WWE 2K23

[FLiam]

So after weeks of seemingly promising actual gameplay and mode reveals at Summerslam - 2K dropped this today.

[Hellraiser]

I see that they still haven't figured out how to make long hair work.

[METALMAN]

Is this new wrestling game part of their glitchy mess series or their roided-up dwarves with superpowers series?

[apsham]

Move animations look closer to their Smackdown vs Raw counterparts than anything that they did under the WWE banner, which is a good sign. Wanna see what they've done to gameplay in general - I'm going to want to see a big steer away from the simulation aspects.

[tristy]

I'm on the opposite end - if they go back to arcade-y Raw vs Smackdown type stuff, I'm not gonna be interested. I love 2K19 and I think that's the pinnacle of their gameplay in the series, so just improve on that with current-gen graphics and features and I'm good to go. It'll be the only time I give WWE my money, as well.

[FLiam]

I've said this for a few years now but they need to fix the ring ring and mat physics. For far too long it feels like it's a solid object rather than something with a bit of spring to it. 

[MalaCloudy Black]

I've never heard of "Sports Gamers Online", but they're claiming they have sources who work on 2K22 and say that the relationship between WWE and 2K is currently "strained". WWE pushed to have the game released in fall of 2021, but 2K and Visual Concepts wanted more time and wanted a spring release.

[Bobfoc]

The reports suggest that WWE has been threatening to go to a completely different publisher in the future.

[FLiam]

At least that means 2K seemingly want to release a better game than in the past and not rush it.

[apsham]

The game has indeed been delayed until March.

[Skummy]

I imagine that there's a shit ton of stuff they need to remove from this.

If they started writing a career mode last year, it would probably have quite predominantly featured The Fiend, and I expect there was a bunch of other Bray Wyatt related content too (they seem to love using him as an excuse to put in supernatural silliness). While some of the releases over the last year wouldn't have amounted to much more than just removing from the game, I imagine the likes of Bray, Bryan and Strowman at least have entailed some pretty significant rebuilding. That's before you get into how fundamentally broken the games have been for years, too.

[FLiam]

With reports of WWE rushing the release, it’s almost as if they don’t give a shit about the product they’re releasing - they just want their fans cash.

Edited August 24, 2021 by FLiam

[Warhawk8492]

If it gets decent reviews and a PC release I might get it.

[9 to 5]

6 hours ago, FLiam said:

With reports of WWE rushing the release, it’s almost as if they don’t give a shit about the product they’re releasing - they just want their fans cash.

Same as FIFA, Madden and any other major sporting game/body really.

[The Buscher]

Yeah, any annual release is going to run into these same inevitable problems.  They want a new game every year and it's not really enough time to make any major changes.  Any major change that happens was likely planned a couple of cycles beforehand.  Madden is hardly worth getting every year because it turns into a glorified roster update.  Even MLB The Show, as great as it is, have pretty much gone as far as they can go on PS4 so I'd expect every game on that console to be pretty much the same moving forward while new stuff is shifted to PS5.

Now if/when WWE2k22 ends up just being the same game yet again, that would be disappointing given the break in the cycle.  I realize that there was a period of time when studios were likely shuttered due to COVID, etc but this could have been the creative reset they badly needed to put out a game that actually feels fresh and not the same game its been for a dozen years or more.

[apsham]

I mean, at the start of the process when they announced that they'd be taking the year off they took all the steps they needed in order to do that. Everything that they did at that time was in good faith as they had a series of discussions on just about every topic they could find about what the community liked, didn't like and what needed to change. Some of the posts coming out of those discussions were really on the nose about what needed to be fixed.

Now... who was involved in a lot of these discussions? I dunno. I know there are things that I would remove the focus ENTIRELY from that they tried to push hard in recent years - mostly involving online play. I don't think a wrestling game is ever, ever, ever going to be a great competitive online game. Fun between friends and for some casual fun? Sure. But the moment they started to put focus on winning things for the game into that mode it was ruined. By its very nature, things in wrestling aren't going to be fair when you turn it into something that's actually competitive so that part got hampered. I dunno how many people were actually into that stuff - and as Tristy said, he wants more sim stuff and I think the series has become progressively worse and worse since that happened, so one of us will likely be disappointed in the end.

But yeah, 2K19 I still had a ton of fun with ultimately, and a lot of what I needed to see fixed had to do the terrible move animations and the framerate, things along those lines - along with better modes. See how that handles, because in the meantime I've put more time into the latest friggin' MDickie game than I had in 2K20 and 2K19 combined because it's just a fun wrestling game.

[Gabriel]

I really just want more control from a wrestling game. Universe mode should have been a huge focus. Storyline builders, directing the action, interacting with the talent, contract negotiations and the such. Being able to choose a story for a feud, instead of having the same generic thing over and over, or characters involved in weird stories that just make no sense for them. Control is the key here. I want to be able to micromanage every aspect of universe if I choose to, or pick and choose which things I'd like control over.

[Baddar]

It comes to something when it genuinely feels like more effort is put in to their roster reveals than the game itself.

I do wish for a great, addictive wrestling game again but I haven't enjoyed one for more than a couple of hours in the last 15-20 years. 

[apsham]

4 hours ago, Baddar said:

It comes to something when it genuinely feels like more effort is put in to their roster reveals than the game itself.

I do wish for a great, addictive wrestling game again but I haven't enjoyed one for more than a couple of hours in the last 15-20 years. 

Go out and buy Wrestling Empire for Switch or PC and marvel as your booker asks and then TELLS you that you're going to become this promotion's version of Big Van Vader (a forced changed to your attire and moveset), only to have him turn around and tell you that you're not showing enough team spirit and that you have to lose your next match, only for him to then show up and book himself against you for your title.

[Schlitzbrille]

3 hours ago, apsham said:

Go out and buy Wrestling Empire for Switch or PC and marvel as your booker asks and then TELLS you that you're going to become this promotion's version of Big Van Vader (a forced changed to your attire and moveset), only to have him turn around and tell you that you're not showing enough team spirit and that you have to lose your next match, only for him to then show up and book himself against you for your title.

Is this before or after your opponent's manager is upset that their client lost, completely ignoring that they suffered fatal injuries to make them lose?