While professional wrestling is noted for its on-screen theatrics and melodrama, it's also equally fascinating in the way that backstage exploits shape the outcomes of the show. In the world of simulation games, the prospect of running a pro wrestling company and helping it thrive has quietly become one of the industry's most interesting genres.

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These wrestling sim games have leaned into the less exposed parts of wrestling, such as the backstage politics and booking of matches that take center stage. Coming into prominence with the Total Extreme Wrestling games, which began with Extreme Warfare Revenge, the genre is full of great contenders, like Promotion Wars, and it has even found its way into the officially licensed WWE games in the form of GM Mode. This addictive and satisfying concept has made for some truly outstanding games, as the best ones put players right in the middle of professional wrestling's most volatile and dramatic environments.

5 Pro Wrestling Sim

This Impressive Wrestling Sim Is An Early Access Highlight

  • Platform: PC
  • Developer: Pro Wrestling Sim
  • Release Date: March 29, 2021

Pro Wrestling Sim entered Early Access on Steam in 2021 and has become one of the genre's most overlooked entries, as it combines the slick menu design and depth of hockey and football management sims with the world of Sports Entertainment. With the wrestling sim genre having been codified for the most part, Pro Wrestling Sim has been able to forge its own identity by taking advantage of what the bigger name games miss out on.

Worker contracts feel more flexible, as players can allow wrestlers to take indie dates and expand their abilities outside the scope of the promotion. Pro Wrestling Sim feels somewhat more restrained in the backstage drama and conflicts, playing with a bit more of a measured look at the world of wrestling. Even so, it's a fantastic game that will hopefully be even better when it leaves Early Access.

4 Journey Of Wrestling

This Browser-Based Text Wrestling Sim Is Worth Diving Into

  • Platform: PC
  • Developer: Clean Bean Studios
  • Release Date: June 5, 2024

Journey of Wrestling is a text-based web game that features a clean, simple UI and an easy-to-learn system. That's all surface-level, however, as Journey of Wrestling is a deceptively deep game that features numerous ways for players to put their mark on the game's original universe of workers and promotions.

The game also offers scenarios, ones with engaging set-ups like saving a floundering promotion and turning it into a WWE-style juggernaut. It features a brisk tutorial that makes getting into its in-depth world much easier. Journey of Wrestling offers local multiplayer to compete against friends, and is a great entry point into the world of pro wrestling simulation games.

3 Promotion Wars

A Legendary Pro Wrestling Sim That Is Still Going Strong Over Twenty Years Later

  • Platform: PC
  • Developer: Adam Jennings
  • Release Date: 1999

Promotion Wars dates all the way back to 1999, during the height of the ratings battle between WWF and WCW known as the Money Night Wars. It was called Wrestling Federation Manager back then, but has since evolved into one of the genre's most celebrated sims. Due to Promotion Wars being free-to-play from the beginning, it features real-life promotions and wrestlers, and is constantly being updated and improved.

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The different data packs offer wonderfully unique experiences, as players can either start in the modern day with all the glitz and glamor of the current professional wrestling scene, or go back in time to align themselves with either the WWF or WCW. The consistent updates, outstanding UI design, and bevy of options, as well as the fact that it's been free for over twenty years, is a testament to the passion that creator Adam Jennings has for the project.

2 Extreme Warfare Revenge

The Beginning Of Modern Wrestling Sims

  • Platform: PC
  • Developer: Adam Ryland
  • Release Date: June 15, 2002

Beginning its development as a card game based on pro wrestling, then evolving into a simple, text-based game, Extreme Warfare Revenge took it to the next level with its 2002 release by introducing new features and a now iconic UI. Where previous versions of Extreme Warfare relied on random generation of match results and angles, Revenge was built on allowing a deeper, far more customizable experience based around the player doing it the way they want.

Workers, and the events surrounding player interaction with them, are much improved, as they feel more like real people, each of them with their own personality. Asking someone like The Undertaker or The Rock to take a sick bump will be met with resistance, while players can easily use those same methods to build up lower level workers. EWR also includes in-game websites that keep up with the history and events that the player produces. It's an altogether excellent game that birthed the modern wrestling sim as it exists today.

1 Total Extreme Wrestling 2020

The Peak Of Professional Wrestling Simulation Games

Total Extreme Wrestling 2020
Display card tags widget
Simulation
Strategy
Display card system widget
Display card community and brand rating widget Display card open critics widget Display card main info widget Display card main info widget end Display card media widget start Display card media widget end
Checkbox: control the expandable behavior of the extra info
Display card community and brand rating widget

Released
June 1, 2020
Platform(s)
Microsoft Windows
Developer
Grey Dog Software
Publisher
Grey Dog Software
Genre(s)
Simulation, Strategy

Over the years, Total Extreme Wrestling has emerged as a dominant force in the sim genre, and is easily the best way for players to experience owning their own wrestling promotion. With the 2020 iteration, developers Grey Dog Software curated all the best features from previous games and introduced a whole host of new ones. The menus are snappy and responsive, a crucial point in a game about navigating between pages quickly, and the relationship that players can forge with workers is truly outstanding.

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Asking a worker to promise to put a young talent over adds some real personality to the whole affair, and the booking screen is as sharp as ever. It is easily the best wrestling sim of all time, and the modding scene is a key highlight. Community made mods offer chances to steer contemporary wrestling history with WWE and AEW, as well as offering historical scenarios like controlling ECW through the 1990s boom period and trying to take on the corporate entities of WCW and WWF. It's a fantastic package, and one that can become truly addictive in its breadth and customization.

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