Love the game, but why is it still $59.99? Ridiculous

Everybody towards WWE 2K19 after playing 2K20: "Perhaps I treated you too harshly."

Absolutely no reason for it to be 59.99 same with the other games.

In comparison to the other WWE 2K games available on Steam, 2K19 is the "best" out of the bunch, though that isn't a very high standard. The game has a large roster of current, past, and legend superstars to play as. You can expect bugs and crashes sprinkled here and there that can potentially ruin your experience (e.g. crash during character creation and losing all progress). If you want to play a wrestling game on PC, your best bets are either WWE 2K19 or Fire Pro Wrestling World. Also, we don't talk about WWE 2K20.

Pro-wrestling simulation

Play out exhibition pro-wrestling matches as your favorite WWE superstars. Beat up your opponents with a variety of pro-wrestling strikes, grapples, diving maneuvers, outside dives, and more. Create your own wrestling shows with weekly events and monthly pay-per-views and simulate rivalries as if they were actually weekly televised productions. Create your own wrestlers, modify their movesets, and create your own championships to compete for.

With respect to titles prior to 2K19 (2K18 and older), 2K19 is mostly the same simulation gameplay but with the introduced Payback system where the more you get damaged during a match, the more your Payback meters fill up. Once filled, you can use them to regain the advantage by such means as automatically reversing the opponent's next attack, kicking out of an otherwise match-ending finisher, or cheating through usage of hidden brass knuckles. The Payback system is a welcome addition to the repetitive formula of the 2K wrestling games to make matches feel less one-sided and overall makes gameplay more entertaining which is always a plus.

WWE 2K19 graphically looks the same as 2K18, but that is a plus since 2K18 improved pretty much everything from 2K17 such as lighting, character models, and cloth physics/textures. Most, if not all, of 2K19's roster looks like their real-life counterparts as a select few might look slightly odd (talking about you Ronda Rousey).

Arena and stage pieces look like they do from the real-life items in WWE 2018 televised programming. 2K19 fully introduced the mechanic of wrestler customized side plates for championship titles during entrances which improves the uniqueness felt by someone holding a championship.

There is a "Career Mode" present in WWE 2K19 that 2K took a chance with and, admittedly, was pretty entertaining. It focuses on your created superstar's rise up from wrestling in an independent wrestling promotion to eventually being scouted by WWE and offered a contract to work in the 'big leagues'. Somewhere along the way, things go wrong and your superstar's contract is revoked and it becomes a redemption story as you fight your way back to reclaim the spot taken away from you. Previous WWE 2K titles' career modes were pointless and lacked depth, so this was a noticeable improvement as an interesting story is presented for the first time.

Otherwise, you can play the "Showcase Mode" for WWE 2K19 that recaps the incredible career story of Daniel Bryan, a man who wrestled for ten years prior to being signed by WWE, became the ultimate underdog story and won multiple world championships, retired in 2016 due to a career-threatening neck injury, and made the ultimate comeback in 2018 by announcing his return to the ring. The Showcase modes of 2K games are always of good production quality and it is fun to revisit the amazing highlights for Bryan's careers from the beginning to the present day (2018).

•WWE 2K19, like most WWE games, has huge amounts of creation available in the various custom suites: create your own wrestlers, championships, entrances, movesets, victory animations, briefcases, match types, titantrons, etc. You can spend hundreds of hours just making whatever you want come to reality in a wrestling world.

•The roster of wrestlers available in 2K19 is plentiful and a fun selection. Also, their names haven't been butchered yet like in 2020 (shoutout to Andrade 'Cien' Almas & Mustafa Ali)

•Mods are an option for the PC version of 2K19 so you can mod in wrestlers from other promotions, replace arenas to look like their modern counterparts, or add ported movesets/animations from other games.

•Is not WWE 2K20

•Expect to run into bugs everywhere: double audio playback in Universe mode cutscenes, crashes randomly during various creation suites, and the rare save data corruption that could render all of your sava data useless

•Don't expect much from PvP content: you can be unfairly matched with players of higher level in "Road to Glory" matches, and overall players don't play PvP matches for the purpose of "entertaining an audience", rather they play with the express purpose of winning so expect cheesy tactics and maneuvers.

