According to an interview with wrestler Tommy Dreamer, ECW had an agreement in place with Rockstar Games to develop a game with it before Acclaim ended up taking the reigns.
As discovered by Hard4Games on YouTube (via, VGC), the interview with Dreamer, who was one of ECWâs top talents at the turn of the millennium, sees the wrestler discuss how Acclaim came to develop the game.
âVideo games were key for your success as a wrestling company, and we had a lot of companies bidding for that game,â he reminisced. âThere was a fan, who worked for this company, and they were like âMan, we want this ECW game to be our number two behind this other game, and itâs revolutionary, itâs a perfect fit for ECW.â
Dreamer goes on to discuss how the fan attended an ECW arena show and spoke about the âother gameâ, mentioning that âWe just need our one game to hit, and if that game hits you will be our next gameâ.
According to Dreamer, the company âcouldnât wait due to financial reasonsâ as Acclaim had lost its license for WWE, leading them to offer money âon the back end as opposed to the front endâ. He then goes on to reveal, âThat other game, that if it hit we were going to take off – that game and that franchise was Grand Theft Auto – and you think about how ECW would have fit that whole genre, and that guy was Kevin Gill who worked there, he was a big ECW fanâ.
Gill is credited on Rockstar titles such as Midnight Club: Street Racing and Smugglerâs Run, and spoke about the deal in an interview with Tru Heel Heat Wrestling earlier in 2022. He mentioned that he âactually put together a deal for Rockstar Games to do the ECW video gameâ with owner Paul Heyman.
It seems Gill has different reasons for the deal not going ahead to the ones publicised by Dreamer though, as he suggests that the company was unsure of ECWâs future and sustainability, saying that the companyâs âfinancial situation was getting very shaky and at that time, this is 1998, could have been 1999, all the talent was leavingâ.
With games taking years to develop and costing a lot of money, Gill says Rockstar had to think about whether ECW would be around in a few years when the game would be set for release.
Whatever the reason for the deal not going ahead, ECW ended up signing the deal with Acclaim to create ECW Hardcore Revolution and ECW Anarchy Rulz, which were met with great criticism. ECW ended up collapsing in early 2001, owing almost ÂŁ7.5million ($9million) until its assets were bought by WWE in 2003.
In other news, FromSoftware has provided insight to the upcoming Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon, stating that it will focus on single-player combat and boss fights.
The post Rockstar Games nearly developed an ECW wrestling game in 2000 appeared first on NME.
