Showcase of the Immorals
To say it’s a tumultuous time at WWE would be a bit of an understatement. The fallout of the Janel Grant sex trafficking lawsuit has turned the company upside down over the last several months, with the ouster of Vince McMahon and Brock Lesnar the two largest impacts as far as the on-screen product is concerned. They brought back the Rock (now on the board of directors) to attempt to distract from the sexual assault allegations and succeeded in doing so (at least temporarily), albeit not in the way I’m sure they originally envisioned. The original plan to replace Roman/Cody with Roman/Rock was so poorly received they had to turn the Rock heel to salvage it. A major injury to returning star and recent AEW malcontent CM Punk further altered plans at the top of the card for the biggest event of the WWE calendar year. While they’ve now got the card for Mania locked in, it’s a completely different show than was originally envisioned.
Into this maelstrom, 2K has launched WWE 2K24. Contrary to the whirling tempest of changes, bad press, and worse behavior that has been this Wrestlemania season for the real company, the virtual one is…pretty safe. Sure, they had to make some changes, (mostly) removing McMahon and Brock as playable characters and blurring Vince’s face in a couple of cutscenes, but generally the motto for this year’s game appears to be to “Don’t fix what isn’t broken, or even some of the things that are”.
MSRP: $69.99
Platforms: Xbox (reviewed), PlayStation, PC
Price I’d Pay: $39.99
If you’ve played WWE 2K23 you’ll know exactly what you’re getting into here. The gameplay is nearly identical to last year’s best ever entry in the series, with a couple of minor adjustments. You now have the ability once per match to “Trade Blows” with your opponent by holding the light strike button, punching, or chopping each other back and forth by continuing to release the strike button in a green zone. Once one of the competitors successfully releases the button in the gold zone, they land an extra strong blow guaranteed to stun your opponent. This mechanic is a long needed one to replicate the look and feel of modern wrestling and has been present (albeit in a more basic fashion) in the Fire Pro series for years. They also added a handful of other minor things, new Paybacks, weapons, and the ability to dive onto a group of wrestlers all huddled together. Some wrestlers get Super Finishers in this year’s game, performed by storing three finishers before unleashing them all in an extra powerful sequence, for example Cody Rhodes’ triple Crossrhodes. Weapons can be thrown now, which isn’t super useful but is almost always hilarious in execution, as you fling trashcans or chairs across the squared circle into your unsuspecting opponent’s face.
It wouldn’t be a WWE 2K game without its share of strange clipping issues, hit detection errors, and goofy physics. While this year’s game seems to have improved in some of those areas (particularly post launch day patch) you’ll still find plenty. While playing a match with my son, I picked up the stairs at ringside to do some damage. Well, picked up is probably a loose term, I pressed the button to pick them up and my wrestler jumped over them, got in the ring, and then the stairs warped into my hands. You’ve heard AEW wrestler PAC referred to as the “Man that Gravity Forgot”? Well Drew McIntyre became “The Man that Physics Forgot” as soon as those stairs were in his hands. Walking through the ropes, walking on air, the natural laws of this world were mere suggestions to the Scottish Psychopath until a sharp kick from Doink the Clown brought him back to the realm of mortals. The weapons continue to be a major source of physical hilarity, with chairs and stairs seeming to be the primary offenders.
AI-controlled wrestlers still need a decent amount of work. Opponents still stop and stare on occasion, as if they’ve forgotten they’re supposed to be putting on a fictional athletic display in front of 55,000 screaming fans (announced attendance of course, the real count is about 42k). In a match against Steve Austin, the Texas Rattlesnake had my player-controlled Bret Hart right where he wanted him. To the biggest star in the history of the business the only course of action was clear: vault back and forth across the ringside steps 6 times while the Hitman shook off his temporary paralysis. When it comes to doing a move against them though, the computer-controlled characters continue to be savants. Reversals are omnipresent again from AI-controlled wrestlers, even when they are severely damaged. This isn’t really a change from the last several years’ worth of games in the series and, in my opinion, this reversal-heavy behavior is really wearing thin. While there can be no doubt that this game has the best bell-to-bell gameplay we’ve seen in the series yet, I can’t help but be equal parts bored with it and frustrated by issues they’ve had years to fix and haven’t.
The big draw for this year’s game, and the mode that has gotten the most publicity in advertising, is the 40 Years of Wrestlemania Showcase Mode. Dubbed “2K Showcase of the Immortals”, the mode works exactly the same way the mode has worked for the last several years. Using their Slingshot Tech, 2K blends between live action footage and real-time gameplay for many of the biggest matches in the history of Wrestlemania. Matches play out just as before, complete objectives, transition to a cutscene, rinse/repeat until the match is over. Unfortunately, despite the admittedly interesting subject matter I can’t help but feel like this year’s Showcase mode falls flat on its face compared to past entries.
For a mode that claims to be about the 40 years of Wrestlemania there are a LOT of Wrestlemanias missing here. I won’t spoil the whole list of matches for those of you who are sensitive to those things, but I was very disappointed that some of biggest matches I can remember from the history of the show just aren’t here. You get 21 matches in total, with several shows getting more than one. If you do the math, that means that more than half of the Wrestlemania’s in history aren’t represented here, despite many of the shows certainly able to be represented with the roster on display.
Once the bell rings on Showcase mode, things don’t get much better. The game continues to prioritize cutscenes over gameplay in this mode, to the detriment of the player experience. Quick, tell me the most iconic Wrestlemania moment of the 80’s? Did you say, “known racist and perpetually orange wrestle-man Hulk Hogan slamming the Andre the Giant in front of 93,000 screaming Hulkamaniac’s at Wrestlemania 3”? Yes? Well, you’ll be glad to know that this historic moment, replayed ad infinitum over the last 4 decades on WWE programming happens during a cutscene in Showcase mode. That’s right. You don’t even get to slam Andre yourself. This plays out countless times over several important moments in the history of the event and every time I find myself disappointed that I wasn’t controlling the action.