•The PC version of WWE 2K19's custom downloads suite is pretty inactive or otherwise very poor. If you want good-looking custom content like wrestlers, arenas, and championships, you're better off buying a console version of the game. The console versions of 2K19 are home to many great creators who make accurately-looking versions of custom wrestlers and arenas.

5/10 for non-wrestling fans
7/10 for wrestling fans

2K19 is the "best" 2K game on PC, though it is a pretty low bar to hurdle over. If you want to play a wrestling game on PC, either get this game or Fire Pro Wrestling World. Just don't get 2K20 no matter how low it gets during a sale.

Checkbox reviews are lazy copy & paste bullsh*t. ASCII art reviews tell you nothing. "Let's be honest, I only wrote this review for awards" is a waste of everyone's time. If you are interested in genuine & detailed game reviews, feel free to check out my others here (or don't, I don't tell you what to do).

Way better than 2k20. Not worth the $60 though tbh.

I have a lot of hours in my WWE games because I do a stream every Friday with a custom universe. Honestly I'd use a different wrestling game if it gave as many customization options, but there is no competition.

I'm giving this a thumbs down because it's in and out the same exact game every year with very little difference.

PROS this year
-Loading times are 10000% better. It takes only a few seconds to get to wherever you want.
-Graphics are amazing, as always.
-A huge selection of customization.
-Gameplay seems smoother than last year.
-AI gets stuck less, if they do there is an option to take control of the character and you can stop them from being in a loop. They use the crowd fighting more realistically with less endless loops.

CONS this year
-HIAC is terrible. No weapons this year. The AI doesn't know how to escape the HIAC.
-AI is better, but still terrible. I do strictly AI vs AI matches and if you use a specialty match then they do whatever it is to win. No playing to the crowd, or trying to do things that will make a match exciting. Ladder match? They go straight for the ladder no matter what. Tables match? Gonna be as awkward as they can be to use the table, even if there opponent isn't hurt. This turns into a lot of slapping in the corner and a lot of head bashing if the table is set up in the ring. TLC? Why no pins and submissions? Why only a briefcase/title on top of the ladder? Regardless it's the same as ladder matches. Cage matches? Same as ladder/table matches. They do nothing but try to go for the escape instead of making an exciting match.
-Same promos in and out year after year. It's a terribly integrated part of universe mode that needs to look back to older versions of WWE games for what made them exciting. Plus there are like 5 types you can choose from that are pretty cut and dry.
-Universe mode had little to no work on it. There are more belts now which is nice (6 instead of 4) and MITB, but MITB is almost completely broken. You can't have the holder cash in IN A TITLE MATCH or any other match. It has to be a 1 v 1 NON TITLE match. Absolutely terrible. So much customization yet so little utilization.
-You can't add your own music anymore (been that way a few years) and you can't add any custom photos unless they go through the website for uploading.
-The interference mechanics are extremely limited and most of the time make absolutely no sense. They're randomized so sometimes you may have music play and no one come out, sometimes they may come out and attack. Pre match attacks end up with that match ending before it begins. No "A attacks B then the match begins with B not being 100%." Nope, once the attack happens it's just like a backstage brawl, it will end when one wrestler has had enough punishment from the other wrestler. Makes no sense.
-Mid match cut scenes are absolutely horrific. I've seen 2. One where the wrestler jumped out of the ring and started to walk off because he was "done" with the match. Then he proceeded to get stuck at the ramp while the other wrestler sat in the ring and they just stared at each other. The second is one I've seen over and over. It will cut to black, come back a half a second later, one wrestler will be staring at the crowd showboating or whatever and the second wrestler will hit him. It does nothing for the match and triggers randomly.
-No matter what anyone says to me, MyCareer is trash. People can praise it if they want, but it was incredibly limited and just ridiculous. Props to the voice lines for wrestlers and such, but meh.
-The red and white UI on the menu screens is trash.

Most of my play time is through universe, granted. I use that because it's what I wanted the game for and what I spent 60 bucks for. But compared to last year, I could have just kept playing with 2k18 instead of recreating all of my custom stuff and spending countless hours for the exact same game with two more titles/MITB. Yes the load times are a lot faster, which I appreciate, but it doesn't help the actual universe mode.

All in all I will keep using it because... I really have no other choice if I want a decent wrestling game on the PC. Fire Pro Wrestling World doesn't have a GM mode, and Pro Wrestling X is pretty much unplayable at the moment. Wrestling Revolution was good 15 years ago but by today's standards doesn't have anything intriguing. So there are no other options.

