What Are the Major New Features in Total Extreme Wrestling IX?

Total Extreme Wrestling IX brings several new features aimed at enhancing the player experience. Here are the key highlights:

What is the TEWverse and How Does It Impact Gameplay?

The TEWverse is an official fictional world introduced in TEW IX, providing a rich, pre-created universe for players to explore.

• Comprehensive World Building: The TEWverse offers a deeply detailed world filled with unique characters, promotions, and storylines crafted by the developers. This pre-defined universe sets the stage for immersive gameplay and player-driven narratives.
• Playable Promotions: Players can choose from 60 fictional wrestling promotions, each with its own style, roster, and challenges. This variety allows players to tailor their experience to their management style.
• Interconnected Storylines: The TEWverse includes complex relationships between characters and promotions, offering players dynamic storytelling opportunities.
• Modding Support: Players can still customize and expand the TEWverse using the robust modding community, allowing for the import and creation of custom content.

How Does the New User Interface Improve the Game?

TEW IX features a modernized user interface designed to improve accessibility and ease of use for both new and veteran players.

• Streamlined Navigation: The redesigned layout makes it easier for players to manage their wrestling promotions by providing quick access to key features like booking, financial management, and roster control.
• Customizable Dashboards: Players can tailor their dashboard to focus on specific metrics, allowing them to prioritize the information that matters most to their strategic decisions.
• Improved Visual Aesthetics: The clean and intuitive design enhances the overall user experience, making the game’s complex systems more approachable.

What Enhancements Have Been Made to the AI and Booking Logic?

TEW IX introduces significant improvements to the AI and booking logic, offering a more realistic and challenging experience for players.

• Advanced Booking Strategies: The AI now utilizes more sophisticated booking strategies, adapting to player actions and offering unpredictable challenges.
• Dynamic Card Building: The AI can create engaging wrestling cards that reflect the storylines and character arcs in the TEWverse, ensuring that every show feels unique and engaging.
• Competitive Rival Promotions: Opponent promotions are more competitive, requiring players to think strategically and outmaneuver their AI rivals in various aspects of promotion management.

How Does the New Financial System Work?

The financial system in TEW IX has been revamped to provide a more realistic approach to managing a wrestling promotion’s finances.

• Dynamic Revenue Streams: Players must navigate various income sources, including ticket sales, merchandise, TV rights, and sponsorships. Each revenue stream requires careful management to ensure profitability.
• Detailed Expense Tracking: The game now includes comprehensive expense management, where players must oversee costs such as wrestler salaries, production expenses, and venue fees.
• Sponsorship Opportunities: Players can negotiate and secure sponsorship deals that can significantly impact their financial standing and provide new opportunities for growth.

What Changes Have Been Made to the Match Engine?

The match engine in TEW IX has undergone significant changes to deliver a more authentic wrestling experience.

• In-Depth Match Ratings: Matches are evaluated using a comprehensive rating system that considers various factors such as match type, wrestler performance, crowd engagement, and storytelling elements.
• Expanded Match Types: TEW IX introduces new match types and stipulations, providing players with more options to create memorable events and storylines.
• Realistic Injury System: Wrestlers can suffer injuries during matches, affecting their availability and performance. Players must manage their rosters carefully to avoid long-term setbacks.

How Has Character Development Been Enhanced?

Character development in TEW IX has been expanded to offer more depth and complexity in managing wrestlers’ careers.

• New Attributes and Skills: Wrestlers now possess a wider range of attributes, such as stamina, psychology, and charisma, which influence their in-ring performance and fan appeal.
• Career Progression System: Wrestlers can develop their skills over time, allowing players to shape their careers and story arcs based on performance and training decisions.
• Relationship Dynamics: The game features more complex relationship dynamics between wrestlers, affecting storylines, alliances, and rivalries.

What Does the Comprehensive Tutorial System Offer?

TEW IX includes a comprehensive tutorial system designed to assist new players in understanding the game’s mechanics and systems.

• Step-by-Step Guides: The tutorial provides detailed guides on various aspects of gameplay, from booking matches to managing financials, helping new players get acclimated to the game.
• Interactive Learning: Players can engage in hands-on tutorials that allow them to learn by doing, providing practical experience in managing a wrestling promotion.
• Beginner-Friendly Approach: The tutorial system is structured to be accessible for newcomers, ensuring a smooth transition into the game’s complex strategic elements.

