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2018/01

Fire Pro Wrestling World Arrives On PS4 This Summer With Official NJPW Roster

No need to recreate Kenny “The Cleaner” Omega or the IWGP champion Kazuchika Okada, because when Spike Chunsoft’s Fire Pro Wrestling World arrives on the PlayStation 4 this summer the game will feature the official New Japan Pro Wrestling roster.

The news comes courtesy of the official Fire Pro Wrestling World Twitter account, which broke the news following the announcement at the fan event for the upcoming NJPW Wrestling Kingdom.

This shouldn’t be too surprising for most fans because NJPW had announced back on December 26th, 2017 that they would revealing some big news regarding the NJPW brand and a video game announcement.

Many gamers had assumed two things: 1) That the game was going to be mobile because the last NJPW was for mobile devices due to their popularity over in Japan. 2) Many gamers were hoping that it wasn’t a mobile title but something for the PS4, since the PS4 is the leading console during this generation.

Thankfully, the results fall closer in line with number 2 than number 1. The good news is that officially licensed representations of the NJPW roster will make their debut in Spike Chunsoft’s Fire Pro Wrestling World when it launches on the PS4 in Japan and internationally this summer. The bad news is that it’s not a new 3D wrestling game that a lot of people had hoped would be coming featuring the New Japan Pro Wrestling brand.

At the end of the day, I don’t think many gamers will care too much that it isn’t a 3D title, given that it will help expose some of the NJPW guys to a broader audience through the expansive world of video games, featuring the real wrestlers, their actual moves, and the NJPW branding.

However, Spike Chunsoft would be wise to really ramp up the marketing so people outside the small niche corner of pro wrestling fandom will know about it. Their best bet would probably be to reach out to YouTubers in order to get them to cover the news and the updated gameplay content.

At the moment Fire Pro Wrestling World is available on Steam over on the Steam store.

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