When you are in control, you can expect the same frustrating reversal happy action that playing against the computer in this series always includes, with the additional frustration of fighting with objectives that don’t always trigger when they should. During the classic Bret Hart/Steve Austin match from Wrestlemania 13 my final objective was to put Steve in the Sharpshooter. When I did, the objective didn’t trigger. When I released the hold, so that I wouldn’t end the match without completing the objective, Steve stunned me and pinned me, causing me to have to replay the entire 20-minute match over again. That’s right, there are no mid-match checkpoints here. If you finish 16 of 17 objectives and get pinned, you’re right back to the start of the match. The objectives tend to vary between hyper-specific (do a DDT on your opponent on the floor to the east of the ring) to overly generic (reverse a move, do damage). Sometimes, they don’t even quite make sense in the context of the game mechanics. For example, in the HBK/Razor ladder match I was tasked with using my signature move as my second objective in the match (the first was to block or dodge a strike). This of course completely slows down the match progression, as the signature bar takes a while to fill up. If the developers knew that they wanted Razor to hit a signature that early in the match, they have it in their power to start the player off with at least a half-full bar. Instead, you must hope you’re luckier than me, who had his signature attempt reversed twice and had to start from scratch filling the bar each time.
After the first couple years of this new Slinghot Tech enhanced Showcase mode, I was really looking forward to seeing what they could do with a topic as huge as 40 Years of Wrestlemania. This mode was the highlight of last year’s game for me. At this point though, I never need to play a showcase mode again. They need to do some heavy redesigns on this feature for next year’s game if they intend to include it again.
The rest of the modes on offer here are exactly what you’d expect. Quick matches with all the expected options, including new editions like the Casket Match and Ambulance Match. I found both of these new match types to be a lot of fun, but they are basically the same thing just with different props (throw opponent into casket/ambulance, mash the correct buttons to shut the door). The really innovative new match type is Guest Referee. In this mode, you control the referee for the contest (which can either be any of the wrestlers on roster or one of 7 real life WWE referees) and your job is to do all the things that the men and women in the striped shirts always do. Count pinfalls, count wrestlers out of the ring, warn wrestlers when they cross the line, and call for the bell on submissions. The twist here of course is that, in grand special referee tradition, you don’t have to call it straight down the middle. You can fast or slow count, turn a blind eye on DQ’s and even get physically involved in the match. You have a Ref meter at the top of the screen that will run out if you continually underperform or play favorites, and once it runs out, you’ll be replaced as the referee unless you can end the match before the other ref gets out there. This match type is a lot of fun and the first real innovation the series has seen in a long time.
In terms of other modes, you have your stock set of options that fans of the series expect. Universe mode returns with both sandbox and Superstar options. This mode has had a lot of good things added to it and continues to be the best mode to play the game in if you’re the type of person that wants full control over your own WWE Universe. MyGM mode returns from last year with more match types, options for talent management, and multiple championships per brand. It feels like a nice step up from last year’s game, but it’s still not a mode that interested me enough to spend much time here. The objectives here can also be just as nonsensical as the Showcase mode, with Triple H challenging me to objectives like “Don’t book your most popular Superstar in a match this week” during the week of a PLE. Also, some brands don’t have a women’s championship (ECW for example), so know that going in before you draft your brand.
MyFaction also returns and continues to be the least interesting part of the game. I’m admittedly tired of card modes like this in sports (and fictionalized sports) games, but this one just feels exceptionally superfluous with the other modes on offer here all presenting a much more interesting challenge. For those of you who do enjoy it, you’ll find a very similar experience to last year on offer with some new spins on towers and Faction Wars. I do respect the fact that 2K limits the Virtual Currency craziness to this mode in 2K24, unlike the extreme pay-to-win setup for the NBA series.
The popular MyRise career mode returns this year and just like in 23 you’ll have a career mode option for men (Undisputed) and women (Unleashed). The mode is largely structured the same way as last year, with a “hub” backstage where you can talk to various superstars or other folks to begin side missions or continue the story. There are voice-overs for Superstars, and the performances range as you would expect from good to poor. You can unlock MyRise wrestlers in the mode that you can use in other game modes, which is as good a reason as any to invest some time here.
The Creation Suite is largely unchanged, except adding in the ability to create Referees, but that isn’t a bad thing at all. The Creation tools in this series are far and away the Crown Jewel (pun…intended?) of the franchise at this point and are guaranteed to produce incredibly high-quality facsimiles of any of your favorites that didn’t make the cut on the (admittedly huge) out of the box roster.
WWE 2K24 is, as I mentioned above, the best-playing game in the series. The progress of the bell-to-bell of the series from undesirable to undeniable should make cover boy Cody Rhodes proud. Unfortunately, I had less fun with the game this year than last year, mostly I think because of fatigue with the flaws of the series. They have had years to correct the frustrating and often mind-boggling problems with AI wrestler behavior, clipping and collision detection, and reversal-heavy gameplay, and these issues continue to persist. The Showcase mode, a real highlight in last year’s game, has also taken a huge step back, which is a major disappointment. After taking this many years to finally get things right when it comes to the player-controlled action, it may be strange to hear me say that they need to think about some major overhauls of the franchise’s DNA, but I believe that may be what the series needs to feel fresh again. Just like a wrestling match the biggest sin a wrestling game can commit is to be boring, and for me that’s just what the WWE 2K series has become.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
