AJ Styles recently shared his thoughts on how modern wrestling video games have evolved, suggesting that the increasing complexity of their control systems can make them difficult for casual players to enjoy.
Speaking on the Phenomenally Retro Podcast alongside co host Tony Giles, Styles reflected on the differences between older arcade style games and the more detailed simulation style titles that dominate the market today. The conversation centered around how modern sports and wrestling games have added layers of controls and mechanics that, while offering depth, can also make the experience overwhelming for some players.
Giles kicked off the discussion by explaining that he has not spent much time with newer wrestling titles and feels the genre has become overly complicated compared to the games he grew up with.
“I haven’t really played a modern wrestling game for a long time now, but this goes the same for when EA were doing Fight Night, UFC, NHL, and NBA. I feel like it got too complicated with the control scheme. There was so much you could do. I preferred it when it was more arcade-style rapid button tapping and trying to pull off certain moves, rather than having to be a wizard using the controller.”
Styles agreed with that viewpoint and recalled how, when playing fighting games backstage with fellow wrestlers, they often avoided certain mechanics entirely because they were too difficult to learn quickly.
“Yeah, it’s always too much. I remember playing UFC with the boys in the locker room. We had no grappling just knockouts. That’s all we could do. If I played, that’s what I wanted to do, because the grappling is definitely much harder to grasp than throwing punches and kicks and stuff like that. It just got to the point where it was like, you hold the button and do a strong grapple, or you tap it and do a light grapple.”
Giles added that the timing based inputs and different button combinations sometimes made it difficult to even understand what action the game was registering.
“And it’s like, how do I know if I’m doing a hard or a soft grapple? How long do I hold the button for? It got to the point where I was like, this isn’t as fun as arcade-style wrestling or arcade-style fighting games. That’s my sweet spot.”
Styles also pointed out that the growing number of controls can become a barrier for players who are not already dedicated fans of the genre. In his view, the time required to truly learn modern wrestling games can discourage newcomers from even trying.
“The more buttons you introduce, the harder a game is going to be to learn. If you’re not a fan, you’re not going to be willing to spend that time in the lab getting better and taking hours to learn it. The new 2K games are too much for me. I don’t want to spend all that time. I did a tournament where a guy was going to wrestle me in a 2K game for a million dollars. I was like, ‘Guys, I don’t know how to play the game. I don’t know how to play the game.’ So he just murdered me because I didn’t know what I was doing.”
