WWE 2K18 review

You know what time it is wrestling fans! Another year means another WWE2K game and this time it’s WWE2K18 with Seth Rollins gracing us with his presence as the cover star. But what’s different about this installment of franchise compared to WWE2K17 or WWE2K16 or WWE2K15?

Short answer? Not enough.

One of the more pleasant changes is a return of a previous feature — eight wrestlers battling in the ring at the same time as opposed to six.  We haven’t had eight wrestlers taking part in a single match since WWF Smackdown! Just Bring It. It’s very nostalgic for me because Just Bring It for the PS2 is the first wrestling game I ever owned. This also allows for some classic Survivor Series style confrontations.

A highly-touted feature in 2K18 is Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson produced the game’s track list. Basically, if you ever wanted to hear what The Rock jams out to in his spare time, this is the game for you.

Continuing a frustrating trend for some gamers, 2K Sports has tucked away some desirable features — in this case, legends Rob Van Dam and Batista — behind the $80 WWE2K18 Deluxe Edition of the game.

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For the most part, the game plays like its predecessors. There’s the typical visual upgrade from year to year. That’s best viewed in a side by side comparison to really notice the differences unless you’re a hardcore WWE2K player.

There’s the expected roster updates so there’s no frustrating omission of major players like Charlotte or Sasha Banks. And the game even managed to beat out James Ellsworth’s release. As usual, there’s new moves, new animations and added game modes to enrich the experience. However, we as the consumer and player base expect the developers to raise the bar each year. You can’t keep having more of the same content and re-skinning it, as that offers no incentive to spend $60 or more on next year’s game if I can get that experience now in a prior installment.

The developers have added in MyCareer mode, but it doesn’t feel much different than other previous installments iteration of it. That also goes for the rest of the game. Sports games in general suffer from the fact that they’re just too much of the same void of almost any innovation aside from a small change in music, graphics, gameplay, and roster.

This is a game that has a slim chance of really appealing to anyone outside of who already buys WWE games and I can point to past installments that are easily superior to this one. It doesn’t mean there isn’t any fun to be had in playing WWE2K18, but there’s just not much value that you’ll find here to warrant paying $60.

Hopefully, 2K Sports will try to innovate for WWE2K19. Adding in a story campaign for the different characters like what they did in WWE2K16 with Stone Cold, throwing in a more polished multiplayer and making sure to not keep too much of the in-game content hidden behind a paywall would make for a good start. –-Jean-Luque Zephir

Rating: 6 out of 10

Photo Credit: 2K Sports

Order WWE 2K18 from Amazon.com.