The pressure of an annual release schedule can be a curse for big sports series like WWE 2K – look no further than the maligned 2K20 to see why, a game so rough it actually forced publisher 2K to take two years off and regroup, which led to the redesign that got it to the much better place it’s in today. In many ways, WWE 2K24 seems like the final form of this new vision for the series. Some nagging bugaboos persist, like this year’s Showcase mode that suffers from the inability to recreate genuine moments in wrestling history in video game form, while also trying to rewrite that history. And yet, It’s marginally better in almost every other way than the last two, touting small but smart additions to well-tested systems and modes as opposed to taking bigger risks. It doesn’t take long to see that the title for “Best Looking Wrestling Game” is still locked firmly in the hands of the 2K series. There are far fewer wrestlers that have outdated gimmicks this time around, and besides a couple noticeable exceptions, all of the top stars look just like their real-life counterparts, from their signature hair dos to the details of their gear and tattoos. The few that are clear misses, like Bayley, make you wonder if they even used the same tech to get people like Asuka so right. Announcers who have special flourishes for particular wrestlers also belt them out here, so Samantha Irving’s nasally “ChElSeA GrEeEeEnNnN” lives immortalized in this game. Referees even resemble the ones you can see on weekly television instead of just generic stand-ins, which was maybe not a necessary change but is a welcome one considering they are also recurring characters, even if they aren’t the center of attention. When you dig past the looks and into its mechanics, you’ll need to sift through 2K24 with a fine-toothed comb to find significant differences between this and last year’s edition. The biggest addition is the Super Finisher, which lets you spend three finisher stocks to do a bigger, badder version of your finisher. These live up to their moniker, as I never had to worry about someone kicking out of them, though it might take more work than its worth to build up that many stocks since every second you spend in a match is one where the tides can turn against you. There’s also a new trading blows minigame that appears infrequently and unprompted, usually in the early goings of a match. You take turns attempting to fill (but not overfill) a gauge at increasing speeds and whoever fails to fill their gauge correctly or runs out of stamina becomes open to a big attack. I was never happy to see this minigame as it’s an abrupt shift in the action and any advantage gained didn’t feel match-changing – but it’s also barely shown up in almost 20 hours, so I don’t think it’s a sign of the minigame bloat the series was experiencing several years ago, either.The wrestling of 2K24 is better than ever, even if it’s not overtly so.All the other little tweaks are pretty subtle. There are cute new weapon options like microphones and smaller objects can be thrown now, which is a fun and funny way to do damage at range (assuming you don’t struggle too much with how finicky picking weapons up can be throughout 2K24). Non-legal tag team partners can only run in to break up pins or otherwise harass their foes one time before they’re locked out of voluntarily leaving the apron without being tagged in formally. I didn’t get a chance to try that in online multiplayer before launch, but it was a godsend for the various tag matches in the MyRise and Universe modes, since it prevented getting cheesed by an overly aggressive CPU team. New paybacks like Iron Jaw, which shakes off the stunned condition so you’re not vulnerable to uncounterable damage, help vary your strategies, and overall AI improvements mean that managers act noticeably more audaciously in favor of their clients in order to help them win matches. From bell to bell, the wrestling of 2K24 is better than ever, even if it’s not overtly so.As far as the types of matches you’ll be applying all these techniques in, a few returning types from older games stand out this year. The special guest referee match has the most potential for multiplayer chaos, as one player can choose to control the referee and either enforce the rules fairly, or skew things however they see fit. Referees have full agency over when they count pins, acknowledge submissions, or disqualify obvious cheating. By default, there is a system by which the refs ability to be a lawless menace is regulated, and if you slack on your job too much a new ref will come to take over. But you can also just turn that off, and become the worst friend among your group. Either way, I really liked this feature, and it was the one that made me wish I had a larger pool of people to play with pre-launch the most.The ambulance and casket matches have similar goals: shove the opponent inside a box that they don’t want to be in, by any means necessary. The former is easily the better version of this concept, as there are way more ways to interact with the ambulance, including using it as part of your gameplan by throwing foes off of it. The casket match feels the most like a regular match with a different way to win, as the coffin just lingers off to the side of the ring waiting for you to deal with it. 2K24 also misses a big opportunity to recreate some infamous moments from this dubious match’s real life history – unfortunately, there’s no way to dance on top of the pine box with cowboy boots HBK-style.Both of the MyRise stories are strong and stuffed with contentMeanwhile, gauntlet matches come in three flavors, and they are all welcome additions. Whether you choose a pool of superstars who are randomly selected to fight each other individually, battle royal style, or a team for a single wrestler to run through one at a time, gauntlets can be challenging tasks to take on. It’s also the closest you can get to a fighting game-style survival trial, but being limited to only four wrestlers total in any of the gauntlet