How Does Total Extreme Wrestling IX Compare to Previous Versions?

Total Extreme Wrestling IX builds on the strengths of its predecessors while introducing several new features and improvements. Here’s how it compares:

• AI and Booking Logic: The enhanced AI provides a more strategic challenge, offering intelligent booking decisions and adapting to player actions in real time.
• Storytelling and Character Development: The TEWverse and expanded character attributes offer deeper storytelling opportunities, allowing players to craft engaging narratives.
• Financial Management: The new financial system delivers a realistic approach to managing finances, requiring players to balance income and expenses strategically.
• User Interface: The redesigned UI enhances accessibility, making the game more approachable for both new and experienced players.

Total Extreme Wrestling IX offers a comprehensive and engaging wrestling management experience, with its array of new features and enhancements catering to both fans of the series and newcomers alike. The introduction of the TEWverse, modern UI, advanced AI, and realistic financial systems make it a significant addition to the wrestling simulation genre.

Whether you’re a long-time player or exploring the series for the first time, TEW IX promises an in-depth experience that challenges players to build, manage, and lead their wrestling promotions to success. With these enhancements, TEW IX stands out as a must-play title for wrestling enthusiasts and strategy gamers.

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But you can’t avoid change forever and sometimes it will hit you in the face at the full speed of light. Such is the case with Grey Dog Software’s new release, Total Extreme Wrestling 2020, or TEW 2020. The latest creation of developer Adam Ryland is the perfect example on how change can be this complex paradox that feeds of some kind of intrinsic duality that we possess as human beings. But you came here for a review, right? So, let’s get things going!

The main menu for TEW 2020, where the adventure begins.

The Game

The last time I wrote an Adam Ryland made game review, my big question was if TEW 2020 would be able to top WMMA5 or not. The question will finally be answered…and amidst lots of controversy. Between all of that lies an actual new game and the actual latest entry for the longest running wrestling booking text game series in history. But it wasn’t all smooth sailing, or sunshine and rainbows, this has become the most controversial entry in the series by far. Why? Because of change…

After clicking to create a new game, you get greeted by the new intros feature, that sums up the history of the world you are about to play, analyzing each region.

Beginning the game hasn’t changed drastically. As usual, you play in fictional CornellVerse, a very well done and balanced fictional universe (but modding and customizing is easy and there is a large online community for the game, so you will quickly find yourself booking WWE, for example, in present day or even past and alternative time realities, if you so wish) as either the head booker or owner of a wrestling promotion, which brings different layers of difficulty because your owner can and will block some of your decisions if you play as head booker, as well as give you goals to achieve. Or you can even start unemployed if you want to, while applying for a job in any promotion that is available and will take you. Your goal is only limited by your imagination. Obviously, as most people, you will want to book the best cards, the best events, the best shows and get the best matches ever. To get there you start you adventure by selecting a character and assigning them attributes that will define how well he/she deals with certain situations.

Selecting your user points will prove useful over time, as it may be the factor that can later open some much-needed options.

You can either assign those points, manually, select a template or try your luck with “lucky dip”, that will randomly choose your points, meaning you can actually get more than the default 30 ones, for example, but you can’t change whatever result you get from it. It adds some fun to the whole process.

From there on you will find many options and avenues to pursue, in your path to booking greatness. In this regard, TEW 2020 brings a plethora of new things that makes it both fun and the most complete game in the series, by far. But not everything is good news, such as almost always is the case with any game, because perfection is hard to achieve and TEW 2020 doesn’t get there, although it could have. The biggest setback you will have to face is a weird UI and some poor graphic choices that are purely and simply not attractive. The UI was far worse when the demo was released, and some slight improvements to the default skin made it much better, keeping the game with an actual interesting look, but there is still a lot to improve in the future.

The actual concept for the UI is pretty cool, but the execution could have been much better.

Looking at a worker’s quick view profile is enough to notice some of the shortcomings on the visual department. The space has been increased, which allows for so many good things, including the reduction of clicks necessary to access info and get things done, but it also shows a wasteland of unused space that could have been utilized to increase the font size for numbers and facilitate some of the game’s mechanics.

Notice that where there was the “popularity” section there is now an employment section when compared to the last image? Yes, you need to click the arrows in that square to access important things like contract details.

