WWE 2k18 is a typical 2k-game: One step in the right direction, two steps back, one random hop somewhere else and please, if you don't like where you land, you gotta pay to move again.

On one hand, they really did try their best with some of the actual gameplay. Aleister Black, Bobby Roode, Triple H, Ambrose, Nakamura - they all look incredibly good and you can feel that somebody put not just good work, but actual heartblood in there.
However, the game lacks so much else and throws away sooo much potential, it's almost funny if it wasn't so sad.

Yes, the backstage area is a bit bigger - but it's still just the same corridor, and still a smaller era than back in PS2-days.
Yes, we got the biggest roster again - but who needs 5 Stings instead of several of the actual interesting stars (Heavy Machinery? Street Prophets? Velveteen Dream? Liv Morgan? The Singh-brothers? Even Ellsworth? Nah screw 'em all, but hey, who doesn't want to play as the Van Erichs or the Natural Disasters?).
Yes, we get 8-man-matches. Now, Survivor Series Matches are 10-Man-Matches, and we still miss several other types of matches, but at least now we can replay all those great directionless 4-on-4-tagteam-matches that we all love so dearly, Playah!
Yes, career-mode is back - but you don't really "choose" anything resembling a career. In fact, the game is so broken, they even screw up the little "stories" you try to create for yourself. Example? Ok, here we go, a little excerpt from my actual gameplay:
You go to call out the Big Show (why? Because your character decides so on his own, for whatever reason). While doing the promo, Roman Reigns comes out. Why, because he's the Big Show with a wig, obviously. After the promo, which you friggin RULE (by restarting the promo again and again ... not by using simple logic, because the promo is an incoherent mess of barely connected thoughts and cookie-cutter-insults anyway), people comment how you totally OWNED Samoa Joe (why, because he ate Roman "the Big Dog Show" Reigns, obviously). Then, the next week, you face Konnor 1 on 1 - but before your match, you get ambushed by Seth Rollins, because he's p***ed at your promo from last week (... obviously!). This will culminate at the next PPV, where you face Finn Balor, because, at this point, why the f*** not?

The actual worst part about this? The game loads the Backstage Era. You move from the parking lot to the production era. On the way you can talk with random people. It doesn't matter if you do or don't, because they say random BS anyway (yes Asuka, you could eat several Pizzas right now. How cool is that? Yes Brock, i'm really ready for tonight. Yes Bayley, you SHOULD take note at my promos, because yours kinda suck, ... and so on..). Anyway, some production-guy spouts a two liner at you ala "go show em what you got!". Then the game looaads. You cut a nonsense-promo. The game loooaaads the backstage era. Again. You talk to the production guy, again. He wants you to go see Renee. Ok. You go to Renee (who at least looks human now. Yay!). The game looooaaaads, because obviously giving Renee one out of two answers (non consequential answers that is) is load-heavy. Then the game loooooaaaaads the backstage era. AGAIN. You go to the parking lot and get your car. You're finished for this week. The game looooooaaaaaads and you are in the parking lot again. You walk'n'talk with the production guy again, have a very short loooooooaaaaaaading-screen, cut a promo and then ....... repeat ad infinitum. It's LoadingScreen 2k18! And you sit there, wondering if anybody from game-design actually played that mess and why these people hate fun.

