As a wrestling fan, I feel equally as good about this year’s WWE game as I do bad about it. There has been a lot promised like a bigger roster, more creation options and just a general improvement on everything in the game. In many presentations and demonstrations we saw, this game was being referred to as “Year One”. In the minds of 2K, WWE and Yukes, this is the first game in their WWE Franchise canon. To give you some history on this, WWE ’13 was the last THQ game before the company went under and the licence was acquired by 2K. The first game, 2K14 was basically THQ’s game, engine, everything which was repackaged. It all happened rather quickly, too quickly to really change anything in the development.

So we thought WWE 2K15 would be the first true 2K experience, but the game had a lot of omissions, a few glitches here and there and just felt rather stale. Although a lot of work was put in to the graphics and in the Visual Concepts face scanning tech to get the most realistic looks they can. So when 2K16 is seen as the first true game by the company, we have to kind of put the 2K15 experience to one side and judge this game on its own merits… Right?

Well you’ll have noticed that a lot of gamers, critics, etc. are also big wrestling fans, and as such wrestling game fans. It’s possibly a bit cliche but a lot of people will say that either WWF No Mercy or Smackdown Here Comes The Pain are still the best games. So this game, for a new generation, has a lot of work to do, which its predecessors arguably haven’t. WWE 2K16 does at least try to address a lot of the issues that the previous game had.

The gameplay is a lot smoother and after a lot of the release bugs have been patched, although it’s still very heavy on reversing at ridiculous times. It’s a very good wrestling experience with quite an intuitive control system but those controls and the gameplay are normally only let down by the mechanics behind it. For example, the tie-up in a corner animation that seems to take an age to play out, the really frustrating submission mini-game and the incredibly frustrating AI in games with multiple characters. But everything else seems pretty good. Yes there are a few instances where people can glitch through things but with so many variables at play, it’s hard to get that right at the speed which the game operates. The only problem is that it still at heart feels the same as it has for the past four years. There’s lots of little refinements and additions but the whole thing needs a ground up shakedown to move itself forward to a new generation of consoles and fans. It might be interesting to see what cues this game takes from others in the genre that are coming over the next year.

The showcase mode is an interesting look back at the career of Stone Cold Steve Austin but it falls incredibly flat thanks to a lot of the atmosphere it tries to create. Interestingly this comes from the commentary more than anything. JR and The King are back to re-record certain parts and it’s flat, boring and lacks any of the adrenaline and excitement that the time and they conveyed. It’s made even worse by the fact that The King is 98% less toady in this commentary than he was and I wonder if it just would have been better to use archive commentary just to get back the Jerry Lawler we all loved and loathed. And I don’t think I ever recalled JR saying “Mr MACMAHHHHN” so often.

The Showcase mode also lacks a certain accuracy thanks to various licencing issues (I’m presuming) that leaves Wrestlemania 14’s Mike Tyson to be a generic guy. The whole unlockable Attitude era thing is certainly great and leads to much nostalgia but frustratingly, it has already been done as recently as WWE ’13. The unlocakble roster of that time is also frustratingly similar to that game as well. It is better than the CM Punk/Cena snore fest of last year but it is incredibly deriviate of what’s come before it, for wrestling fans anyway. My only problem visually was that I wanted the quicktime events in the showcase mode to be more apparent for PS4. Get some colour on there, please.

The roster is big, but it does seem to suffer from a lack of entertaining choices, which again is probably down to licences. But if you’re going for legends, why not put in Roddy Piper or Owen Hart (who was a big part of the Austin storyline). If you’re visiting the old WCW periods, why not put in some of those superstars like the Harlem Heat tag team, Goldberg, or the early Ron Simmons? If you’re going ECW alumni, why not Dreamer or Sandman, or even the Dudley’s (who are now under WWE legends contracts). The most criminal thing though is the lack of the women’s division, the Divas. In a year where the women have broken out and made the rest of WWE’s PG era take notice, they are almost totally absent. Whether or not this is planned for DLC, I have no idea, but if it isn’t it should be. At least four are missing that should undoubtedly be here.

The career mode is much better than it was last year with, as promised, much greater options when it comes to creating and downloading custom made logos and wrestlers. Although the layering system is still a little clunky and doesn’t exactly give people an easy ride in making their creations, it is quite powerful once you know how to use it. But again there are a few issues with the whole system. You can’t use downloaded arenas in the exhibition mode, only in creating a new show in the WWE Universe mode – a mode that I still personally find highly inaccessible and bloated for a casual fan wanting to just make their own show.

Creation and sharing is the best part of this game. Especially when you and your friends created wrestlers can “invade” and appear in your career mode, a mode that’s been heavily refined since last years first attempt in to the 2K style we’ve all been waiting for. But, it is still very difficult to be a heel, although a lot easier than it was, and the interview cutscenes are atrocious with their lack of name use and very limited and repetitive answers. But with the creation around you, it’s very easy to get in to a career and invest time in it.

All told, WWE 2K16 does move things on from the previous year and arguably they have most of the basics down that we all wanted. What we need to see now though is a big improvement in the “reverse everything” gameplay mechanic, a bit more work on the ancillary things in career modes and most importantly, finding a way to capture the atmosphere and unpredictability that wrestling, whatever its era, has always had.

Summary

WWE 2K16 tries to break the mould of previous games by going deep in to its creation and its appreciation of one of WWE’s icons in Steve Austin’s career showcase. But it’s nothing the series, albeit not in this guise, hasn’t done before. And with a host of issues that shouldn’t be forgiven, I found myself enjoying trying to go for the belts. If you’re a fan and you’ve missed a few years then it’s worth a look, but the series needs to show further progress in improving its gameplay.

Good Points

• Fun Showcase mode highlighting some of Steve Austin, and others, better moments.
• Large creation options and community sharing
• Easy to jump in and play regardless of age

Bad Points

• There are a lot of missing bits that can spoil the experience
• Submission minigame is utterly frustrating
• Gameplay needs the overhaul the rest of the game is getting

Why a 6?

The game does actually have a lot of charm and enjoyment once you can get past the issues. Which is something, admittedly, that you shouldn’t need to do. But as a fan of wrestling, I’d rather have something that’s showing improvement than nothing at all. I love No Mercy and the great games we had fifteen years ago, but that was fifteen years ago. This is definitely the best 2K game and the best since WWE 13 for the wrestling experience and the career mode is fun. But it does need to move the gameplay forward and improve the whole thing, not just update in bits and pieces.

 

This review is based on the PS4 version of the game.