For example, if you are wondering, while looking at this screen, how to fire Brandon James, you need to click on those arrows where it says popularity and change to the “employment” section, as seen in the screen above. Confusing, but not a deal breaker. To change his picture, alter ego and other details, you need to click on his name in yellow, where it says “Brandon James is a 43 year old White American male wrestler.” And you should do it from the roster page, as clicking in his picture to access his full profile page seems to just make things weirder, harder or impossible to do. Another major drawback is that the game unnecessarily looks like a spreadsheet full of numbers, which doesn’t help into the immersion factor AT ALL, and the actual numbers on the game are usually too small. This includes the most important factor of the game, the show/segment scores. While WMMA5 had an actual great way to build immersion with its screens, well placed UI, show numbers, PPV figures, post and during events screens, TEW was never a game that had that type of immersion. That’s fine to an extent, it’s a different game, but one of the bigger immersion moments was happily booking your show and looking at the big show grades (now just numbers, period.) and the bigger fonts for mostly anything in previous versions were a must keep.

Passing days is quicker, better and more intuitive, and even the new screen with workers skills is a great quality of life improvement.

However, despite some of the clumsiness of the UI, the fact is that it does the job, allows for some interesting and fluid gameplay, and helps to set up the many great improvements to the game. And there are many. With “on the fly booking”, you can actually change your card while the show is happening. Very good to replace someone that got injured, for example, among many other things. The new gimmick system is undoubtfully spectacular, much more intuitive, and it stops the whole gimmick assignment process from being pointless and like a chore on a spreadsheet where you look for the best score. It is organic, intuitive and very fun to actually use. THAT is the kind of stuff that helps immersion.

The old and outdated “Push” system was replaced with what is now called “Perception” and it is a joy to watch. It allows for many new possibilities, such as simulating crowd organic rises to the top, just as Daniel Bryan’s or Becky Lynch’s, without the need to be always verifying the push of your workers or abusing the past feature to give more time to your jobbers.

The font for the show scores is not the best, but the remainder of the screen looks good and the new colors system becomse a very helpful tool.

You can now play as a developmental company, like NXT, or FCW in the past, and this was one of the most requested features for years. The AI is far smarter and aggressive, which is very good to see and when you finally get used to the UI, which doesn’t take that long, you realize the whole concept behind it. Change…evolution! And this makes the experience of playing TEW 2020 a wonderful thing and a massive improvement from its predecessors.

The Heart of the Matter

When the demo for TEW 2020 was released, Adam Ryland was faced with backlash, criticism and the closest you will ever get to an online riot. Mostly from a vocal minority of fans that probably will never be satisfied, regardless, but there were some valid criticisms in there. As a man that takes pride in his work, Ryland postponed the release of the game for the first time in his career and tackled all the issues he could (and is still doing so via patches) within the limits he had, meaning, without having to delay it for months and doing a full rewrite of the code. This made the game better and if he adds some QOL improvements, such as the ability to customize if a worker is retired or is a non-wrestler during a game, (this was also annoying on WMMA5, removing this option for the TEW series just removed an important element of playing the game in sandbox mode, which will hopefully be fixed soon) or stuff like instructions and aims to give to people when sending them to development to either train other workers or, well, develop, TEW 2020 will become an even greater game.

Trying to bring back Sull DeBones from retirement via the in-game editor? Not going happen…yet, at least!

The new “Talk to Worker” feature, ported from WMMA5 as well, may allow you to try and convince someone to get out of retirement (among many other things) and is a major improvement into the game, but the customization during a save game is something that should never be reduced, as it allows those of us who love to play the game as a sandbox to have much needed freedom. I can’t list all of the new stuff that was added for TEW 2020, as it would take ages, but I listed most of the downsides on this review. When that happens, it means that you are playing a great game, one where the pros far exceed the cons, one that is visibly the best entry in the TEW series so far.

And when you look deeply into it, you finally realize that this game was all about changing and evolution. Changing it for the best, preparing the bright new future that can lie ahead for the series, because Adam Ryland continues to be the developer that listens to his fanbase, as he has always done and continues to do, instead of being like many other developers that ignore their players, copy and paste the same stuff every year for some quick cash grab, and get way with it. In that regard, TEW 2020 is a 10/10 game. It brings immediate change, while also setting the possibility of a bright future.

The many wonderful options of the talk to worker feature are a great improvement in the series.

