Almost everything about this greedy, Battle-Pass-infested, Microtransaction-infested product is either bad or no better than it was in the previous games in the series.


The "My Rise" story mode (the main reason I bought it) starts out OK but the combination of writing so bad that it is actually reminiscent of late-stage corpo, Ari Emanuel era WWE (face-heel turns that literally come out of nowhere, completely irrational grudges that appear out of nowhere, etc.) and TERRIBLE gameplay design really dragged it down. (I lost track of how many times I failed and had to start a stage over BECAUSE I won a match without doing some stupid arbitrary task like "execute a running kick while your opponent is stunned in the top right corner" first.)

In fact, the way they made every other story battle a long checklist of arbitrary tasks meant I was just glad I finally got these out of the way as opposed to enjoying them.

That being said, the final match WAS just a regular match without any weird objectives other than winning and it DID feel really good to defeat the hateful, dishonest, scheming corpo manager at the end. I don't regret playing the story... I just wish it were better. If the rest of the story had been as good as the beginning and end, I would have liked it.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3772662602


https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3771228424

As usual, the worst part of the game is the "My Faction" mode which literally only exists to sell lootboxes and is in every way a terrible experience. Worse, they delete it every couple years (the "My Faction" mode for WWE 2K 24 is already inoperable) so if you are GULLIBLE enough to play My Faction, you will lose everything no more than two years later. This wouldn't be so bad if it were just a bonus mode but unfortunately, they lock some characters, cosmetics, etc. behind "My Faction" to punish you for not playing it.


The best thing about this game, and the series in general, is that you can sort of play coop matches by starting a Tag match and putting your friends on one team and the computer on the other. (Tornado Tag is the best for this purpose because it allows multiple players to be in the ring at the same time.)

HOWEVER, this only works via couch coop or Remote Play Together because if you try to play coop in the lobbies, it FORCES you to play against the other human player even in a Tag match. I don't know why they disabled coop in online lobbies but I assume it has to do with some toxic corpo whose AI assistant told him that people spend more money on PVP games so he should remove PVE for online play.


There is a LOT of good in this game including the character creator and other customization features and the sheer size of the roster but unfortunately, almost all of that was already in WWE 2K 25 which had less live service BS than this one.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3772508073


One thing I really love about recent WWE 2K games is that the "Jukebox" section allows you to choose what music you will hear in the game when you are in menus or whatever... and some of it is pretty good. Some of the intro tracks, such as the one for AJ Styles, are quite good and the game also features legitimate songs that exist entirely outside of the WWE ecosystem such as CRUISING TO SELF SOOTHE by Ecca Vandal.

Of course, your taste may be different than mine but the great thing about the jukebox feature is that you can adjust which songs show up in the game to suit YOUR taste. (This is also present in 2k 25 and 2K 24.)


One thing I DO unambiguously like about this game is that they put a lot of CM Punk into it (the showcase mode is all about him and it has some video cutscenes of the real guy talking and providing instructions where he really comes off well. Before this game, I liked CM Punk in a theoretical sense but after playing it, I almost feel like CM Punk is a cool big brother whom I respect. (I don't often have any respect for celebrities.)


If this were a standalone game, I'd give it a clear recommendation but as a slightly altered version of WWE 2K 25 which is almost identical in all the good ways it's simply not worth the money if you already have WWE 2K 24 or 25.

It's not worth getting to play online thanks to their disabling coop in online matches. Remote Play Together, which still works with WWE 2K 24 (which is no longer online and has been removed from sale) is actually a better experience than the PVP-only online multiplayer.

Really the only good reasons to buy this, if you already have [ii]2K 25,[/i] are to get the few additions to the roster (AJ Lee and Goldberg for instance) or to play the new stories in the "Showcase" mode or the latest "My Rise" story mode, the latter of which came just close enough to being good to make me really mad at how annoying it became at times. (I still liked the ending though.)

As a game in its own right, I'd give it a 7/10 but as an follow on to 2K 25, it's a 2/10 because nearly everything in this that is good was already in the previous ones and the changes they made (like adding a Battle Pass) make it worse.


If you don't already have a recent WWE 2K game, this is an impressive product if you don't waste your time on the "live-service" BS. On the other hand, if you have 2K 24 or 25 as I do, you can probably skip this one unless you are willing to buy it for the new story content.

Got this on 50% discount and honestly its not even worth that. I have player 2k15, 2k23, 2k24, 2k25 & this and i can say this is the worst as far as gameplay is concerned. True they improved visuals buts that's just it.
They got new features but destroyed the old and good ones. Introduced season pass, a tactic gain more money trying to mimic Street Fighter and other simiilar games but, 2K's that plan just backfired. If you got the money and feeling magnanimous you can buy full game or else look for 75% or more discount since, this game is not worth more than that.

Game is brilliant, tremendous even. Could argue it's up there with my favourites like HCTP, SvR06 & 2k14.

But the modern gaming FOMO/MTX just spoil it. Even with the Monday Night War edition I'm still locked out of so much content due to MyRise & The Island.

I love a sense of progression, but unlocking everything in this game might as well be a part-time job.