Now, all of that would still be entertaining in a trainwreck-kind of manner ... if it wasn't for the incredible individuality the game promises you. BE LIKE NO ONE! is the title. It's in the add, it's in the game. So naturally, when you create a wrestler, you choose a pre-made class, which decides which moves you can or can't use, and what abilities/skills you can buy. Huh. High flyer able to do a piledriver, powerslam or omega driver? Nope. Giant who can do Coast2Coast? Ha! Powerhouse who can just even climb the turnbuckle? Forget it, no powerhouse EVER does that! (to clarify: That means that you can't even recreate several of the REAL and ACTUAL wrestlers on the roster!). These classes and your weight also determine your attributes. You will not exceed 91 points and will always lack in at least one fundamental field, no matter what (because f*** you, that's why).
Anyway, then you get to create your guy - and you can't. Because it's locked. Because you need to buy lootboxes to unlock EVERYTHING, including basic content, fun and your will to live.
Want that facepaint of Sting because 5 Stings are just not enough for you? Or a specific move that is totally cool and exotic like ... chokeslam02 (oh comon...) ? Or want to wear Darren Youngs underwear because you are really really weird and random, almost ... LIKE NO ONE? Well, tough sh!t son. You are not like no one, you are a nobody.
For every match, you get 200 to 400 credits. For 2500, 5000 or 10.000 credits, you can buy lootboxes. And then you pray that there's finally something else inside than just Chris Jericho's boots 01 for the 12th time.
And it is.... a booster for your next match (only for online-gaming. Because of course, who doesn't want to play this mess online?), Titus O'Neal underwear (... i don't even .. just why?), Powermove 18 (..ok), mustaches06 (... finally i can look like my favourite stupid anime character. Hooray. *sigh*) aaaand ... no, not Chris Jericho's boots01, but 800 credits! Ha! Sweeerved!
It's a grind beyond stupid. It's not even next level stupid. It's typical WWE-stupid. And no fun whatsoever.
Personally, i went ahead and edited a few numbers and gave myself a metric f***ton of credits. Opened ca. 80 lootboxes - and still didn't get the stuff i wanted (but hey, they repay me 200 credits in return whenever i get Chris Jericho's boots01 now .. so that's something, right?). It's mind numbingly boring and idiotic. And the worst?
It's so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ obvious that they want to 'ease' us into next year's release featuring lootboxes you can buy for real money .. it's so glaringly obvious, Roman Reign's push was subtle in comparison.
Here's to hope that Belgium pushes the ban on this loot-system and the EU follows suit. Maybe then they will remember that fun content is more important than a cash grab.

Last but not least, i want to personally vote for the guy who chooses the Soundtrack for WWE games to be fired. Kanye, Rap and HipHop, is one thing. Country music (who would even listed to this sh!t?!?) is a whole different beast. But who in their right mind decided that Kid Rock singing about being high would be a good fit for a WWE game? Or any game that's not GTA, Saint Rows or the like? At least we got the old classic by Disturbed (censored, of course, because America is totally the land of the free... hah), but you're still better of just muting the music completely.

All in all, i see barely any improvement to last year, a slightly updated roster aside - but several wrong directions this series is taking all at once. In this incarnation, the only fitting description is "wasted potential and bad decisions". So in a way, this is the perfect game for you, if you want that special WWE feeling....

I want my wrestling games made by THQ again.

This game proves why companies need competition

Pros:
*backstage improvements
*Universe Mode still fun with slight improvements
*Decent size roster
*60 FPS gameplay
*Good soundtrack
*solid Gameplay
Cons:
*Mycareer is still terrible the attempt at storylines falls flat when have they just end no real resolution just on to the next one. The game is confused on whether wrestling is a work or real, with the stars meter still in the game judging how "good" your match is but who cares bout putting on a good match if its just bout winning
*Loot Boxes in the game limiting customizations is a ridiculous add on to a game that used to be about making what you wanted as a superstar when you wanted to
*Creating a superstar is has still seen no real improvement we get some new items, but we still missing Key features like custom music, custom finishers, custom entrance motions with titles, entrances with muitiple titles. Then theres the fact that you can't have male female teams, why can't I have a female superstar as a consistent manager through my matchs or have a entrance that reflects a male and female superstar as partners. The only real mix entrance in the game is The Miz and Maryse but you can't use there entrance without going around a back door of sorts, and you can't use it period in universe for anyone but them. "Be like no one" more like be like everyone when it matters
*Microtransaction prototype. this game gets more and more dangerously closer to its NBA counter part with them trying to move VC in to more things before adding it as a payable currency
*No voice acting for promos or even in backstage dialogue. Not even important people such as triple H or Steph get the voices in here, the point of promos and storylines is that they get carried by the personality of the superstars they sell us on the story a more stream lined conversations system with choices to your reactions with prerecorded dialogue would be the best of both worlds yet don't see it
*Match Commentary still bland and boring
*That 60 FPS I mentioned gets struck down to a very noticeable 30 instantly when ever you start a coversation backstage