Overview

In a time and age where alternatives for the wrestling booking genre are being both rumored AND announced, TEW 2020 is a masterfully executed game that fully cements the series as the gold standard of text management sims. The UI isn’t the best at first glance, and it is not perfect, but with time it starts making sense, like some things in WMMA5 did with time, like having to hover over a line to see someone’s weight limits. Hard to catch at first, but very helpful and intuitive. There is room for improvement, as with any game, but TEW 2020 is simply a wonderful game.

The fact that there was some controversy over its demo just shows how passionate the fanbase is, and how we all sometimes take change too personally and resist it at all costs. But in the end…we need to continue changing. Yes, change takes time before it takes place, but when it actually happens and it is positive, as in this game, it is such an amazing thing to watch. Adam Ryland succeeds in yet another release, despite severe obstacles that were thrown in his direction. He only needs to remember that sometimes “more is actually more” and that small QOL stuff should be added from version to version, not removed, and that graphics/UI are very important to help in the game immersion, and he will be fine.

The addition of attributes to workers is one of the many exciting additions to TEW 2020.

And as we approach the end of this review, we go back to the original question that was in the air: “Can TEW 2020 top WMMA5?” Yes. Most of the time it will do so in its own great gaming experience. But to top it overall, it still needs some improvements. And the entire rewrite was a step in that direction. But for now, it at least reaches the same territory of quality. Which in itself is great news.

In the overall, the editing/customization options have been increased and improved. The series continues to have a massive following, considering its niche status, and the online playing is limitless, branching to dynasties, videos, fantasy leagues, and so on. The actual engine for the game was vastly improved and the game flows and plays better, as well as faster. The replay fun factor is, as always, endless, as there is no end goal for the simulation, no game over, which means imagination is your limit and you can set your own objectives. And after several hours, you will notice that you will want to add more and more hours to your play time.

Your office, where all the magic happens and/or is prepared.

Change takes time before it takes place. This an unwritten rule of life, so if you are not willing to accept it, you might get left behind. Adam Ryland embraced change and tackled his biggest endeavor so far. And it paid off. At the end of the day, TEW 2020 is a success.

Official Download for Total Extreme Wrestling 2020

As for us, we will meet again soon when I bring you my review of Pro Cycling Manager 2020. Which I think is also a first time for GM Games. Look at the evolution, look at the growth, look at how GM Games continues to expand so well. That takes time…and it also takes change.

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Total Extreme Wrestling 2020 Features

TEW2020 takes all the best bits from the previous games in the series and adds well over 250 brand new features and changes. These includes fan-favorite additions like the ability to play as another company’s developmental league, on-the-fly booking, a brand new realistic finance system, enhanced “fast advance” mode, and the all-new attribute system which allows wrestlers to be given tremendous depth of character.

In this version, Grey Dog Software has completely taken the game apart, rewritten the underlying architecture, and then put each feature back in one-by-one, revamping and upgrading as he went along. The end result is that while you’re still going to recognize the game as being part of the TEW series, it’s effectively a much sharper, quicker, more intuitive, better quality piece of work.

Here are some features in the new version:

• • New contract structure, ticket pricing process and merchandising plans.
  • Attendance levels are now directly impacted by the star names on a show and a much more streamlined match booking approach.
  • Playing as child companies. This mode works in the same way as running a normal company, except that the player must deal with several extra challenges in dealing with the parent company (development workers, call workers up, fire workers, and the parent blocking certain actions).
  • TEW2020 is going to be at a 1366×768 resolution ,which means that it’s physically wider than previous games.
  • Feature on-the-fly booking for the first time. This means that when you’re running a show you can “drop out” of the live event and back to the booking screen whenever you like.
  • Each event can be given an intent; this tells the game how it is being promoted to the fans and what its aim is. The four levels are Normal (like prior versions), Lesser, Tour, and Throwaway.
  • Attributes will be making their debut in 2020. Attributes are essentially tags that can be assigned to workers to give them specific quirks or abilities.
  • Experience for each worker has been added. Experience affects a worker’s in-ring performance; the more experienced a worker is, the better he is able to cope with problems and mistakes when they happen. This also allows workers to mitigate poor booking.
  • Comes with a detailed editor that allows you to alter any aspect of the game world. Edit existing worlds or create your own!
  • New feature which turns a save game directly into a new database. It’s located in the Options menu (right above the existing button to make an MDB file). The resulting database then works like any other mod – you can edit it via the main editor, use it to launch new games, etc.

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