Journey of Wrestling

Journey of Wrestling asks players to book fantasy matches, manage a roster, and grow a wrestling promotion, stripped down to a form its own fans describe as the easiest way into fantasy booking they've found. This review's sample confirms that core loop earns genuinely extraordinary devotion — and identifies a serious, specific, and directly confirmed problem with how the game has been supported since launch.

A beloved, accessible booking loop

The praise in this review's positive sample is backed by remarkable numbers. "I've been playing this game for a little over 2 years now... Worth the price I'd buy again and again," one reviewer with over 48,000 minutes logged writes. Another, with over 109,000 minutes, still calls the underlying game "fun" despite serious reservations about its support. Reviewers repeatedly frame its appeal through direct genre comparison: "I believe this is the most user friendly booking sim I've ever played," one writes, while another describes it as "the perfect middle ground" between simple pick-up-and-play design and the deeper, more demanding simulations like TEW and EWR that define the genre. The community-scenario ecosystem draws specific, repeated praise as well, with reviewers crediting user-made content for extending the game's value well past what the base package offers alone.

A confirmed, serious abandonment problem

Set against that devotion, this review's negative sample raises a specific, repeated, and ultimately confirmed complaint: the developer stopped supporting the game shortly after its Steam release. "Two year since the game launched on Steam, still no meaningful updates and no word from the dev since September of 2024," one reviewer with over 17,000 minutes logged writes. Another, with over 109,000 minutes logged, puts it more pointedly: "Dev has ghosted and promised an update on his whereabouts but has not followed through for over a year and a half now... despite there being a growing collection of bugs." This review's own check of Steam's partner-events feed confirms this directly: only two update posts exist in the entire record, both dated within six weeks of the June 2024 launch, with nothing logged since. That's about as decisive a confirmation as this kind of claim can receive.

A specific, serious reliability concern

Beyond the lack of updates, several reviewers raise a more urgent, concrete problem: the game's reliance on a live content server. "The content server went down on the 2 year anniversary release of the game... You can't start a new game because the whole thing relies upon a content server," one long-time reviewer reports. Another independently confirms the same category of issue: "Only the base game is available to play if your not constantly online... So if you have an outage, or simply don't have access to internet at the time, you're screwed." For a single-player, paid product, that's a specific and serious design risk rather than a vague complaint, and it's fair to flag directly for anyone considering a purchase.

A note on financial transparency

At least one detailed, long-time reviewer raises a specific, sourced concern about the developer's continued income despite reported inactivity: "the dev STILL makes like $500CAD off of Patreon while being completely radio silent on his Discord." This review's sample could not independently verify the exact Patreon figures cited, but the underlying pattern — continued monetisation alongside an extended silence on both Steam and community channels — is corroborated by the confirmed absence of any Steam partner-events posts since mid-2024.

A possible recent development, unconfirmed on Steam

One positive reviewer's edited note states that the developer resurfaced on the game's Discord in June 2026 to announce future plans and explicitly deny the game had been abandoned. This review could not independently verify that claim, since it would have occurred entirely off Steam's own official channels, and Steam's partner-events feed itself shows no corresponding update as of this review. Prospective buyers specifically weighing the abandonment concern should check the developer's current Discord activity directly rather than relying on Steam's store page alone.

What sustains the game despite the silence

It's worth understanding directly why this game continues to hold such devoted players despite its confirmed support gap: the community-scenario system appears to function largely independently of the developer's own involvement. Multiple reviewers describe fellow players producing new scenarios, rosters, and custom content on an ongoing basis, effectively sustaining the game's replay value through user-generated content even as official support has lapsed. "The community making hundreds of scenarios" is specifically credited by one reviewer as the reason the game remains "worth the money" despite what they call its seemingly abandoned state. That distinction matters for anyone weighing a purchase: the core software itself may not be actively patched, but the ecosystem built on top of it appears to have real, ongoing life of its own, at least for as long as the underlying content server remains operational.

Achievement data and depth of engagement

The wide spread in achievement completion rates, from 59.5% for the most common unlock down to 1.0% for full-library completion, tells its own story about how this game is actually played. That's not the profile of a shallow, quickly-exhausted product — it's consistent with a dedicated core audience investing genuinely deep, extended time into roster-building and scenario completion, which lines up closely with the extraordinarily high playtime figures reported by several reviewers in both the positive and negative samples.

Final verdict

Journey of Wrestling succeeds completely at what it set out to do, and this review's sample confirms a genuinely devoted fanbase built on an accessible, satisfying booking loop and a thriving community-scenario scene. But the same sample raises a large, specific, and now directly confirmed concern about developer support that lapsed within two months of the Steam release, compounded by a real reliability risk tied to the game's online content server. Dedicated booking-sim fans willing to accept those risks, and to verify the developer's current status for themselves before buying, will likely find real, lasting value here; anyone wanting confidence in ongoing support should look elsewhere.