I’m a huge wrestling fan. I have been since I was about 6 years old, watching WCW with Big Mama. Combine this with my love of video games and the N64 being my console of choice as a child — I had everything.
The N64 was home to a number of wrestling video games. Four of my favorites are: WCW vs NWO: World Tour, WCW/NWO: Revenge, WWF No Mercy, and WWF WrestleMania 2000. To me, these are the Four Horsemen of wrestling games.
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This leads me to a game I found out about a little over a year ago: Ultra Pro Wrestling. Developed by Hyperfocus Games with art from Hal Haney, this is a wrestling game for everyone who loved the N64 era of wrestling.
THE N64 ERA IS ALIVE AND WELL
My favorite things about Ultra Pro Wrestling is that it is unabashedly focused on replicating the look and feel of the N64 era. The trailer features perfect replications of not just the animations from those games but even some of the cinematics. It’s obvious Hyperfocus has an appreciation for these games and wants this to be a love letter to them.
You can see in the character models that there’s a focus on being true to the graphical style. Speaking of the characters, a number of them are really cool variations of real-life wrestlers. “Blue Collar” Bill Dollar is pretty clearly a “Stone Cold” Steve Austin callback. Rolla and Shake are the UPW versions of the legendary Harlem Heat with Booker T and Stevie Ray. There’s also a reference to the beloved AKI Man in the HFG Man character.
Hyperfocus is also making clear their love for wrestling as a whole through the “Free Agent” DLC. Through this, Hyperfocus has signed numerous legends to be in the game such as Bull Nakano and Jake “The Snake” Roberts. They’ve also locked in current-era stars like the current WWE Tag Team champions, the Motor City Machine Guns.
CREATE YOUR OWN Nintendo 64 ERA CLASSIC
That care and love goes into the gameplay and creation suite. There are currently plans for a career mode but also an online career mode with a livestreamed championship defense. In addition to that, Hyperfocus Games is working on an incredibly detailed and robust creation suite that will allow players to create almost any wrestler they can think of.
There’s an opportunity here to support an indie dev that’s putting everything into a project that highlights something many people loved. So far, things are coming together nicely for the game. I strongly recommend checking out the UPW Patreon to see more of what they’re about.
