The History of WCW/nWo Revenge
WCW/nWo Revenge is a professional wrestling game developed by Asmik Ace Entertainment and AKI Corporation and published by THQ for the Nintendo 64, released in North America on 26 October 1998 and in Europe on 30 November 1998. Hideyuki Iwashita, credited as Geta San, directed it.
It was the sequel to 1997's WCW vs. nWo: World Tour, and it surpassed that game in every direction its makers measured.
HOW IT WAS MADE
AKI Corporation and Asmik Ace, 1998Revenge kept the grappling system that had made World Tour a success, simple to learn and deep in what it allowed, and improved nearly everything around it: sharper graphics, wrestler entrances, authentic pay-per-view arenas, a costume editing feature, and weapons that could be pulled from the crowd. A championship mode gave the exhibition matches a spine, and the roster, real and fictional together, passed sixty wrestlers, with a 40-man Battle Royal among the modes.
The competition framed the year. Acclaim's WWF War Zone, carrying the rival promotion's license, slipped its schedule into 1998, and because Bret Hart and Davey Boy Smith had left the WWF in late 1997, both men appear in both companies' games. Revenge's loudest absence ran the other way: Ric Flair, then WCW's defining star, is not in the game, kept out by his contract dispute with WCW that year.
What the box promised, the cartridge kept. Reviewers singled out exactly the things AKI had chosen to deepen: gameplay, roster, atmosphere, controls, and four-player matches.
THE COVER
One box, one war
THE RELEASE
October 1998Revenge launched in North America on 26 October 1998, in the middle of the Monday Night Wars, and in its first month it was the second best-selling home console game in the United States, behind only Metal Gear Solid. Europe followed on 30 November 1998. The game quickly reached Player's Choice status.
HOW IT WAS RECEIVED
The scoresTHE SALES
Documented figuresBy the US Platinum chart's count, Revenge sold 1.88 million copies in the United States, ranking it among the best-selling Nintendo 64 games outright. IGN, writing in 1999, called it the best-selling wrestling game for the console, and at the time the top-selling third-party Nintendo game ever. The NPD Group ranked it the seventh best-selling video game of 1998 in the United States by units. THQ's own accounts credited it as heavily responsible for the company's profits in late 1998 and 1999.
WHAT IT LEFT BEHIND
The license changes handsRevenge was the last AKI-developed WCW game for the Nintendo 64, and its success rearranged the industry around it. The World Wrestling Federation, watching its rival's games outsell its own, ended its long relationship with Acclaim and signed with THQ. AKI's next Nintendo 64 game wore the WWF's colors, and it is the next door in this gallery.