WWE 2K23 feels like it could be one of the best entries in the series in quite some time (check out my full hands-on impressions here) which is largely due to the hard work and vision of longtime creative director Lynell Jinks and gameplay producer Bryan Williams, who recently returned to the series after a hiatus. Jinks has been working on WWE 2K for at least a decade and Williams started all the way back in 2005, so they both know the series inside and out.
I recently had the opportunity to chat with Jinks and Williams about changes to WWE 2K23’s in-ring action and visuals, the status of the game’s PC version, potential competition with AEW: Fight Forever, and more. Scroll on for the full conversation…
Playing the game just a minute ago, I definitely felt like the pace and level of fluidity had improved over WWE 2K22, which itself was an improvement over 2K20. Is that a path you want to continue down? Faster, smoother, perhaps a bit more arcade-y?
Bryan Williams: Absolutely. The team got the ball rolling with [WWE] 2K22 in terms of bringing this franchise back to where it should be. That starts with the responsiveness, the fluidity of the animations, the snappiness of the motions and the impact when you collide with the mat. And at the start of 2K23, that’s one of the things that Lynell [Jinks] had said… we started this with ’22, we got the momentum going, we’re going to keep it going for ’23. […] We don’t want to backpedal what we started with 2K22. And I think we’ve maintained that. […] That was our mission statement. Across all areas of the game, polish, let’s just get this game looking fantastic and playing fantastic.
It definitely looks good. WWE 2K22 was a solid return to form visually, but I feel like 2K23 takes it to a new level. The women, who weren’t always recreated as faithfully as the men in the past, have been given some love. Bianca Belaire, Asuka, and others look fantastic. What’s gone into improving the look of the game this year?
Lynell Jinks: There are so many different moving parts, but it all comes down to our process. We introduced a new pipeline last year on 2K22 that set the new bar for our visuals, and once you do that, it’s about “How can we make it better?” That bar is changing every single year with new games that look amazing, like God of War [Ragnarok], NBA 2K23, so we’re always chasing. We’re never going to rest on our laurels and will always be, hey, how much power can we squeeze out of this platform? How much resolution can we get out of our textures? How can we improve our scanning techniques? Even our simulation for hair and cloth…
I noticed the hair looked more like real hair this year.
LJ: Right? Every year we try to experiment, and that’s the freedom, honestly, of working on a yearly cycle. You get that opportunity to try to improve. It’s always a challenge, because you’re squeaking every bit out of the console that you can, but that’s what drives us. The improvements we’ve made to the characters, a lot of it is due to the lighting. They pop on the screen a little more. Our director is messing around with lighting and adding hints of accent lights to really get that rim light and I’m, like, “God, it looks gorgeous.” To me, one of the things I love to see that we’re doing, NBA 2K did it last year, is in our Showcase matches, trying to replicate those historic matches and that feel and that atmosphere. NBA did it with the [Jordan Challenge] and we’re doing it again in our Showcase mode.
You guys did it first!
LJ: Right? We compete. That’s still our crew over there, but we’re never going to rest on what we have. We’re going to try and improve every single year. No matter what generation we’re on, the goal, because we’re a simulation, the goal will always be to try to get as close to what you see on TV as possible.
The game looks great on next-gen consoles, but what’s the status of the game on PC? The initial WWE 2K23 press release seemed to hint it would still be the last-gen version.
LJ: If you have a good enough graphics card, it is on par with the next-gen consoles. Like, when we’re developing the game, we work on PC. All our tools work on PC. We export it out and run it on the consoles. Everything is authored on the computer. So, we’re looking at all the stuff at 4K or whatever, and depending on the graphics card, you can have that same experience. Unfortunately, you’ll pay a lot more to get that experience, but it’s probably easier to find a good graphics card than a PS5 or Xbox Series X at this point.
[Note: In a follow up, PR confirmed the PC version of WWE 2K23 will be on par with the next-gen console versions in terms of visuals and features as long as you have the GPU to pull it off.]
Another thing I think works is the new pinning minigame. It’s fair to say pinning mechanics are something WWE 2K has struggled with over the years, so how did you finally arrive at this system?
BW: I’m so happy to hear you say that. […] It’s one of those things where we’ve… not struggled, but the timing minigame in particular, some people would love it one year, some people wouldn’t. It was always hard to strike that right balance of skill. But you don’t want to have a cheese element either. I’m really good at the game, obviously been playing it a long time, and it got to the point with that timing minigame, I was so good at it, I could eat three or four finishers…
Yeah, it was frustrating at first, but then it swung the other way.
BW: Exactly. There still needs to be some tension when you’re in that moment, because that’s it, right? The pin is everything. And I think with the system we’ve done this year, it’s made it more difficult for an old hand like me, because there’s actually some skill involved. Kicking out of somebody’s finisher is genuinely tense. Especially if you’re kicking out of more than one. That target zone, when it starts moving at the speed that it does and you’re trying to catch it… It’s possible, but when you miss it, the defeat feels fair and the kickout, if you get it, feels that much more rewarding. Timing the kickout at the right moment, on that 2.9, is everything. We did internal surveys with the entire team to get feedback on the minigame, because there was a question of will we make this the default option or not.
