AJ Styles believes modern wrestling video games have become overly complicated compared to the arcade-style titles many fans grew up with.
While speaking on the Phenomenally Retro Podcast, Styles and co-host Tony Giles discussed how today’s sports and fighting games often feature complex control schemes that can make them difficult for casual players to enjoy.
Giles explained that he hasn’t played modern wrestling games much in recent years, noting that the same issue has affected several sports titles.
“I haven’t really played a modern wrestling game for a long time now, but this goes the same for when Electronic Arts were doing Fight Night, UFC, NHL, and NBA,” Giles said. “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, pointing to his experience playing MMA games in the locker room with other wrestlers.
“Yeah, it’s always too much,” Styles said. “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.”
Giles added that even the basic mechanics can become confusing when games introduce multiple input variations for the same action.
“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 echoed the sentiment and admitted that the learning curve in modern wrestling titles — particularly the WWE 2K series — can be daunting for players who don’t regularly invest time mastering the mechanics.
“The more buttons you introduce, the harder a game is going to be to learn,” Styles said. “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.”
Styles even recalled participating in a gaming tournament where his lack of experience with the controls quickly caught up with him.
“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.”
