March 18, 2009

GameZone Sits Down with Paul Edwards to Discuss WWE Legends of Wrestlemania
By: Steven Hopper

“They wanted something a little more easily accessible with a more “arcadey” feel, and we focused on that as an inspiration.”

Ask anyone who grew up in the 80’s, and you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who can’t name at least three pro-wrestlers from the period. Wrestlers like Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, and Sgt. Slaughter went beyond the conventions of the pro-wrestling industry to become cultural icons. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that THQ and the team behind the popular WWE: Smackdown vs. RAW franchise would want to revisit the period for their upcoming title, WWE: Legends of Wrestlemania.

WWE: Legends of Wrestlemania takes epic showdowns from Wrestlemania I through XV and allows players to recreate them or put their own spin on them. Additionally, the game takes the atmosphere and personality from the classic era and recreates it very successfully.

At a recent press event, GameZone was given the chance to sit down and talk with Paul Edwards, Senior Game Designer on the game, about its development.

The game focuses on a different period of wrestling (late 80s/early 90s) and Wrestlemanias I through XV, with bigger emphasis on gregarious caricatures and storylines. Why make a game about this period?

Paul Edwards: We went out and did a lot of focus testing at actual live wrestling events, and we asked fans of the SvR franchise and of wrestling in general of what kind of game would they be interested in the most outside of an SvR game. Time and time again, they came back with a game focused on this time period and on these guys in particular.

The controls have been changed quite a bit from the meticulous and complex feel of the Smackdown vs. RAW games to using only the face buttons. Why change the controls?

Paul: Smackdown vs. RAW is a simulation-type game, based on being able to recreate everything down to the minutest details. In our research, we found that a lot of the people who were asking for a “Legends” game weren’t having their needs suited by that type of game. Obviously, Smackdown has a devout following, and fans find it to be a game that suits a lot of their needs, but there was this whole different genre of wrestling fan that wasn’t that into the SvR gaming experience. They wanted something a little more easily accessible with a more “arcadey” feel, and we focused on that as an inspiration. Also, it tied in very well to the time period and the games of that era that were popular as far as wrestling games and their gameplay style, and we took that as a huge inspiration.

What can you tell us about the different game modes in Legends of Wrestlemania?

Paul: We have eleven match types that we support within the exhibition mode, and we also have two single-player portions of the game that are the Wrestlemania Tour mode where you can “Relive, Rewrite, or Redefine” iconic matches from past Wrestlemanias (1 through 15), and the Legend Killer mode where you create your own Legend and progress him.

As far as multiplayer goes, what kind of features have you implemented in the game?

Paul: We have four-player online support, all of the match types that we support in the game are multiplayer, but nothing too crazy new. All of the things that you’ve come to expect from an SvR title are in there.

A lot of the wrestlers within the game are quite iconic, so what did you guys do to capture the feeling of their likenesses?

Paul: With every wrestling title that we do, even in Smackdown vs. RAW, we try to do our due diligence and find out why characters were liked more than others and play off those reasons. You’ll notice in Legends of Wrestlemania that all of the animations are completely new, with a new game engine built from the ground up, and each personality is centered on what made them the most popular, and their most popular aspects. Their most popular outfits or character gimmicks that they had throughout their career and things like that are all there.

What kind of creative input did the WWE provide during the game’s development?

Paul: They ultimately have final approval on everything, but they’re very good at letting us do our thing. When they can help out, they interject and help out, like with the videos that we have before you enter a Wrestlemania event in the Wrestlemania Tour mode. They help us out in areas like that, but for the most part, they leave us be in our area and let us do what we do.

How much of an effort was made to recreate the classic venues in the game?

Paul: Painstaking [laughs]. When the developer of a game like our Yuke’s developer in Japan sit down and try to recreate an arena, like in Smackdown vs. Raw, they can go out to these events and take pictures of them and get reference images and things like that so their able to faithfully recreate it. But with something like this, we’re talking about set pieces and places that haven’t existed for twenty years, so it was hard gathering the research for them. That’s one of the areas where the WWE really did come in handy and help us out, since they have a lot of images and videos of these events that were never aired, that they actually allow the developers to use to help recreate each one of the arenas.

Was there any specific wrestler that you wanted to have in the game that was unable to include for whatever reason?

Paul: There were a ton. I assume that a lot of fans have a misconception where we handpick guys and throw guys out, but it’s really quite the opposite. Generally, the way the roster picking process works is we start with the most comprehensive list we could possibly get; we always ask for anyone you can possibly think of, and it’s up to our legal department, who goes through great lengths to get us all of those people, but for various reasons they can’t.

I know a lot of fans have asked for Randy “Macho Man” Savage; it’s not that we didn’t ask for him, it’s that for various legal reasons we weren’t able to get them. Even down to some of the earlier Wrestlemanias that had guys like Mr. T involved, we even wanted to get those guys in the game, not just the wrestlers, but for legal reasons we were unable to. It’s always kind of frustrating and disappointing when there’s someone you want to put in the game but you can’t because it’s beyond your control. But we did end up with a great roster, with a lot of great guys.

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