I think it’s a testament to the new pining mechanics that simple button mashing kickouts are still an option, and I chose not to do that. Moving onto WarGames, cage matches haven’t always been a strength for wrestling games. What challenges did the team face making WarGames a reality?
BW: WarGames, this is something we’ve been trying to get into the franchise since 2017 when Triple H introduced it in NXT and there were obviously a lot of problems involved with adding a second ring into our arena environment, which we had never accounted for. I remember several games ago, we were talking with [Yuke’s] about, what can we do to make this happen? I think it was the success and all of the work and the refinements that went into the engine for 2K22 that allowed the team to finally make this match type a reality.
2K22 all started underneath the hood. Those engineers and programmers, they went to town on refactoring that engine and this is one of the side-effects of that. Being able to say “Hey, we can finally do this!” The tech is in place. We can put two rings in the arena and the cage fits too! We can finally deliver WarGames that fans have been clamoring for and this is the best time to do it. […] I think if we tried to do this in previous iterations, we could have brute-forced it into existence, but it wouldn’t be as refined as it is now. Timing is everything, and the fact that WarGames was introduced to the main roster during our development cycle was just the cherry on top of the cupcake.
You mentioned getting the WWE 2K engine in order. Now that you’ve got that solid foundation, what are some new features you’d like to pursue in the future?
BW: Oh brother, I’ve got a bunch. There are always ideas that are left on the table, but they’re never discarded. Usually when we start pre-production on the next game, we just go back and pick up with, what did we want to do last year that we didn’t have the bandwidth for? For me, personally, since we’re speaking about WarGames, this is something I’ve wanted for a long time and I think the tech has finally caught up to my imagination — being able to do dives onto groups of people.
The guy flies to the outside and everybody falls over…
BW: Exactly, if you’re doing a fatal four-way and there are guys huddled at ringside, maybe a guy like Ricochet does a big tope over the top rope, he can wipe out an entire group. I think it will improve match types that feature multiple participants and for a match like WarGames, I think it’s perfectly suited, because we have the ability to do those crazy dives from the cage. […] It helps in situations where it can lead to the end of the match. When you’ve got six or eight participants [in WarGames] it can go pretty long. You’ve got so many working parts, and it’s “Man, I’ve been playing 30 minutes! This is fun, but we’ve gotta wrap this up!” Having a mechanic that can take out multiple people at once could help conclude the match. That’s one of those things that’s high on my list. We’ll see.
Speaking of lists, how many superstars can we expect in WWE 2K23?
LJ: The only thing I can say is it’s more than 2K22. If we keep going at this rate, 2K24 is going to have even more, because WWE keeps signing a ton of talent. A lot of familiar faces are coming back to WWE that I’m excited about. Cody being one of them for 2K23. We have DLC plans we haven’t announced yet that I think are going to make people really happy. The future’s bright.
Just keep building it bigger. I’m really sensing some newfound confidence we perhaps didn’t hear as much of coming into the last game.
LJ: Even stronger, even better, even faster, whatever we can think of. That’s one of the things that gives me the most hope — after [WWE] 2K20, our confidence was shook. We tried to do something that we thought we could do and we failed in a lot of people’s eyes. We bounced back with 2K22, and you look at the reception we received, that game was kind of like wrestling in a nutshell, right? It’s like, the comeback story. Now we’re tying to keep our spot on top and now we have competition coming, and it’s even more important for us to keep thinking outside of the box and improving every single year.
You mention competition – at some point AEW: Fight Forever is coming out, which will mark the first time in a long time there’s been two major wrestling games on the market at the same time. Are you keeping an eye on what the AEW crew is doing?
LJ: I love competition. I started off on NBA 2K, I spent 10 years on NBA, and at that time, we were going against NBA Inside Drive. Then we were going against [NBA] ShootOut and NBA Live, and every year, we would look at what they did and be, like, “that’s interesting” or “they did this better than us.” That only makes our games better. Same thing you can say about wrestling in general — having competition, to me, it’s no coincidence that the storylines [in WWE] have been the best they’ve been in a long time. I think it’s because of that competition. It’s the same with the video games. I’m looking forward to seeing what they’re gonna do that’s going to drive us to be even stronger.
You also mentioned DLC plans. Any hint as to what players can expect?
LJ: People will be happy. I will say, if you look at our main roster when we do our roster reveals, there will be some omissions on there that you’ll be scratching your head about, but just wait and see and I think most people will be happy.
Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions, guys!
The Deluxe and Icon Editions of WWE 2K23 launch on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, and PS5 on March 14, while the standard edition launches on March 17.
