When you talk about horrible game releases in recent memory, few stand out quite as much as WWE 2K20. Publisher 2K Sports broke with the series’ long-standing and well-respected developer Yuke’s and handed the franchise to Visual Concepts, who had previously done solid work on 2K’s basketball titles.
The result was an unmitigated disaster. Although VC had been co-developers on the WWE games since 2014, without Yuke’s guiding hands WWE 2K20 shipped in October 2019 as an unsatisfying mess. Long-time fans bemoaned the clumsy gameplay, dated graphics, and ridiculous, game-breaking bugs.
After taking a year off, 2K is back with a new WWF game. Let’s slam into what happened with 2K20 and see if this year’s offering can turn things around.
Between The Ropes
First, we should rewind a little bit and get into the history of grappling in video games. Starting with primitive approximations like Pro Wrestling for the NES, developers knew that the genre was good money. As technology improved, these games became more and more realistic and impressive. A few Japanese studios carved out solid niches making them, including Aki (Virtual Pro Wrestling) and Human (Fire Pro), as well as Yuke’s, who were recommended to 2K by Aki.
The Yuke’s / WWE partnership was productive for the company for almost two decades. Although the games weren’t terribly innovative or progressive, they gave the fan base what they wanted—all their favorite WWE Superstars, matches, a robust character creator, and more.
However, before the release of WWE 2K19, Yuke’s president Hiromi Furata announced something a little shocking—although the company was still going to work on WWE games, it also wanted to return to its own wrestling games, to keep its team inspired and diversify the company’s holdings. WWE and 2K didn’t take this well, and just a few months later they ended Yuke’s contract and handed the game over to Visual Concepts. But they didn’t change their requirement for a yearly release, so VC needed to knock out 2K20 on schedule minus its most experienced partner.
Counted Out
It didn’t go well. There were nightmarish issues with the game at launch. The game’s graphics were criticized for looking inhuman and primitive, when the hair physics weren’t glitching like crazy. Exclusive pre-order characters weren’t available at launch. Moves and outfits for created characters were gated behind loot boxes. The control system was tweaked in ways that made gameplay seem even less responsive, with canned animations making matches seem like a series of QTEs.
One of the most insulting aspects came with a different game entirely. When you accepted the EULA for WWE 2K20, it did something pretty disturbing—it locked your WWE 2K19 account, making you unable to use a bunch of that game’s online features. The intent was obvious—push players into the 2K20 ecosystem—but it went over like Andre the Giant crapping his pants during a match. Being told that you couldn’t fully enjoy an old game that you paid good money for just because a new one was out was the final insult, and it wasn’t long before #FixWWE2K20 was trending on Twitter.
WWE games usually hit a Metacritic mark in the 70s, sometimes the low 80s. WWE 2K20 came in at a dismal 43. This is the kind of performance that has licensors seriously rethinking their partnerships. It wasn’t long before the word started to spread that if 2K didn’t get it right with their next game, WWE might take their business elsewhere. There is a lot of money riding on these wrestling games—they’re reliable sellers with a dedicated fan base—so that would be a big blow to the company.
Segunda Caida
Obviously, 2K recognized that they had a disaster on their hands and it quickly worked to do damage control, apologizing to fans and announcing that for the first time, the franchise would skip a year. There would be no WWEK 2K21 to give the studio time to get its footing and make an experience that would win the fans back.
With an extra year, one would hope that Visual Concepts was able to iron out the many wrinkles in the WWE 2K series’ blood-stained spandex. But there are several stumbling blocks that might doom 2K22 before it even goes on sale. Industry reports had staff fleeing the company in droves, with management struggling to staff up to deliver a game that would have to be top of the line. Early reports on 2K22 are…mixed. The graphics are better, the controls are more streamlined and the whole package seems more professional. But we’re not quite there yet.
One of the biggest problems with wrestling video games is that professional wrestling doesn’t really obey the laws of physics as we know them. Take the “Irish whip” maneuver, where you fling your foe running towards the ropes and they bounce off them in a perfect 180-degree reflection like a Pong paddle. That’s simply not what happens in the real world. Wrestling is full of little things like that, where the performers are cooperating with each other to pull moves off. But when you fuse that with the realistic physics that modern gamers expect, you get something that doesn’t accomplish either goal.
Another major issue with WWE 2K22 is the game’s roster. This is a major selling point of every wrestling game—being able to smash your digital action figures together and have them seem true to what you see on TV. But, for inexplicable reasons—officially “budget cuts,” despite the company being massively profitable—WWE released 80 wrestlers from their contracts in 2021. Thirty of them are still in 2K22, probably for contractual reasons, but it already seems weird.
That also speaks to bigger issues within WWE itself. The company is helmed by the 76-year-old Vince McMahon, who by all reports keeps an iron grip on everything that makes TV. Fans have become accustomed to incoherent storylines, bizarre decisions, and a partnership with the Saudi government that raises huge ethical questions.
It remains to be seen if WWE 2K22 can dig itself out of the hole its precursor left. Even if the game is very good, long-time fans have a bad taste in their mouth and the WWE isn’t making itself easy to love. If the franchise does leave 2K, I’m curious to see what a different studio would make out of the over-the-top fictional universe of professional wrestling.
Yuke’s, however, found a place for itself in the new wrestling world. It’s signed a contract with upstart wrestling promotion AEW—a company co-founded by wrestler and huge video game geek Kenny Omega—and its flagship title is in development. Many AEW wrestlers and staffers are huge gamers, so we’re very interested in what they can do in partnership with a studio that’s been making grappling games for two decades.
