Matt Hardy has had a long career and reinvented himself in many ways, going from a risk-taking daredevil trying to get noticed in the ’90s to a young influential heartthrob act with his brother Jeff in the early 2000s. He has been Broken, Woken, and even had a Version 1.0, but he hasn’t been a pre-order character until now. He and his brother Jeff had been DLC before when they came back right in time for WWE 2K18 DLC, but that’s about it. This will be his first non-WWE video game appearance ever, as he has always been in WWE games.
He was in TNA Wrestling, but they didn’t have a video game deal active by the time he went there and his lengthy non-WWE run towards the first half of the 2010s led to him reinventing his whole act in ways that a game would struggle with. The “Broken” Matt Hardy character is one shown in the trailer AEW Games released today and was something that allowed Jeff and himself to pioneer a whole match type – the cinematic match. This allowed a multi-take format alongside special effects and just things you really can’t do live in one take in a traditional pro wrestling match to be done and this sub-genre of match became a haven during the pandemic era of pro wrestling – most notably with the Undertaker’s final match in 2020.
The “Team Extreme” era of Matt Hardy is also represented and that would be the incarnation that is probably the most famous overall, and has led to various nostalgia runs over the past twenty years. Even in 2006, the Hardys were on a bit of a nostalgia tour with WWE and it’s rather fitting that a team who was influenced by the Rock ‘n Roll Express would later have runs like theirs where they may not be what they were in their athletic prime, but still have great matches when the time calls for it and can suck you into the drama because they’re such great babyfaces in peril.
As a DLC bonus, Matt on his own does seem odd, but he’s low-key one of pro wrestling’s most-influential acts in the last decade even as he finds new ways to have matches and extend his career at the same time. Hopefully Jeff winds up in the game down the road as he’s back, healthy and wants to close out his career in AEW. Matt has also found trios success with Private Party as the Hardy Party, which feels very much like him being in the role Michael Hayes was in ‘99 where you take a tag team legend and put him with a younger act to give them some seasoning and more credibility. AEW Fight Forever launches on June 29 on Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and PC – with the console versions getting physical releases as well.