2K is, after all is said and done, a business. A company just like EA or Bethesda or any other giant game company. They don't care about your experience, they care about cranking out another game this year as fast as they can to get your money.

Props to the development team who put their heart and passion in creating the game, and I wish they had more time to fine tune what the players want. I appreciate them working countless hours to pump out another game and what they tried to do to tighten it up and make it better than the previous year. I'd gladly wait 2 or more years for a game that shows substantial improvements, but we know that won't happen.

TL;DR - If you love wrestling, you'll probably love this, or at least get a good experience out of it. I have definitely gotten my money's worth out of it, but there are not enough changes from previous games to deserve another 60 of your hard earned dollars.

The Grind is Real Again.

In 2k19 once again your character is starts out with basic moves, basic, cloths, appearance, entrance, everything. Then its up to you to grind through towers, through exhibition matches, career mode matches and online matches just to earn 9000 VC in order to get some normal looking pants.

This game is microtransaction heavy. Not only and I'm not reccomending this game, but I'm done with 2kl money grabs.

If you are considering purchasing WWE 2K20, I'd go ahead and just buy WWE 2K19 instead.

They honestly need to stop this franchise ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. It's not a bad game and I'll still recommend it as it is now, but my reasons stated at the bottom show my overall disappointment with the direction of this company and franchise.

Note: I'm glad I bought this from the Humble Bundle (with other 2k games) for so cheap. Because honestly the $60 price tag on EVERY one of these games is ridiculously unwarranted. (WWE 2K17 IS STILL $50!?!?! WHAt iN THE ♥♥♥♥!?)

✔️ It's good in essence and the animations/graphics/character models are basically spot on (minus the weird hair still).
✔️ The gameplay is very similar to every 2K game after 14, with adequate improvements to the move sets and realistic
grappling moves. Tons more gamemodes have been added since 18, and they brought back the Showcase (story) mode.
✔️ Character creation has seemed to improve with much more options over the past few years.
✔️ New "payback" system gives you greater advantages when you're being screwed up big time.
✔️ Performance & Optimization is WAY better than what 18 was (unplayable). (Though it's honestly still not as good as 17's for PC. But it's for sure playable. Through my experience.)
✔️ Over 200 characters like it says.
✔️ New weapon sound effects make hits more satisfying (lol).

❌ Online play is basically pointless unless you have a friend. Last time I tried to just start a normal one on one match I sat there for about 40 minutes with no people to play with, and quit. (And 1v1 was the mode that most people would play in the past series! Wtf!?) Good luck trying to queue for anything else.
❌Performance dips situationally. Entrances are capped to 30 FPS. Going through the crowd and entrance stage mid-fight seems to drastically slow down the game for some reason. (Obviously this also depends on your rig, but WWE games have been known to vary it's performance between even the high end rigs whether they want to run well or not, the game picks whether to like AMD or NVIDIA better and depends on the model. For christ sakes, if you have a NVIDIA card the game still chooses to run your integrated graphics card until you change it. BY DEFAULT. Lmao)
❌ Character creation is also limited.
❌ Weird animation glitches still exist. (e.g You're in hell in a cell. Someone gets thrown/slammed right in the very corner next to a cage, sometimes your character 's arms can get stuck in the cage, screwing up all your animations. Deformations can happen too in other situations, like getting off the ropes too fast before the animation ends with quicker characters.)

🔥💬 But my main gripe is with 2K as a company. They honestly need to stop with this yearly garbage that just has some improvements every release. They need to take a few years to make the game, be like a NORMAL gaming company (which yes I'm aware that word is loosely used nowadays lol) and stop milking the series just like all of their other sports games. I also think the games need more touches to the arcade style like '13 had. While a realistic simulation is cool and all, it doesn't necessarily make the game more fun either.

❓ Maybe then we might actually get a "FULLY DIFFERENT" game. Maybe one that's as good as perhaps No Mercy. And maybe, people will actually play it more, and more people will buy it because they won't have to worry about throwing out $60 every year just for the same game with additions and some cheap/minor engine changes here and there. Hell, scrap the "WWE 2K" name entirely so people won't think its just another recycle. (We had WWE survivor series, attitude, superstars, smackdown vs raw, no mercy.) Honestly.

Better than 2K20