WWE 2K26 review for PS5, Xbox Series X, Switch 2, PC

Here we are yet again for another WrestleMania season and you know what that means! 2K is back with the latest franchise entry in the WWE 2K series and of course that means Triple-R, your resident rasslin’ reviewer, is also back. CM Punk is not only main eventing this year’s Wrestlemania with the tribal chief but he is also the cover athlete and featured showcase superstar for WWE 2K26 (everything is coming up Punk!). Like its cover athlete, WWE 2K26 is not without its controversies (which we will get into in depth) and it also features one of the largest rosters ever in a wrestling game (which is also somewhat controversial). It’s clobberin’ time… or grinding time.

Let’s start with the elephant in the room, The Ringside Pass. So, if you live under a rock let me explain 2K’s pivot for this year’s release; rather than having the in game currency used to unlock legends, 2K has now utilized the Battlepass system (called Ringside Pass for the clear wrestling tie-in) famously created by Fortnite. As you play the game you will receive experience for the Ringside Pass, also like Fortnite there are tiers to the pass. One path is free while the other path is paid and features what in previous years would be part of the DLC season pass. So throughout the next year there will be additional Ringside Passes released with the same free and paid tiers but we have been told by 2K that the passes will not expire so you can unlock at your leisure for each pass. Now I say the word leisure rather casually, but this pass is certainly not leisurely.

Now this review is written post day one patch and the Ringside Pass has already seen slight tweaks, which are both for the good and for the bad in my opinion. You see, during early access players figured out ways to quickly grind the pass to completion. Typically it would take around 7-8 matches to level up the pass pre-patch, but there were players who adjusted some gameplay sliders to make submissions extremely easy and play matches that only took a few seconds to complete. Now post patch 2K has slightly upped the amount of experience you get per match but they also no longer give you full match experience if the match is under a minute. In my opinion this was not the right step to gaining back your fans especially after the backlash already building regarding this pass. Why modify the time limit for match? Why does 2K care if you finish the pass fast? You already paid for the content that in previous franchise entries would just be unlocked (or available with in game currency). They care (in my opinion, nothing has been confirmed by 2K) because just like their big brother Fortnite, you can pay real money to unlock Ringside Pass levels rather than unlocking them by playing the actual game.

I fully expect more changes to be made to the Ringside Pass and hope 2K gets it right. There is other included content besides legends, such as My Faction cards and Creation Suite items in the pass so I am intrigued to see how those items (and maybe even additional wrestlers) pan out in the free tier of future passes, but we’ll have to see. Unfortunately for 2K and this year’s entry the Ringside Pass has really been all that anyone is talking about for WWE 2K26 and that is a shame.

Outside of this problem, which certainly is a major one and I’m not dismissing it, this year’s release continues to improve the gameplay year over year and it’s great in nearly all aspects. Another issue that many are having, myself included, is the new stamina system. Once your stamina bar has run down you enter a cooldown and during that time you cannot reverse holds at all and may botch moves while on the offensive as well. Again, this is another item I feel like 2K will adjust via patch but currently can become extremely frustrating. It also doesn’t seem to help that the CPU almost never runs out of stamina.

Outside of a couple of new match types, we have nearly all the same modes and match types from previous entries. Now we do have an advertised 400+ wrestlers in WWE 2K26 which sounds like an unbelievable number, and it is because the number is very inflated by different versions of the same wrestlers. Different years, action figure models, and even alternate reality versions of the same wrestler, so you might have some characters that have upwards of 5 to 10 versions of the same wrestler. Take those all out and the roster is still quite impressive in my opinion only with a handful of people missing from last year’s release but there also aren’t that many new wrestlers that weren’t already in WWE 2K25. But hey at least we’re getting very nice, very evil; Danhausen in a future Ringside Pass!

While extremely polarizing I am in the camp of fan in regards to CM Punk. So, when the Showcase mode was announced to feature CM Punk I was already sold. Overall, I did enjoy this years showcase but it did leave something to be desired. No matches with the Straight Edge Society were selected and I would have preferred some more of early CM Punk but I’m sure those match choices were mostly omitted due to roster limitations. With Jeff Hardy coming in a future Ringside Pass, it would be awesome to add one of his CM punk matches to the Showcase (it has been done in years past, so I know it’s possible). The “What If” matches are a cool inclusion and something 2K has been building on in the past couple Showcase modes but still didn’t feel like it went all in enough with them. I also need to mention, CM Punk constantly using the term “Slingshot Technology” is laughable and not at all what we were previously told was “Slingshot Technology.”

WWE 2K26 gameplay is top notch and matches play out better than they ever have from entrances, commentary, presentation and the matches themselves are all improved. It’s a shame that the Ringside Pass brings down the overall product and locks too much behind it. Despite the items being on the free tier it takes way too much grinding to unlock wrestlers that were available from the beginning in last year’s entry. Even purchasing the more expensive deluxe versions does not give you any instant unlocks to the Ringside Pass, it all just screams money grab. Unfortunately, I have to recommend sticking with WWE 2K25 at this point until more updates are provided by 2K unless you’re a die-hard CM Punk fan. In closing, Larry Forever!

Note: 2K provided us with a WWE 2K26 PS5 code for review purposes.

Click Here to buy WWE 2K26 on Amazon.