Sometimes, when you look at a game, indie games in particular, you can’t help but think “I’m not expecting much, I don’t even know what to expect, but I’m still expecting something.” That was me walking into Wrestling Cardboard Championship, a game that uses the word “wrestling” very loosely. The summarised premise goes as follows: have you ever wanted to get into a fight with your boss, and become a professional wrestler in the process? Also, is your boss a cardboard box? Furthermore, are YOU a cardboard box? Turns out there is a specific league for you, then!

Seriously though, we all know wrestling games in particular have had their ups and downs in recent years (with more recent WWE games being the “ups” and AEW, as well as a particular Switch version of WWE, being the “downs”), but even the lowest points in the genre felt less questionable than Wrestling Cardboard Championship. This is how disappointing we’re talking about.

I wish I could have a hat, but apparently I can’t..

To start, the camera in Wrestling Cardboard Championship is an absolute mess. The amount of times it forced itself into a wall or behind some object in the foreground is almost impressive. It’s not like I was desperate to see the overly boring arena or anything, but I didn’t really account for looking at a completely black screen. It almost doesn’t matter if you can see, though, because it takes a single button to play Wrestling Cardboard Championship in reality.

It is just like playing a few rounds of Street Fighter with your little nephew, the one who has never even heard of fighting games before. Your opponents don’t fight back when they’re being hit, so if you just keep smacking them over and over with a light attack, eventually you’ll just win. It’s like using bleed weapons in Elden Ring; if you can make it easier and it’s how you play, why wouldn’t you, right?

Imagine an intro that makes this look interesting, but then you just press one button until you win.

Now ideally, maybe all the creativity went somewhere else right? Maybe the music is great, or the dialogue is well written and funny? Sorry to burst that bubble, but it’s just not the case. Unfortunately, we’re looking at dialogue that is just trying too hard to be funny and doesn’t feel like a natural flow of conversation. The music is just the most basic hard rock riff looped every 12 seconds, it’s actually rather mind numbing to the extent I didn’t even want to play with sound after 10 minutes.

Graphically, there’s not a lot special going on here either, but it’s not the worst looking game all in all. Everything is just a cardboard box, but there’s not a huge amount of creativity in how the boxes are designed. You would think since it’s all a pretty blank canvas, maybe there would be some character customisation. Unfortunately there’s not. The main wrestling arena looks fine, you can tell it’s meant to be a play on WWE, but going in and out of the ring is very finicky and can be very frustrating.

Probably the most difficult fight in the game because I can’t control the camera and it keeps getting lost in the wall.

Honestly I hate talking so poorly about any games, but when I can’t find a single redeeming aspect, and I can’t find a single praise to give a game after hours of game time, it’s concerning. If you’re going to ask “why did you play it for hours then? Couldn’t have been that bad!” The answer is I was desperate to find something positive, instead I found a terrible way to waste my time.

Wrestling Cardboard Championship is available now on PC.

Reviewed on PC.

A copy of Wrestling Cardboard Championship was provided by the publisher.