WWE Pantheon: Why not an action/adventure WWE video game?

Let’s talk about mythology for a while and no, this is not going to be a lecture similar to the ones you get in your Literature classes. Let’s talk about gods and goddesses in relation to video games and the World Wrestling Federation (WWE).

The full article awaits after the jump!

Let’s talk about mythology for a while and no, this is not going to be a lecture similar to the ones you get in your Literature classes. Let’s talk about gods and goddesses in relation to video games and the World Wrestling Federation (WWE).

As you are probably aware, gods, even those of the established religions, are grouped according to pantheons.

There’s the Greek pantheon that revolves around Odin, Loki, and Thor. The Egyptian pantheon has Ra, Anubis, Bast, and Osiris. To have a good grasp of these, well-known author Neil Gaiman tried to collate almost all of them in the novel American Gods.

Now, mythology and the otherworldly are intricately entwined with video games. Most, if not all, RPGs and action-adventure titles sport gods and goddesses in one form or another and forces beyond good and evil that meddle with the affairs of men.

A few that comes to mind include God of War, Final Fantasy, and Castlevania. The logic behind this needs no further explanation for myths are rich sources of stories and characters that never fail to whet the appetites and imagination of gamers.

But living in the current generation of video games and entertainment, let me shift your attention to the World Wrestling Entertainment and its slew of media that crosses the boundaries of sports, music, video, and video games.

I think that the WWE has a vast source of untapped materials for video games. If you remember the infamous Attitude Era, the wrestlers had to play certain roles and characters aside from that of a normal athlete.

At the time, the fans had the Undertaker and his Ministry of Darkness, the big red machine Kane, The Texas Rattlesnake, the madman Mankind, and the list can go on and on. Even up to today, the script of the weekly shows tries to allude to that period by having some wrestlers have some sort of “magical powers.”

Having that in mind, we can’t go on in this topic without mentioning the already established WWE Smackdown versus Raw video game franchise. But you have to consider, that is exactly the point of all these – the series is already established and one has got to wonder what’s next.

It is not entirely alien for games to shift genre. Strategy-based titles sometimes become turn-based games. Even Mario that is well known for his platformer exploits has been mixing it up in the Smash Bros. fighting franchise.

One also has to consider Namco Bandai‘s Soul Calibur: Legends for the Nintendo Wii that became a third-person adventure game, a very far shift from its fighting genre tradition. In Tekken 5, Namco Bandai included Devil Within which features Jin Kazama’s adventures as he searches the grounds of the G Corporation for information on his missing mother.

That mini-game endeared Jin Kazama to a lot of gamers because they got to understand his past and see where he’s coming from. The creators of Tekken allowed gamers to see their favorite character in another light, so to speak.

With all those examples, let me pop the question to you – Why not WWE? You have a rich story background, you have a lot of exciting characters, and not to mention the experience and the installed fan base.

The WWE company and whoever the developers will be can come up with a surreal video game, depicting larger than life wrestlers – HHH as someone like Thor, Kane as the Devil himself, the Undertaker as Death. In short, give birth to the WWE Pantheon.

They can choose whatever era, they can go with whatever storyline – the Montreal Screwjob, the Legend Killer angle, the stable wars featuring MoD, DX, and the Corporation. Let loose your imagination. Go wild.

I am not saying that this idea is going to sell like hotcakes, much more take form. But this blogger is also one of you – a gamer with a lot of fantasies and imaginations which began when I was way younger.

And this blogger also knows that you have weird and grand ideas. You can flame this fantasy, tear it down – I don’t care. It’s just my musings. But I am very curious and will be very happy to know what’s yours.

QJ.NET would like to thank lastscionz, SirGrunt, Lalilulelo2003, BlackZ97, and LoMejor for some of the images that appeared in this article!