Developer: Yuke's, Visual Concepts
Publisher: 2K Sport
Platform: Xbox One, PS4
Tested on: PS4
WWE 2K20 – Review
There has been quite a controversy about the newest WWE game. Recent news states that the game has even worse graphics than an old game and it doesn’t look anything close to WWE 2K19. We wonder if this might be the reason why we got our review copy in this late, since at the time that we could get our hands on this game there was an update that was twice as big as the original game. It seems that the developer has pulled a Tony Hawk on us all. Now is the patch the thing that will repair the broken bond between gamer and wrestler? It seems that it is just a mere Band-Aid to a bigger wound.
Story
As the WWE franchise develops, gamers will see more interactive storylines and abilities to play the game. At its core, you can choose between building your own career from your own created character or replay events that have happened in the WWE universe. Most people will get a WWE game just to pick up the controller and have some fun with friends, while there are those who still want to become a famous wrestler. For those people there is the good news: WWE 2K20 has a great career mode where you can sink many hours into. You will start at the bare bottom to working yourself up to superstar fame, but you’ll have to play your cards right to be loved or hated by the crowd.
Graphics
Initially, before the patch, the graphics were terrible. There were many visible bugs and the quality seemed to come from the previous generation. After the patch, some errors seem to be buffed out, yet there are still plenty of smaller visual errors in place. Clothing, for example, gets cut, looks plump or disappears for a moment while fighting. Now it can be understood when having more than hundreds of pieces of clothing that some won’t blend together right. Let’s hope that the developers iron out the wrinkles in the near future so you can build your ultimate wrestler that looks good. Aside from creating your wrestler, you can also create custom entrances, arenas, videos, victories and more.
Content-wise this WWE game offers enough to keep you sweet during the holiday season. This goes from hundreds of WWE Superstars from the start of the series until the most recent newcomers to more than a handful of arenas. Combine this with the ability to create and customize everything and 2K20 suddenly turns into a content sandbox.
Most arenas have the same setup, and sometimes the difference isn’t really noticeable, but each venue has its own little changes made to them with different color ropes, turnbuckles, mat and more. The overall gameplay runs pretty smoothly and during testing, there weren’t really hiccups happening during matches.
Sound
The music has always been a strong point in these games. Sadly, a recent trend that gamers notice is the dulling down of music in most videogames. While in the early 2000s we had some of the most explosive soundtracks on the planet, these days games opt for generic themes as they are a lot cheaper to implement. WWE 2K20 doesn’t deviate from this trend as the music doesn’t feel as impactful as its predecessors, which lowers the mood for some knuckle brawling. While most wrestlers work together with big named artists to make their catchy and impactful intro music that is also played on the main menu, fans will notice that they have traded the old ways of a metal-rock or rap soundtrack to a calmer pop-ish lyrical approach.
Gameplay
WWE 2K20 is a wrestling game in which you must win the match by meeting certain objectives. In a classic wrestle match the superstar can either win by pinning the opponent to the ground so their shoulders are on the mat for a consecutive three seconds while the referee counts down (pinfall), forcing the other person into submission by really wrenching their limbs hard, or landing a fatal move that knocks the other contestant out. On standard rules, you can also play it dirty by keeping your enemy out of the ring for ten seconds so they get disqualified. Other modes also give for other objectives as you must escape from a steel cage in a steel cage match or grab the briefcase with money in a ladder match. As the player has an almost infinite amount of freedom when adjusting and customizing matches you could turn this game from a legit wrestle game to a backyard brawl setting, no rules unless you make them.
As veterans of the series will know, many things have changed and while 2K19 still had a good balance between real fighting and wrestling, it seems that with the new decennia WWE has finally gone full TV style and yes, it all seems fake. Punches and kicks don’t connect that dramatically like in the older games and everything feels more staged. It is understandable that wrestling isn’t an intense contact sport like MMA and it’s more about the show, but still, how the game presents itself does a lot for the fans.
Something that comes back like Christmas each year is the many creative options. From creating your own wrestler from scratch to move sets, entrances, movies, arenas and more, to your own championships and career. You can spend hours modifying to make a personal fighter for each of your friends and do a full custom 30-man Royal Rumble. As far as the different setups go, you can go from 1v1 to duos, tag team, ladder, TLC, Rumble, Backstage Brawl and much more. With so many different options available it is just impossible to name them all. With regards to content, there is a truckload of modes and even more wrestlers to play with.
As previously mentioned, the game has become more and more realistic up to a point where it actually affects the gameplay in such a way that on one hand it feels more like a simulator and on the other hand it just diminishes the fun that the game brings. WWE is all about creating a nice show for the spectators while superstars duke it out on the stage. Some might say that the shows are staged, while the stars might not bash each-others skull in with full force and pull some amazing moves to please the crowd, the contestants do get injured on a regular base. To make the game look and feel more realistic this means that the fights are a bit changed towards realism and not like in the older games when you kick someone you can feel their bones break. For some fans, it might be rather disappointing for this game to look somewhat fake when it comes to the actual battles.
Yes, the punches feel weaker and throwing an opponent isn’t as spectacular as it used to be, all while ramping up the difficulty exponentially. If you play without any modification, you will notice that the enemy A.I. is extremely brutal, will counter each attack and will defeat you with their eyes closed. Luckily for the less experienced players, you can fully adjust many settings even to the point where you are fighting opponents who are in a vegetative state.
As for the new game the control scheme seems to be completely reworked to favor simplicity in a rather complicated game. As it will take some while to get used to, this trimming done in the move set is a warm welcome as this allows for newer players to cross a certain threshold while maintaining the full control that veterans are used to.
For those that tried the game at release or before the big patch, they will notice a large difference now that the game has been initially fixed. The reviews were brutal and this made the developers work some overtime to optimize the title as it should be. The version that we tried does still contain an optical bug or two, but as far as gameplay goes most of it is very stable and a few crashes that only happened during the first initial tests.
Conclusion
The initial bumpy release of WWE 2K20 might have left the first testers pretty mad, the developer has responded quite swiftly and issued a large patch to fix the game. This patch does not only make the game look like it’s supposed to, the gameplay seems bug-free and while there remains some small visual issues, these will most likely get patched out on a later date. WWE 2K20 might not be that innovating compared to 2K19, but thanks to the insane amount of content it will keep you busy for weeks on end. You get carte blanche for almost anything so you can just create your own game entirely. If you rather just jump in and play the game you can do so on a large variety of arenas with hundreds of wrestlers in dozens of modes. If you already own WWE 2K19 it might not be worth the upgrade, but if you don’t then this version is certainly one to check out.
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