Finish your story. That’s all Cody Rhodes has heard since his first confrontation with Roman Reigns for the WWE Undisputed Championship last year, but the upcoming WrestleMania XL (40) might actually see it come to realisation. In the meantime though, another chapter of Cody’s legacy is being written as he’s the cover star of WWE 2K24. Both he and the WWE 2K series have grown immensely in recent times, albeit with some room for improvement still.
Can 2K and Visual Concepts deliver an experience that takes the franchise to the next level in WWE 2K24?
First and foremost, WWE 2K24 builds upon the action-packed gameplay found in the previous offering, WWE 2K23. There aren’t any huge changes between the years, however there are a few nice touches to complement what was already in place.
Through the introductory tutorial presented excellently by Drew Gulak, and various in-game pop-ups upon initially experiencing a new situation, everything is explained very well. In a nutshell, the arsenal of moves at your disposal is vast for each and every Superstar, as well as being fairly easy to pull off. I’m talking light attacks, heavy attacks, striking combinations, grappling from numerous positions, top rope moves and more. Let’s not forget the signature and finishing options either, with the finishers looking especially hard-hitting once again. There are also defensive manoeuvres enabling you to block, dodge, and reverse incoming offence, providing a wealth of choice in regards to how you deal with those who stand before you..
On top of that, you’ve got the new stuff including the ability to throw weapons – which is cool and occasionally funny – the addition of the ‘Trading Blows’ mini-game, and Super Finishers. Trading Blows is a neat little back and forth involving timing the length of a button hold in order to succeed. Super Finishers require three stored finishing meters to execute and deliver devastating damage to the opponent.
All of that, plus the aforementioned gameplay, makes every contest feel fresh and the animations ensure everything happens with great fluidity, with very few hiccups. Furthermore, the AI puts up enough of a fight to be challenging, yet rewarding, to keep you interested at all times. It’s all for nothing though if the game modes don’t entice you into play, so let’s see what’s on offer in that department.
Focusing on the 2K Showcase and its theme for this instalment celebrates forty years of the grandest stage of them all, WrestleMania. Titled as the ‘Showcase… of the Immortals’, it features just over twenty iconic and memorable Wrestlemania matches spanning five decades of WWE history. Expect to witness and participate in match-ups such as Rick Rude vs Ultimate Warrior (WrestleMania V), Steve Austin vs Bret Hart (WrestleMania XIII), Seth Rollins vs Randy Orton (WrestleMania 31) – yes, the one with THAT RKO.
The current SmackDown commentator, Corey Graves, plays host, narrating the introductions to each encounter, aided by high quality video packages. From there you’ll perform numerous objectives which coincide with the specific match you’re recreating. This could have you performing simple running attacks, a signature move, or a ton of German suplexes. Every so often it triggers a real live-action scene, before transitioning back seamlessly to the game via the Slingshot Tech. Rinse and repeat until the match reaches its original conclusion.
There’s no doubt it’s an absolute nostalgia-fest, but for anyone unfamiliar with the historic encounters, they’ll be engrossed and enlightened. As for the choice of matches, I have very minimal complaints, aside from there being an overabundance of selections still fresh in the mind because they happened in the past two years. It also irks to see blurry faces during the archive footage, and all (apart from one instance) can surely be avoided by just paying the royalties. Nevertheless, it’s a great mode to get you in the mood for Mania season and it’s worth playing through to unlock all sorts of cool characters and arenas.
Next up is MyRISE, the more story-focused career mode style offering in WWE 2K24. There’s not one, but two different tales to immerse yourself in as a created character – Undisputed (Male) and Unleashed (Female).
Undisputed sees the Tribal Chief Roman Reigns relinquish his title to head off to Hollywood, which opens up an opportunity for you. A tournament is announced and participating in it catapults your career from mediocrity to main event status. In Unleashed, you’ll be thrown into the role of a red hot star of the independent scene who started their own, rather violent, promotion called TBD, after turning down an offer made by the WWE. When another chance to sign with WWE arises, her arrival isn’t exactly welcome by everyone and bitterness is rampant behind the scenes.
Both stories are interesting and entertaining, but I think Unleashed is especially fun because it goes extreme right off the bat and is a bit silly. Growing your Superstar’s attributes through following the main story and the optional battles is a thoroughly enjoyable exercise, with a nice variety of objectives and unlockables littered throughout. The voiceovers are to a decent standard too and it’s wonderful to see William Regal prominent in both careers; he has a way with words like nobody else.
If collecting cards is more your kind of activity, then you’re in luck as MyFACTION is present and better than ever. Essentially it sees you opening packs of cards filled with Superstars and Legends, who can then be used in match-ups. The luck of the draw adds excitement as you might end up pulling a legend like The Undertaker, or wasting in-game currency on a Bronze version of Scrypts. The fact that cards can be levelled-up by completing objectives is great though and the new Persona card type providing a special character to use throughout the whole game is pretty cool.
