WWE has been on something of a tear this year. First, the move to Netflix has yielded some serious results, the wrestling, promos, and sheer entertainment value has gone through the roof, and now? We have what might just be the best WWE game 2K have produced. Sure, a lot of the groundwork was laid by the last few entries, but Visual Concepts have used that experience wisely, crafting a game that quite simply has it all – and then some.
The general feel of the game is broadly similar to the last few years, though to me it feels somewhat more fluid in motion. Moves, reversals and combos seem to connect better and transition well with far less sudden jumps or sped up animations to get there. Whether it’s a one on one fight or a Royal Rumble, the simple act of playing WWE 2K25 feels great.
A plethora of match types return, from the aforementioned ones to things like TLC, Money in the Bank, Ambulance, Casket and more; if you can think of it, there’s a good chance it’ll be playable here. For the first time we also get Underground match types, based on the short lived Raw experiment to give things a more fight club feel. We lose the ropes, but the rest of the game broadly plays out the same, and as such it’s a stipulation that is a nice addition but not one that’s really going to stand out over classic favourites like the Rumble.
It’s safe to say that if you have a group of mates over for an evening of gaming, WWE 2K25 will keep you busy well into the early hours. But if you’re playing solo there’s so much more to do here that it is quite frankly absurd.
The headline addition is The Island. Here, Roman Reigns oversees a reality-style competition where contenders on an island compete to win favour with the OTC. The Island itself is broken up into various themed areas, with lots of in-jokes and references to WWE lore and superstars. There’s a basic bizarre tale to follow (almost an alternate universe affair) which sees us doing things such as trying to build videogame armour, rebuilding a broken urn, and chasing R-Truth around the place. But the main draw is in the social hub elements. We can see other players running around the zones, and can challenge them to matches as well as see their stats and looks.
In theory this is a nice idea, but in the time I’ve spent playing it since the early access launch it has been underwhelming to say the least. It’s not fun to explore the area with our superstar moving far too slowly, and the UI is poorly laid out. Some missions will ask us to find a person or item, but there’s no map to refer to and it’s not very well signposted even when we are in the right place. Most of the interaction is also done via points in the 3D space, so for example if we want to change our movesets or appearance we have to find one of the changing booths in the world rather than just loading up a menu. It all feels a bit too over complicated and fiddly for the sake of it rather than anything here being a good idea, and the end result is just not worth the effort in my eyes.
It’s also heavily VC-based. I’ve already seen early players with OVR’s of 100, and the only way this can have been achieved is by stumping up the cash for some VC to buy more skill points. This aspect alone is off-putting enough, but when combined with some frankly poor presentation (honestly, it feels like a budget MMO at times, and the character stills when dialogue is playing are awful) and feel, it’s not the grand new addition that fans will have been hoping for.
Thankfully, the rest of the package more than makes up for this. MyRise returns and follows our superstars ascent in the WWE as usual. This time out though we must make both a male and female star, and we get to play both at intermittent points in the story. I found myself actually enjoying this quite a lot, with the tale of NXT stars both current and former banding together to create Mutiny, a brand set to take down both Raw and Smackdown. It’s cheesy but enjoyable stuff, fully voice acted (to varying degrees of success) by all the stars involved, including Bayley, KO, Nick Aldis, Adam Pearce and more. CM Punk features heavily throughout, but – for as incredible he is on the mic on TV – he is insanely flat here, sounding bored and uninterested. I’m sure it’ll please him to hear, but the only star who seems to have bothered to try in MyRise is Drew McIntyre who puts in a performance that is easily the best of the bunch.
The third of the big modes is of course the Bloodline Showcase. This covers the rich history of the Anoa’i, Fatu and Maiavia families from the 70’s and 80’s up to today’s Bloodline, The Final Boss, OTC, Yeet, and all. As a bit of wrestling history it’s already interesting enough, but with the Wiseman Paul Heyman narrating the setup to each match (with snippets from other members of the family) it becomes all but essential for wrestling historians and those looking to learn how we got the Roman Reigns we know today. Unlike previous Showcase modes, the matches don’t splice out to real life footage at key points and for the most part this works just fine. We still get real footage in the lead up and aftermath of a match, and not doing so mid-match just keeps things flowing a bit nicer.
Elsewhere, we have the returning MyFaction (more VC-laden card collecting stuff that I didn’t jive with last year and haven’t here either), MyGM, and Universe modes, each of which could conceivably be a game in their own rights. Teenage Jamie would have eaten all of this stuff up, crafting my own storylines, factions, and more and if you’ve the time then WWE 2K25 is going to keep you very busy indeed.
Of course, the incredible suite of editor modes is also back and again, young me would have been in his element in making superstars, rings, belts, entrances, movesets, and almost anything else you can think of. I continue to be impressed with the scale and detail we can put in here, and the community is already hard at work with some excellent uploads of other companies’ stars and more.
Not that we’ll need them. WWE 2K25 features over 300 wrestlers including variants, and there are some deep cuts that we’ve not seen in some time. The Headbangers, Steiner Brothers, the full DX line up are just a few of the call backs we get to play as, but of course we have stars from throughout the years, including several versions of John Cena, Undertaker, Kane, Stone Cold and more. As a big Bray Wyatt fan, it’s also great to see him still getting some love too with several versions including his final form of the Fiend (that was released as DLC for 2K24) included.
NXT stars feature heavily, as does the women’s roster, and for the first time in years we can even have intergender matches. This pleased my daughter greatly as she can now kick my ass as Rhea Ripley no matter who I choose to play as.
Conclusion
All in all, WWE 2K25 is pretty much all you’ll need for your pro wrestling fix in gaming. It has more modes and superstars than any one person can reasonably play with in a year, and while the Island is underwhelming, there is so much other good stuff it’s easy enough to overlook this. That it looks and plays better than ever in the ring is just icing on an already dense cake.
This game was reviewed based on Xbox S|X review code, using an Xbox S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
