‘Ghostface Killah wanted to be a homicidal eagle!’ – Def Jam: Fight for NY at 20

‘I remember we visited Ghostface Killah [of the Wu-Tang Clan] and he was mad at us!” recalls Daryl Anselmo, former EA employee and art director for 2004’s landmark hip-hop-fused beat-em-up, Def Jam: Fight for NY. “Ghostface had a four-pound solid gold eagle bracelet and he insisted his character’s finishing move should be this bird coming to life and pecking out all the other rappers’ eyeballs. The limitations of the PlayStation 2 technology and our violence restrictions meant we couldn’t pull it off. It was impossible.”
The game’s producer Josh Holmes interjects: “When Ghostface first asked me about the eagle, Lauren [Wirtzer Seawood, another one of the game’s producers] told me just to nod along and smile. When we saw him again in the studio for the sequel, I apologised [for misleading him] and we quickly moved on to recording his character’s expanded insults for the new game. I remember one was: ‘Go home and cry to your momma. And, while you’re at it, tell her I’m hungry!’”
With or without Ghostface Killah transforming into a gigantic murderous eagle, the resulting game, Def Jam: Fight for NY, released 20 years ago this month, remains one of the fighting genre’s most vibrant left turns. It’s a rare 00s game that still dominates social media conversation, despite the fact it has never been remade or rereleased. Its roster of 67 characters included rap legends such as Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes, Method Man, Ice-T, Scarface, Ludacris, Flavor Flav, Slick Rick, Warren G, Mobb Deep and improved on its predecessor Def Jam: Vendetta’s slower-paced gameplay in every conceivable way.
Vendetta was essentially publisher EA making the most out of an engine made for a canned WCW wrestling game, which was stuck in development hell and scrambling the minds of execs. At one stage, in desperation, they even suggested it could be salvaged and turned into an intergalactic wrestling game filled with alien characters. But because Holmes and Anselmo had steered 2001’s successful NBA Street – which added a faster, cartoonish hip-hop aesthetic to basketball multiplayer and comfortably outsold that year’s bigger-budget (and much more boring) NBA Live 2002 – they were deemed the perfect pair to turn what started out life as a loose idea in a board meeting (“What if rappers wrestled each other?”) into a fleshed-out retail game.
This meant going back and forth to Japan to work with developer AKI Corporation, while also touring the US and meeting up with rappers signed or affiliated with the fabled Def Jam label, ultimately winning their confidence. They shaped characters’ mannerisms, from movements to taunting. “I was living the dream to be honest,” adds Holmes. “I grew up obsessed with hip-hop. Back when I was a teenager, I worked at a music store and sold Flavor Flav a bass guitar when Public Enemy were over in Vancouver for a show. Flavor actually remembered me! It was a beautiful time. Who would’ve thought I’d end up recording with my hero, or get to go to Snoop Dogg’s family home?”
Yet he admits the core concept for Def Jam: Vendetta and its sequel Def Jam: Fight for NY was not an easy sell. “The executives had a hard time connecting the dots for a rapper fighting game. It was a controversial concept,” says the producer, who went on to work for Microsoft and 343 Industries on Halo 4.
“When we explained that beefs and diss records and competing for the crown were at the heart of being the best lyricist in the hip-hop scene, they finally got it,” Anselmo reveals. “Because hip-hop is filled with so many vibrant and competitive personalities, the character list could still tonally feel like Street Fighter II or Tekken 3.”
In Def Jam: Fight for NY, this concept of rappers brawling with one another really hit full flow and connected with critics; it has a strong 83 score on Metacritic. “Vendetta was rushed,” says Holmes, “but it still sold really well. The success meant we could expand the gameplay with Fight for NY and take our time getting it right.” AKI Corporation took the constantly shifting, momentum-based combat of their legendary 2000 WWF: No Mercy game on the Nintendo 64 and turbocharged everything with hyperactive Blazin’ Moves (my personal favourite remains Busta’s backbreaker, which was more devastating than Bane dismantling Batman’s spine).
The art design nailed a look that sat somewhere between The Wire and a comic book, with an ambitious range of dynamic combat styles (kickboxing, street fighting, martial arts, wrestling and submissions). There’s a storyline, too, which casts Snoop Dogg as the slippery vampiric villain Crow, someone who will hit you with his cane and then slickly taunt: “You got a dental plan?”. You could choose to wear Roc-A-Wear or Ecko tracksuits, rising through the ranks of your boss D-Mob’s underground fighting syndicate, dressing more and more fly as your respect slowly builds. It’s as if Fight Club had been directed by glossy rap music video director Hype Williams.
