WWE 2K20

WWE 2K20
This is what happens when you boot out a development team that has helped you out since the beginning!
Genre(s): Sports Platform(s): Microsoft Windows PlayStation 4 Xbox One Release: October 22, 2019 Developer(s): Visual Concepts Publisher(s): 2K Sports Series: WWE 2K Predecessor: WWE 2K19 Successor: WWE 2K Battlegrounds (by release date) WWE 2K21 (cancelled) WWE 2K22 (chronologically)

WWE 2K20 is a 2019 sports game developed by Visual Concepts and published by 2K Sports. It is the sequel to WWE 2K19 and the first WWE 2K game to exclude the development team, Yuke's.

Why You Don't Want To Step Inside This Game

1. This was the first WWE 2K game that died out just 3 months after its release, due to the fact the WWE 2K logo uploader now gives you access to adding logos to WWE 2K19 once again as of 2020. So you won’t need to buy this game if you’re the type of person that creates wrestlers over playing the actual games. Its also worth noting, that everyone still plays WWE 2K19 over this game, mostly because of WWE 2K20’s poor quality.
   • Also worth noting that WWE 2K20's online mode doesn’t function well with all the loading issues/splitted wins that make the game nonfunctional unless you reboot the game, so its best to play WWE 2K19 if you want to play online, as the online on that game actually works a lot more.
   • 2K has been banning accounts for offensive content when no such content was downloaded or uploaded, and refusing to allow for appeal. They also seem to be acting on any copyright or material from other works despite said content falling under fair use and parody.
2. The graphics and presentation overall is a huge downgrade from previous 2k games (mainly WWE 2K18 and WWE 2K19) as it looks like a late sixth or early seventh console generation game than an eighth generation game.
   • The hair physics are very off and restricted in-game as it looks like it’s glued on the wrestler’s head.
   • Most wrestlers don’t even look identical to their real life counterparts, such as Becky Lynch, Randy Savage, & Molly Holly.
   • The lighting looks far too bright and saturated compared to previous 2k games.
3. Very long loading times for matches and in general. Even booting up the game takes a while sometimes. Thankfully offline matchups aren’t as slow as online.
4. The online mode is unplayable, with the game having an 'Infinite loading time' when starting an online match. Plus, the online mode lacks the feature of using a superstar's alternative attire in a match. Unlike WWE 2K20, the previous WWE 2K games allowed the player to use alternative attires for the superstars online.
5. To get the elephant out of the room, this game is mostly infamous for the amount of bugs and glitches that are even worse than the previous games on day one. Glitches such as disfigured superstar faces, superstars floating around the ring over and over, custom superstar attires messing up the superstar models and so on are all there.
   • One of the older bugs on day one being uploading Custom Decals, in which downloading them doesn't work; so you cannot add those Decals to your custom wrestlers or as alternative attires for already existing wrestlers. Instead, they get inserted onto WWE 2K19’s logo uploader.
   • Face scan issues have yet to be resolved, only being able to access sixteen at a time and even after deleting unused content and uploading new images they cannot be accessed.
   • Uploading wrestlers with a move-set and entrance mostly don't work either.
   • Becky Lynch's Backlash attire becoming an abomination in the Creation Suite.
   • If you somehow manage to download a Custom Decal, using it on Wrestlers in MyCareer mode makes it impossible to play the mode at all.
   • Sometimes on the Xbox One version of the game, if you download a Custom Decal or a CAW with a Custom Decal, it would instead download a blank transparent decal instead. Which is extremely common to get, due to 2K removing most of the Custom Decals, from older CAWs. It was later fixed in Patch 1.0.7.
   • The game crashes sometimes, especially during matches. It will not function from a resume or disconnect, exiting to the title causes the game to crash. Even something as basic as opening menu results in a crash.
   • In fact, if you are recording a match, using the Xbox One's built in screen recorder, if you record more than 10 minutes and the game pauses, if you try and record the rest of the video and unpause the game. The game will crash.