match types means you can’t really push yourself too far.MyRise, WWE 2K’s story mode, makes a solid return with two different tales of glorious victory and devastating defeat for your created characters to embark on. I spent most of my time with the Unleashed story, which mirrors some of last year’s themes from “The Lock” campaign of being a big star on the indies and having to basically start over under the WWE umbrella. The second story, Undisputed, revolves around the power vacuum left at the top of the men’s division when current god-king Roman Reigns abdicates the throne after a 1200 day reign to pursue Hollywood. This one felt a little more like a story you would see on actual WWE TV, for good and for ill, as it features more of the familiar drama of evil authority figures and rote wrestling contrivances that keep heroes from their ultimate goals. Both are strong and stuffed with content, including funny gags, returning characters from last year’s stories, and some truly bonkers events that take full advantage of the fact that this sports drama/comedy can be even more unbelievable when you make it a video game. That said, they are maybe over reliant on lots of smaller feuds and matches that feel more like filler episodes than substantive encounters.WWE 2K24 Cover Art and ScreenshotsFor the Showcase mode, the concept of taking a long look back at Wrestlemania’s biggest fights sounds like an easy playlist of matches to collect. But even for a mode that has fundamentally fallen short of its mission to recreate big moments throughout wrestling history in past years, 2K24’s Wrestlemania Showcase fails to meet my already low expectations. The selection of matches, which includes 20 bouts across the 40 years of the event, is full of fights that are simply not as special as they are presented to be. Corey Graves does a lot of good storytelling in between each in order to explain the context surrounding them, which is valuable for some of the matches from the early 90s and 2000s where the “why” gets overshadowed by the “what.” But admittedly good matches like the ones from more recent Manias quite simply don’t measure up to some of the greatest in history, and no amount of retconning what happened will change that.Taking control of these moments is still more an exercise in checking boxes than it is winning the contest, too. To this year’s credit, you don’t actually have to complete all of the mid-match objectives to progress, which include stuff like hitting a certain number of strikes or a specific power move. You could theoretically treat every match like a regular fight, pin or submit the opponent however you can as fast as you can, and move on. It’s certainly against the spirit of the whole endeavor, but it’s still nice that it doesn’t hold progress hostage behind a frustrating and sometimes arbitrary-feeling set of tasks anymore. The transitions from wrestling game to real match footage are still clever, but also jarring and seemingly more frequent this year. More than once would I complete a task to trigger a cutscene, return to combat, and then warp back into match footage only a move or two later. The impossible task of recreating that feeling you get when watching a historically great match in video game form does not become more possible if you just watch more of the match itself, it turns out.Granular additions truly make for the best MyGM mode yet.And for a company so enthralled with its own history, it also seems very afraid of it. Some reasons for that are a bit more understandable than others – like when big moments with long reaching consequences involve criminals or otherwise nefarious people. But a lot of it, like the edited crowd noise and blurred out faces of old referees in vintage footage, reeks of that George Lucas-esque inability to let old things be old. I’m sure many of the notable exclusions are simply rights and licensing conflicts between promotions and wrestlers, but as a person who is not a shareholder or executive in any of these companies, but rather a fan who just wants to see the best of the best celebrated properly, I think moments like Daniel Bryan beating three men across two matches in one night to win the WWE Championship deserves to be lauded just as much as many of the lesser matches that made the cut.For those who want to book their own WrestleMania moments, Universe Mode and MyGM have you covered. Neither make huge strides forward from last year’s editions, but prospective general managers will find some neat new toys to play with in MyGM. The most interesting to me were the post-PLE trades that allow you opportunities to pass talent between promotions, wheeling and dealing with rivals to get your roster in ship shape for the next stretch of the campaign. Superstars have individual ring levels that can be increased through training and regular booking, which helps them accumulate perks like getting bonus quality points for participating in specific match types or being able to switch classes for free. These granular additions, as well as new general managers to choose from and a big list of new power cards at your disposal to shake things up week to week, truly make for the best MyGM mode yet.Jarrett Green’s Favorite Wrestling GamesA definitive, unarguably correct list of the best video games about the strongest martial art.Universe Mode felt much more similar to last year’s in comparison, allowing you to take a bird’s eye view of the booking across the entire WWE Universe, or drill down on the journey of one wrestler in particular. There are a bunch of new rivalry actions and run-ins you can program into your feuds like a Loser Leaves Town match, but I think Universe heads will find that things are largely the same. That’s not necessarily a bad thing considering how robust it was to begin with, but there are still key features missing from the days of old – namely allowing superstars to cut promos on one another – that reminded there is still plenty of room to improve.
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