The globally popular wrestling franchise WWE usually has an annual video game, published by 2K, whose other titles include sports franchises like NBA 2K. However, this year’s instalment, WWE 2K21, won’t be hitting the shelves, it was announced in April. Fans were worried it spelt the end of the franchise’s video game releases. They were reassured shortly after because the cancellation announcement was followed by a release one: WWE 2K Battlegrounds was set for September 2020. What is in store for the WWE video game franchise?
WWE 2K20
Talk quickly following the announcement that WWE 2K21 wouldn’t be released turned to the previous year’s title, WWE 2K20. Fans and reporters wondered if it was that game which put 2K21 in doubt. 2K20 was not received well at all by critics and the sales were poor.
Bugs and glitches were notable. There was no one which was more prominently game-breaking than another. For instance, wrestler’s faces would disintegrate, vanish, or melt in customization screens. It was as horrifying as it sounds.
Another involved the gameplay, where, as seen on a video shared on Twitter, interaction with the wrestling ring would cause all sorts of chaos for wrestler’s and referee’s avatars: one wrestler went limp as it was stuck on an uncontrollably spinning bottom rope, while the referee dissolved through the mat, as another walked with its knees up by its ears because the wrestler’s top half thought it was walking through the mat and the bottom half thought it was walking on the mat, before the CPU-controlled wrestler gained enough self-control to initiate a suplex to then fall through the bottom of the arena and out of the map.
Fans will always look for opportunities to play their favourite types of games. It’s like online casino, and how players will find the best conditions (bonuses, etc.) to enjoy what they like. So, after a patch to fix the bugs and glitches was released for the new year and made the game unplayable because the game’s internal clock, when it realised it was 2020, would cause the game to crash, it was a good job they eventually announced WWE 2K Battlegrounds.
WWE 2K Battlegrounds
This was to be a very different game to the others in the WWE-2K catalogue. Based on a more arcade-style gameplay, the title is targeted towards the low-retail-price end of the market, to sit among party and mini games. It has more similarities with contemporary mobile games than the other WWE games previously available.
WWE 2K Battlegrounds was praised for its art-style and depth of roster. Booker T could play as all his favourite current WWE stars, except Sami Zayn, and even himself, if he downloaded the DLC.
This provides a segue into its criticisms. The game’s basic roster is twenty-four strong. This can be expanded to seventy by unlocking them via the campaign and, notably, microtransactions, which are pervasive throughout the game and limit access to play as some of the franchise’s biggest stars was a gripe critics had, as playing as the best in the business is a key selling point. 2K have a history of including microtransactions in their titles, like NBA 2K19 and NBA 2K20.
The gameplay had its kinks, such as certain sequences missing frames. Fighting-style matchups would result in complete mismatches, which, while it’s possible in real-life wrestling, doesn’t encourage diversity within the game. This release still gave 2K things to consider.
WWE 2K21?
Exactly what comes next for WWE’s video games is up in the air. There is the understanding that the cancelling of WWE 2K21 gives 2K a chance to find a different developer to Visual Concepts, who developed WWE 2K20. It might be just a year off to reorganise and refocus and go again.