Final thoughts:
While the game heads into the right direction with its graphical enhancements, gameplay, adding match types, bringing some old features back (hot tags). You can see there isn't a real passion to make this game, if anything its just a checklist thats getting checked off every year for the core basics with little substance to them. The past couple games have always had fans saying the gameplay is fine then the keep tweeking it taking away and putting in different things instead of improving on what was lacking previously, and when they do try something new it the idead that seems great for us consumers turns into a barebones execution. I love wrestling games and to see a franchise i grew up with fall this low saddens me. I remain hopeful for the future of these games but if they want to succeed 2K needs to live up to the expectations. When you say "BE LIKE NO ONE" you as a company show that you know thats what we wanna do, but in execution you gave us customization that doesn't fit that bill in comparrsion to previous entrys in wwe games. (if you got this far in the review thank you for patience with the rant)

WWE 2k18's Career Mode is complete garbage.
- Far too heavily scripted, which I suppose would be an accurate simulation of being a WWE wrestler, but I digress.
- Clothing and most other appearance options must be unlocked either through lootboxes or attaining a certain rank in Career Mode.
- Much like clothing, moves are also locked. Considering how many there are in the game, the chances you have of unlocking the ones you want are slim at best.
- You even have to unlock the ability to create advanced custom entrances.

When you create wrestlers outside of the Career Mode everything's already unlocked, so that's something I guess. If you want to play Career Mode however, you're much better off getting WWE 2k17.

After a sometimes stressful day of going to work and destroying Roman Reigns, it's always nice to come home, relax, and destroy Roman Reigns.

This game is definitely not worth your money!

Positives:
+ Nicer graphics than previous WWE 2K games
+ Promo engine improved (this time it is actually possible to get the promo to full points without much guessing)


Negatives:
- MyCareer is just too buggy, and feels like it has not been tested at all. (too many, that make progress difficult or impossible). Storyline wise, it is some sort of improvement over 2k17, but still feels very dissapointing.
- Loot boxes (aww you wanted that specific move for your finisher, well goodluck grinding for a random chance of getting it, oh and to make it more "fun" we will not show what move you unlocked so you better go back to other menu, wait on a loading screen, then select another menu and wait on another loading screen)
- Loading screens. (there are too many of them, especially in MyCareer)
- Universe Mode seems to be buggier than in 2K17 (In SmackDown Live fought against AJ Styles with Randy Orton, Randy won, then a cutscene started of Brock Lesnar attacking John Cena in the ring. Both of them are on RAW, why in the world this would even play)
- GRIND for VC. It is quite difficult to attain big ammounts of VC to unlock anything in MyCareer or Universe (if you don't have the accelerator.). A single match of about 3.5 stars will give you 400VC, if you win, if you lose about 80VC. Just to level up your character you have to spend 1000VC minimum.
- Bugs
- Random crashes
- Bugs in Universe or MyCareer that make the game crash even more
- Prompts for reversals are out of sync.
- Pinfal mini-game has some sort of random delay between pressing the button and it registering in game. (sometimes it happens as soon as you press it, other times it is half a second late)
- Promos are written badly. They are very generic, and do not suit characters at all.
- "Promo engine". Even though I put this as a plus because it is better than 2K17, it is still quite horrific, it doesn't make any sense.
- Showcase mode is still not present in the game (maybe it will be added through DLC again...)
- Performance issues. Random frame drops, very big frame drop when camera goes to split-screen mode (I know it is supposed to go to 30FPS, but it goes to 20 or sometimes even 15fps).
- Can't switch between two or more monitors (have to drag game window to another monitor, before it goes full-screen)

Making your own player is horrible.

You need to earn a lot of the ingame currency to make your character better. After 30 Hours I got a 67/100 Character (starting at 50 I think), and that progress is becoming slower and slower.

You have like 5 Moves at start, you can get some new one when you reach a certain point in your Career but that also takes quite some time and it's not a lot. The only other way is to get Loot cases, either by luck (I got 2 yet) or by buying them with VC, but that's a lot of VC that you could invest in your player, but it's also REALY random. "Wow, I got one move and it's.... a punch." Also stuff like Hairstyles and Clothing has to be found in Loot cases.

Well, you can buy VC with real money of course ........

Multiplayer is unplayable as well. I tried playing with a friend and in 8 out of 8 games, we desynchronized in about a minute.

The Wrestling in itself is allright, but EVERYTHING else in this game is just money-grabbing. (And 2k Servers are horrible as *"§$.

My 11 year old nephew loves Roman Reigns. No wonder his birth parents didn't want him.

