Also On: PS4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, PC
Publisher: 2K
Developer: Visual Concepts
Medium: Digital/Disc
Players: 1-8
Online: Yes
ESRB: T
The People’s Champ is back…and I’m not talking about The Rock. You see it’s WrestleMania season again and the tradition of a new WWE 2K entry during this time of year continues. If you’re a fan of the current WWE product, I’m sure you’ve seen some of the great advertising for this year’s entry (minus the creepy AI faces of Hogan and Austin) and even the returning CM Punk mentioning it in a promo with Cody Rhodes (hoping for a speedy recovery, Mr. Punk). Having said all that, another year and another wrestling title means I am back at the helm to review and despite The Rock now owning all his trademarks, I am taking the title of People’s Champ as I have braved these WWE titles good, bad, or indifferent for many years and I have done that for you… the people. I’ll wait for your response, Rocky.
Enough promos, lets talk about WWE 2K24. This year’s release features what has to be one of the largest (if not the largest) roster ever collected in a WWE, scratch that, any wrestling game ever! Earlier this week I spoke with Benny on the Pressed For Time podcast about my preliminary review (check it out on YouTube) and we spoke at length about just how impressively large this roster is. Despite a couple of notable missing personalities, it’s extremely impressive. Covering legends and all current rosters across all three brands, the most noticeable missing person is CM Punk who came back to the company at the end of November 2023… and he’s going to be added in the first DLC pack. This blows my mind how far they’ve come with keeping the roster current and up to date. For comparison, WWF Warzone back in the PlayStation 1 era featured a total of 18 wrestlers. By the time it was released in the summer of 1998, 2 of those wrestlers (Bulldog and Bret Hart) had already gone to WCW and had been there for 7+ months.
In addition, there’s still the extremely robust and impressive Create A Wrestler to fill in any gaps for returning/new talent (Andrade) or any legends missing (Nature Boy, Sting, Owen Hart, etc.) On top of all of that we also have real referees (Little Naitch!), managers, and ringside announcers. It’s truly a feat that the team at 2K should take a bow over. Now I’m not going to go into the weeds on the bad press that the WWE has been dealing with but just say without the disgusting controversy, we also would have Vince McMahon and Brock Lesnar in the release, but they have been patched out of the game other than appearances in this year’s Showcase mode. So you’ll have to either create VKM or download someone else’s version to give him the in game ass kicking he deserves.
Speaking of Showcase mode, this year is the 40 Years of WrestleMania . I’ll tell you right off the jump, I was extremely disappointed with this year’s mode, especially considering how much I enjoyed the different take on the John Cena Showcase last year. You see, this year’s Showcase has kinda sorta been done already. First in the old 360 era title, Legends of WrestleMania, and then again for the 30th anniversary of WrestleMania in WWE 2K14. Both of those games included matches from WrestleMania ’s that are not included in 2K24 and I understand not redoing the same matches for a 3rd time… but that didn’t stop them on some of the included matches (how many times do we have to play Hogan Vs. Andre?!?). Also there’s not a match from each WrestleMania and it hops over a quite a few. Why not lean into last year’s Showcase and mix some of the “Redefine” from the Legends of WrestleMania (which nearly everyone has forgotten) and have the player rewrite history and change some of the match outcomes and how the trajectory of the company would have shifted or how another outcome might have looked?
Same as it’s been the past few years, my arch nemesis “the blank face” aka archival footage with blurred out faces and logos. It’s back and more rampant than ever, it’s so jarring. I feel like I hammer on about it too much every year, so I’ll leave it at that. But what I find additionally odd is how they’ve went out of their way to remove one of the most iconic voices in wrestling history from this mode as well. You see Howard Finkel was the ring announcer for the WWF.
WWE for decades and his announcing of the entrants and winners are memories that still linger with me. So not only have they blurred The Fink out, they’ve also removed his voice over in the archival footage used and overlayed a current ring announcer to make the winning call. Now, I don’t know all the formalities involved obviously but this seems petty and like they didn’t want to give The Finks’ family a cut or something. This year Corey Graves narrates the mode which I didn’t mind, but it was missing one other major component, one item that the other above mentioned games had in their Showcase/Career modes; commentary. Literally zero commentary during the matches, with some generic public domain sounding score. Outside of those complaints, Showcase is the same as it ever was, you play matches, do the in match objectives, unlock people and arenas, rinse and repeat.
Some of the returning favorite modes;
-MyRise now features multiple fully voiced over storylines which, in my opinion, is the better and more fun way to spend your time instead of the Showcase mode.
-MyGM expanding on the past two years of the mode with more General Managers and more options as you run your shows.
-MyFaction now featuring unlockable items that now work in all other modes rather than being selectable only in MyFaction (say hello to the action figure versions of a handful of wrestlers and use them in any match type you want).
Finally, there are a couple of new/returning match types for 2K24. We have, as you might have guessed based on my previous mentioning of referees earlier, a special guest referee mode. In this mode you can select a real ref or any other superstar. We also have the return of the famous casket match and an ambulance match. This is all just gravy IMO, adding to an already impressive lineup of match types that rivals any other wrestling game, not just WWE releases. Match types, dozens and dozens of “premade” arenas and hundreds of wrestlers to choose from, the options are really limitless (insert some Keith Lee, Gunther meme or joke). One other minor detail that I wanted to mention that I absolutely love (and it’s such a small detail, but it matters to some) is that you can now change the camera angle of the hard cam. So now you can swing the camera to face the entranceway/tron. This is my preferred way to play and just adds to the Royal Rumble match type as you can see the video of each entrant and see them enter and exit from the match (People’s Champ Pro Tip).
I feel like now is a good time to wrap it up before I start to lose some people like The Rock’s 20+ minute IG video. I know I really hammered on the Showcase mode, but I really did enjoy my time with WWE 2K24 as a whole, I just expected better from that mode especially based on its history. Regardless of that mode this is the definitive wrestling video game of this year or even the past five years! The enormous roster and multitude of match types will leave you with many hours of dream matches or fantasy bookings. This is an absolute buy, so grab a copy and FINALLY finish your story. Also let’s go McIntyre!
Note: 2K provided us with a WWE 2K24 PS5 code for review purposes.
