Look, we’ve spoken about the Def Jam games enough on this fine website of ours, to the point where former Def Jam Recordings president Kevin Liles tweeted out a screenshot from our article, teasing the idea of a new game in the series. Here we are though, two years later and twenty years to the day after the release of Def Jam Vendetta, and we still don’t have a new Def Jam game to play. Guess we’re beefin’ now, Kev. Also, you didn’t really credit us in your post? We’re double beefin’ now.
At this point, fan demand for a new entry in the series, or at least a remake/re-release of both Def Jam Vendetta and Fight For New York, is undeniable. Petitions, rappers and other celebrities have been vocal in their desire to see the Def Jam franchise brought back in some way or another, but for whatever reason, it’s not happened. Quite why that is, we don’t know, and perhaps we’ll never know, but the fact we haven’t seen another Def Jam game in years is a bit of a crime.
The first two Def Jam titles felt like the perfect storm, taking the popular wrestling engine developed by AKI Corporation in games like WWF No Mercy, and combining it with the exploding hip-hop culture. The first game, Vendetta, featured rappers like DMX, Ghostface Killah, Joe Budden, Method Man and Redman, all doing battle with some of the most over-the-top wrestling moves ever shown in video games.
The sequel, Fight For New York, upped the ante even further by introducing more famous artists like Snoop Dogg, Ice-T, Fat Joe and others, while making the moves you can perform even more ridiculous. The wrestling influences might have felt lesser, as Fight For New York moved slightly more towards street fighting in general than underground wrestling clubs, but you could still suplex someone or make them tap out to an armbar. It also had some Mortal Kombat-esque stage fatalities too, and it was awesome.
Unfortunately, EA decided to meddle with the formula a bit too much, with Def Jam: Icon, the third game in the series, ditching the iconic gameplay entirely for a combat system that was sort of lifted from Fight Night, which didn’t work too well. A sequel was planned, but was ultimately shelved, and the next Def Jam game to follow on from it was Rapstar, a Singstar clone that would ultimately lead to the developers being sued for incorrect song rights. As in, they didn’t have any.
With AKI Corporation rebranding as Syn Sophia, and seemingly working exclusively on arcade titles and Nintendo Switch ports, and with EA seemingly focusing on UFC when it comes to combat-based games, a new Def Jam game or even a port of the old ones seems unlikely at this point. Still, that certainly wouldn’t stop a new team from partnering with Def Jam or creating some kind of spiritual successor in the future.
Will a new Def Jam ever happen though? It’s doubtful, but that’s probably not going to stop Def Jam themselves from teasing the idea of a new one in the next few months. Sooner or later though, that teasing is going to have to lead to something, otherwise the fan excitement at the idea of a re-release is just going to turn into bitter resentment.
READ MORE: Will We Ever See A New Def Jam Game?
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