Once the dream team is assembled, the usual raft of MyFACTION modes are in place – Live Events, Weekly Towers, Proving Grounds and Faction Wars. You can expect a lot of 4vs4 action to occur, which makes for exciting matches, but they have tended to be long and drawn out in previous years. FINALLY though, Visual Concepts have implemented a mechanic for WWE 2K24 that basically gives any interfering teammates a timeout, rendering them unable to break up a pin attempt for a short while. It’s so simple, yet brilliant, and has a huge impact on the overall enjoyment.
A new feature in WWE 2K24 is the ability to play Ranked battles, with rewards earned for your position on a seasonal leaderboard. The incentives to play online are unfortunately outweighed by a couple of hefty drawbacks however. There feels like a delay to everything you try to do during an encounter, which really throws off the timing of reversals, kick-outs and such. The second issue is out of the developer’s hands as it concerns every match turning into a case of repeating a single attack over and over again – it’s worse than the old jumping kick and uppercut method from Mortal Kombat. Boring is an understatement.
It’s a small blemish on an otherwise flourishing mode. And so it’s over to the next offering that’s hoping to draw your attention, MyGM.
As someone who spent hours and hours of my youth engrossed in wrestling management sims like EWR, MyGM should be perfect. Taking on the mantle of a General Manager, you must draft Superstars to your roster, book the weekly shows and Premium Live Events, and organise the logistics that go into them, e.g. the arena and special. Managing the budget and massaging the egos of talent is also in your wheelhouse, amongst other things. The idea is to achieve high ratings for your creatively put together match cards and outdo the GMs of other shows.
The GMs available to choose from each have bonus effects you can trigger and the brand you commit to will present a specific power card to use in times of need. For example, Xavier Woods uses a ‘cheat code’ to recruit a star from a rival brand and the new arrival Teddy Long removes match bonuses for the opposition as well as limits their XP gains. Speaking of XP, the members of your roster can now earn experience from your booking of them and this unlocks perks relevant to that individual character. There are a good selection of match types too, adding variety to proceedings.
For all the joy MyGM can bring to people that want to meticulously build a brand and put on shows that outshine the competition, there’s still confusion on the ratings system. No matter how popular the combatants are, or whether their fighting styles are in sync, the results are irritatingly inconsistent. I also take umbrage with the inability to pick which Superstar I want to win each match-up, because that factor is crucial to my plans for the sake of long-term storytelling.
Don’t worry though, as Universe mode will let you do exactly that as you sculpt the entire WWE Universe, or follow the trajectory of a single character. It’s a sandbox offering in which you can play through or edit events generated by the system however you see fit. Rebrand the shows, create rivalries, bring back the Hardcore title, and even sign Yokozuna to Raw. The possibilities are on a mass scale and the fresh rivalry options included are welcome, but it’s the narrative substance that’s lacking once more. As such it doesn’t feel like Universe has made much progress since the last outing.
Should you prefer to just fire up a one-off match, the match types are sure to please you. Not only do you have cages, rumbles, tables, ladders and chairs involved in stipulations, there are a handful of new ones. The Ambulance and Casket matches see you wearing down the opponent, before instigating a mini-game to shut the ambulance door or casket lid with them inside. Gauntlet matches are also on the cards, with one versus all and winner stays on style rules. The best addition however, is Special Guest Referee, mainly because you can try to call it fairly or go for fast counts and ask for the bell to be rung prematurely. Until you try it, you won’t realise how hard a job it is for referees to stay out of harm’s way. But gosh, it’s surprisingly fun.
The less said about the regular online action, the better, for its pitiful existence makes me wonder why it’s even present.
A word on the WWE 2K24 roster though, and credit goes to the design team as the majority of the Superstars look superb, with facial expressions that add an extra layer of realism. There’s a brilliant mixture of current stars and blasts from the past too. Having the likes of Ken Shamrock, Ravishing Rick Rude, and Superstar Billy Graham definitely enhances an already strong roster, with more greats AND CM Punk yet to come via DLC. And if you’d rather step between the ropes as Mei Suruga from Gatoh Move or MJF from AEW, then the community creations have you covered with lots of alternative wrestlers to use.
Ultimately, WWE 2K24 delivers a huge wrestling playground for you to not only finish the story, but create your own stories too. The vast amount of game modes in place and the massive roster of Superstars helps forge a ton of possibilities. The improvements are clear to see, but there are areas that need a little bit of attention, with the online side especially lacking.
With the grandest stage of them all on the horizon, it’s the perfect time to venture into the grandest game of them all, WWE 2K24.