A key mission involves choosing between a 128-bit Lil’ Kim or Carmen Electra as your new girlfriend, with Method Man ringing you up the next day to ask if you’d slept together. The latter is one area of the game that Anselmo now regrets. “Lil’ Kim could have beaten up any of the male MCs and shouldn’t have been [reduced to that]” he concedes. “Back in 2004, all the rap music videos were about objectifying women, which is, of course, in hindsight, really regrettable. The reality is we got asked to dial up the game’s sex appeal, so it would be more culturally relevant.”
Fight for NY remains refreshingly challenging even today, as a recent replay of my dusty GameCube version reminded me. One boss battle involving Fat Joe’s Zangief-esque Crack character drove teenage me to throw my WaveBird controller against a wall. You can only really make gains over an opponent if you take the time to figure out how to counter their attacks – a process that is sometimes gruelling, but which makes everything feel more satisfying when you do finally prevail.
“The game was designed so you had to sweat and really learn something new to win!” Anselmo beams. “Hiro Abe (programmer) and Hiroya Tamura (artist) at AKI were geniuses. To be good at Def Jam: Fight for NY you had to master the gameplay and get used to losing. In modern gaming the beat-em-ups are far too easy, and that’s why I think a lot of people still revisit our game.”
And a lot of people do still play Fight for NY. There isn’t a week that goes by without someone nostalgically posting a viral gameplay video on TikTok, almost in disbelief that it existed at all. Even rappers (including Ice-T) who played characters in the game still reply to tweets from fans begging for an updated version.
A$AP Rocky branded contemporary rap “the new wrestling”, due to the commercialisation of petty in-fighting and mainstream MCs treating their rap personas more like trash-talking WWE hardmen. Holmes embraces my theory that Def Jam: Fight for NY, which shows MCs perpetually caught up in diss tracks and gang politics, now feels more like a documentary, especially given how public rap beefs have become. “Rap has become more and more about drama,” he agrees. “You see a lot of social media videos of rappers fighting. It’s interesting how the game’s violence seems less silly today.”
You could argue that a game that trivialises hip-hop beefs, especially as a worryingly long list of rappers tragically still lose their lives to violence every year, is wrong and perhaps deserves more criticism. Anselmo counters: “I understand that. You know, because of drill, I don’t think you could make this game today. The climate is too hostile. But we only ever intended Def Jam: Fight for NY to be a fantasy, escapist experience. It was like the gangsta rap version of The Warriors. It was just a bit of fun; we trusted the audience knew it wasn’t cool to throw someone out of a window in real life! We really tried to respect the culture of hip-hop.”
Original Xbox, PlayStation 2 and GameCube discs of Def Jam: Fight for NY are in popular demand, commanding high prices on the secondhand market. But we haven’t seen another game in the Def Jam series since the disappointing Def Jam: Icon in 2007 – nor has there been a remaster of Fight for NY. Why?
Former Def Jam label VP of marketing Lauren Wirtzer Seawood played a pivotal role in the development of the first two games, acting as the liaison to introduce the shy development team to the exuberant MCs. She also worked hard to sort out complex licensing deals, on everything from likeness to music and in-game brand partnerships.
She tells me these intricate business mechanics are a big reason it’s so unlikely we’ll ever see the franchise revived. Def Jam: Fight for NY cost around $15m to make, but now that both hip-hop and video games have become global multibillion dollar businesses, the licensing costs would be astronomical today. “I’m sure a lot of the rappers would, rightly, want much more money if the game was rereleased today,” says Wirtzer Seawood. “A sequel might be one of the most expensive games of all time! A number of different parties would have to come to the table and agree: Def Jam is now owned by a number of corporate entities. A lot of the game’s characters have also left the label, too, so negotiating for a new game or even a remaster would be tricky and complex.”
Wirtzer Seawood considers Def Jam: Fight for NY one of the highlights of her career, and on its 20th anniversary, she hopes it will get recognition as one of the all-time great fighting games. “There’s been nothing else like it before or since,” she beams. “There’s a huge community of gamers who still play Fight for NY … they want a new version where they can fight modern rivals like Drake against Kendrick Lamar.” She reveals that in an alternate universe Kanye West and Jay-Z were playable characters. Sadly, the Def Jam-affiliated label Roc-A-Fella Records decided to pull all its artists out, because they wanted to make their own video game, which subsequently got shelved.
“I think it still fucking stands up because it was so unexpected and risky,” concludes Holmes. “This weird little game captured the hearts of a hip-hop culture that desperately wanted its own video game blockbuster. I just wish we could have given Ghostface that homicidal eagle!”