for 10 years on the design side of gaming for four different video game companies including Nintendo, Xbox, Sony, PC, and mobile. Her last job involving virtual reality headsets.
Behind the scenes, Edwards has a project manager role with AEW. Working on things like the official All Elite Wrestling rule book and anything else she can help the company with.
During an appearance on the Talk is Jericho podcast, Edwards revealed she is actively working on a AEW video game.
“we’re very very early on. There’s a lot of things that we’re talking about. I talk to Kenny [Omega] a lot about what he wants out of it. It’s definitely a ways out, I’m not going to put a number on it because I don’t want the internet to get mad at me.”
Aubrey Edwards mentioned the game having Create-a-Character features and in-game interaction elements.
“It really comes down to what people want like Create-A-Characters are really important because people like having that creativity aspect or if there’s a character that’s not in a game they want to recreate it. Like people are making AEW roster people in other wrestling games. There’s a lot of Painmaker characters. People like to be in charge of their own universe and that’s the thing I really enjoy about making video games. It’s unlike any other media, a lot like wrestling where it’s escapism but interactive. It’s like going to a movie but you’re controlling what the actors are doing.”
She goes on to talk about the pressure of creating the first AEW Video Game.
“The AEW game has to kick ass there’s a lot of expectations for it. People are waiting to here stuff and I’m not going to be the one to say it, I don’t know what I can say.”
On her experience in the gaming
“I’ve been a lead on a mobile game that has a localization team in Montreal that has a QA team in Burbank that has a Japanese publisher and I’m the one coordinating meetings. It’s stuff that I’m used to and I understand the pitfalls people are going to run into and the I know the questions that needs to be asked that’s going to save us millions of dollars down the line.”
A great Pro Wrestling video game could be a great drawn for the younger WWE audience to potentially jump ship. Having a fun game and getting to know the roster is a great way to bring in new fans.
