WWE confirms it will not release a wrestling game this year

Those hoping WWE 2K21 would redeem last year's horrendous effort may be disappointed to hear that WWE will not release a wrestling game at all this year.

Ozzie Mejia

April 23, 2020 5:20 PM

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Those who picked up WWE 2K20 may have been disappointed for a variety of reasons. It was the bottom of the barrel for the 2K's wrestling franchise. And for those thinking that WWE 2K21 would redeem that disaster, it doesn't look like that's in the cards. During Thursday's Q1 financial call, WWE itself confirmed that a wrestling game would not be released in 2020.

"There's not going to be a launch of a game this year," WWE's interim CFO Frank Riddick said at the end of today's call, as covered by the wrestling gurus at the Wrestling Observer. This rules out any release from 2K and presumably any mobile gaming efforts. The annual WWE 2K franchise had previously been put out by 2K Games and Yuke's until recent years. WWE 2K20 was developed by the team at Visual Concepts.

Visual Concepts' efforts were not great, to say the least. With more day one glitches than seemingly ever before, users panned the game on YouTube, Twitch, and social media. It came in a stunning third place on Wrestlecrap's 2019 Gooker Award voting for the absolute worst in professional wrestling, the first time a wrestling video game had even been nominated for such a dishonor. And then there are the Metacritic ratings, where the PS4 version currently sits with a 43 from critics and a 1.5 User Score.

Shacknews was among those to crush this below-par effort. Let's look back at our review:

Take Two has yet to comment on the seeming demise of the WWE 2K franchise. Shacknews will monitor this story, but from the looks of it, this series is out colder than Brock Lesnar after taking a Drew McIntyre Claymore kick.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?