Fight Forever features arcade-style gameplay, with different match types including singles match, tag team match, ladder match, Casino Battle Royale, and Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch. The game also features online play and intergender wrestling, the first Yuke's game since WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009 to do so.[1] During November 10, 2020, at the AEW Games 1.0 Special Event, Kenny Omega confirmed that the game would be a spiritual successor to games like WWF No Mercy and Virtual Pro Wrestling, with gameplay in the style and veins as the AKI engine that ran those games.[citation needed]
A career mode entitled "Road to Elite" allows players to take a member of the AEW roster or their own created wrestler through the AEW schedule spanning across four blocks, taking place throughout 2019 and 2020, with each block corresponding to each of the four major AEW pay-per-view events: All Out, Full Gear, Revolution and Double or Nothing, with three storylines per block, for a total of sixteen storylines. Each block has four weeks, with the first three weeks taking place on AEW Dynamite and the fourth week being a PPV event. During each week, the chosen wrestler has four turns, simulating a daily life of an AEW wrestler, with an option to take on optional matches taking place on AEW Dark and AEW Rampage, as well as facing off against Kenny Omega (as a partner in 2v2 mini-games) and/or The Young Bucks (Nick and Matt Jackson) in mini-games. Video packages chronicle the history of AEW, with the story beginning with Double or Nothing in 2019, placing the male player character in the Casino Battle Royale for a spot in the inaugural AEW World Championship match or the female player character in a Fatal-4-Way Match for a spot in the inaugural AEW Women's World Championship match at All Out. The story changes as a result of matches won or lost, and other player choices. Character upgrades are carried through to the rest of the game, with players encouraged to play through the mode multiple times with different wrestlers.[citation needed]