Alright, so now that I've put in over 41 hours into this game, I feel like I can make a proper judgement on it's quality, which is sadly lacking. Now, before I tear this game to shreds, I'm going to get the stuff I liked out of the way, because this game isn't without it's good points. (I wouldn't have played it for over 41 hours if it was irredeemable.)

First off, the gameplay itself is better than ever. Save for the odd glitch here and there and somewhat frustrating AI behavior sometimes, the gamplay manages to strike an awesome balance between the old arcade style WWF games, while at the same time feeling like the most realistic wrestling game ever made. It really does feel like you're playing a match on WWE television. On top of that, the creation suite is ALMOST top notch as you'd expect in a yearly WWE game, I managed to make the best looking 'myself' with the face importer than I did in all the other games. The graphics are pretty good, and some of the entrances look down right fantastic.

Now that I've singed the game's praises, it's time to talk about the bad, which unfortunately outweighs the good. Remember how I said the creation suite was 'almost' top notch? Well thats because about 80% of the damn hairstyles, clothing options, and movesets are hidden away inside ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ lootboxes. Yes, the cancer that is lootboxes have infested the WWE games, where they had no business infesting. The lootboxes themselves aren't even generous either. You can spend in game currency (thank god) instead of real money if you want, but earning that in game currency is a slow process, and the lootboxes are expensive. On top of that, you only get like 3 random items from each box, with over 100+ locked items/moves, so unless you pay out the ass or spend an ungodly amount of time grinding, you will never unlock everything this game has to offer.

Another HUGE problem concerning character creation is the 'MY PLAYER' mode. Now, I have know idea which dev was dropped on their head to think not including this feature was okay, but you cannot import or export created wrestlers to or from My Player (My player is essentially your gateway to career mode). For example, I created myself in career mode, but if I wanted to use that created wrestler in say, Universe mode or online, I would have to create him from SCRATCH (Which if you take your time and nitpick the fine details, can be a multi hour process). This would NOT have been a difficult feature to add, and frankly, is an unnacceptable oversight. My buddy pretty much quit the game out of frustration when he realized he had to create his character twice, but the character creation process took him longer than 2 hours, so he couldn't even get a refund.

Now, lets talk about career mode. I will give credit where credit is due, there is a seed of potential greatness here. WWE 2k18 has absolutely stepped in the right direction this year with it's career mode, the freeroaming is charming at first, but can get a little tedious after a while, though the freedom of starting your own rivalries, winning your own accolades, and forming stables could have made this the best wrestling game of all time...

If the career mode wasn't FILLED with glitches. Seriously, I couldn't go two minutes in this mode without running into minor or major glitches, and the game has been PATCHED SEVERAL TIMES at this point! I don't even want to know how bad it was at release! Characters in the free roam will pop in and out of existance, the announce tables will sometimes completely disappear, the commentary will constantly ♥♥♥♥ up, calling the wrong person the champion, or say that one wrestler is 'being dominated', when said wrestler is kicking ass, and those are just the MINOR glitches.

Now, the big glitches almost ruin the career mode for me. You will rarely be booked in a match with your rival, you will form a tag team and then get put in tag matches with someone completely different, and I honestly never once had to defend my Intercontinental belt after winning it.

At one point in the main story, I formed up in a tag team with Baron Corbin. We had matches together for almost a year, and then suddenly in one of my matches, I was ambushed by Curtis Axel, and the game tried to tell me that Curtis Axel had been my tag partner this entire time, and he betrayed me. WTF?! I never even tagged with Axel ONCE, he just suddenly replaced Corbin.

Another glitch, I was put into a stable with Seth Rollins and Finn Balor, and a week later, Seth screwed me out of winning one of my matches. Right after, the game tried to write it off like Seth actually helped me win.

This is by far the buggiest modern WWE game I've ever played. The career mode has moments of fun, I wouldn't have put in so many hours if it wasn't, but the glitches and down right retarded booking AI yanks out any potential emmersion.

This level of bugginess is UNNACCEPTABLE for a full priced game, and you know they aren't going to fix these issues. They're probably already putting their full attention to making 2k19.


So while this game certainly has it's moments, with the lootboxes, terrible glitches and disappointing career mode, I can't reccomend this game in all good concience. I would say wait a year or two for 2K to iron out the kinks in this series.

Unless you are the hardest of hardcore wrestling fans, this game is NOT worth $80.00.