For those out there who care, another casualty in the mismanagement of THQ has been revealed but it may be a good or bad scenario for those who love action set within the squared circle. Announced last year in an unexpected fashion was WWE Brawl, a fantasy based entry in the long running WWE series THQ has produced for well over a decade.
The tone of Brawl was one that was a bit odd since it saw wrestlers such as Triple H forgo their already big personalities in favor of becoming fantasy characters fitting for a cartoon or movie. THQ never openly discussed WWE Brawl at all after it was revealed by the WWE, but it was believed the game was in the works by THQ San Diego. Well I have bad news for you wrestling fans out there as WWE Brawl has been given the John Morrison treatment with a future endeavor i.e. it’s cancelled.
There are a lot of things we don’t know about WWE Brawl but thanks to someone who decided to tip off the folks over at Polygon we have our first and perhaps only details on the project. Despite what was believed to be the case, THQ San Diego wasn’t developing Brawl as the Aussie based Blue Tongue Studios were instead handling the project. I don’t know what sort of sense it makes to have the folks behind de Blob do a WWE fighting game, but maybe that’s a sign of how THQ has been mismanaged.
According to the source of Polygon, WWE Brawl was cancelled mid last year when THQ decided to shut down Blue Tongue due to not having enough funds to keep the studio afloat. The quality of WWE Brawl supposedly wasn’t terrible as the game was only in development for two years before THQ decided to bury the project.
Not a ton of additional game details were revealed about Brawl, but the gameplay video that was leaked does show more of the roster which includes the Big Show as a riot guard and John Cena as a rather dull looking police officer. The premise of the game may still be tough to swallow, but Brawl’s gameplay actually looked fun. As a 2-4 player based brawler the game would’ve been able to stick out in the fighting genre and the combination of fast moves and destructible environments may have caught on with the core fighting audience and WWE fans.
At this stage it isn’t known if WWE Brawl is 100% dead in the water of if THQ has pushed the project on to another developer as not to receive the wrath of an angry WWE. It’s entirely possible that Brawl has joined the ever growing long list of games THQ has cancelled, but it may be possible the game was transferred to THQ San Diego as the studio is working on an unannounced fighting game.
The handling of WWE Brawl is simply the latest example of how mismanaged THQ was but perhaps new company president Jason Rubin can turn things around.