   • Even with all the patches, the game is still unplayable with it setting a potential world record in crashing: ten seconds from loading a fresh install.
   • The Royal Rumble is downright unplayable as it will crash about fifteen minutes in without fail, no matter what.
   • Some hair styles and superstar items, still suffer from glitches.
6. Unnecessary changes to the controls, such as the reversal button now being 'Triangle' or 'Y' depending on what system.
7. A lot of entrances and cutscenes are bugged, but thankfully most of them have been fixed.
8. Due to Yukes's departure from 2K, most features are missing, like the Create-A-Belt Mode (this feature has since been re-added in the 1.4 patch).
   • 2K Games blindly accused Yukes of "not making more than enough money as they were" and directly split with them, despite that they've been helping them out since the very beginning!
   • Thanks to their split, newer WWE 2K games will now be riddled with bugs, glitches and technical issues! And if the removal of promo cutscenes and advanced customization of entrances in WWE 2K22's Universe Mode is of any indication, each new installment will have much lesser content than the last!
9. Owners of the Deluxe Edition of the Xbox One version of the game don’t get the 2K Originals: Bump in the Night DLC for free. Which is strange, since PlayStation 4 owners get it for free, if they own the deluxe edition.
10. The roster, while not terrible, is a slight downgrade from WWE 2k19 as the roster is a bit small compared to its predecessor. This is due to fact that people like Chris Jericho and Jon Moxley left for AEW. Because of this, there will be far too many' versions of the same person which is very unnecessary, as they could've just been alternative attires.
11. False Advertising: It was the first game in the WWE 2K franchise that lacked a pre-order bonus DLC. Originally, it would’ve been the Bump in The Night DLC which was advertised to be the pre-order bonus DLC; but in reality, it didn’t come with the game on day one. Instead, it was released 7 days after the game was released. Its false advertising due to 2K never stating the DLC would get released 7 days after, and that every WWE 2K game before this one had a pre-order bonus that was accessible on day one.
12. It was also the first installment in the franchise that was notably rushed in development.
13. Most bug fixes that get released don’t improve and barely fix the game at all. The only time the hair physics get fixed is only for a certain entrance with poor hair physics.
    • This is due to the fact 2K have lost a lot of profit after WWE 2K20 was released due to its poor sales, therefore they have been losing the ability to fix most bugs/glitches.
14. Mediocre soundtrack that shares the same problem as WWE 2K15’s soundtrack. That being most songs sounding as they don’t belong in a WWE game.
15. My Career mode is a pretty big step back from WWE 2K19’s career mode.
    • It mainly breaks reality to try to tell it's story. For example, a Halloween themed Undertaker hunt is reality breaking enough but in breaking kayfabe (wrestling carney term for faking it) and using real heat and setting out to seriously hurt the MyPlayer characters by rights Brooklyn, Samoa Joe, would have been fired. Not placed in a Hall of Fame WrestleMania match. To a lesser extent same goes for Jerry Lawler and Red and Tre.
    • Unlike WWE 2K19, once you completed the MyCareer mode. You cannot go back into the mode, unless you create new MyPlayers.
    • Just like WWE 2K19, it feels like a Story Mode rather than a MyCareer mode. Just with your custom MyPlayers, instead of Tre and Red.
    • The game treats Red (Female MyPlayer) like she's a better character, than Tre (Male MyPlayer). As she gets more on-screen time, and they treat Tre as a dumb character as he makes a bunch of mistakes, is very whiney and never listens to anyone. His singing is also annoying and also terrible, especially for his infamous "I got a RAW contract" song.
    • As for Tre, he puts very dumb things on Red's/their list, such as "Fighting in a crybaby match", "Getting a action figure of himself", "Win a dance off", "Come up with good wrestling names", and "Being in a WWE Video Game" Despite Tre being a video game character. Even Red actually came up with better things that actually fit with WWE.
    • The main plot of the MyCareer Mode is basically Red and Tre doing stuff on their list they started in High School, to go on the Hall Of Fame. While it is a decent idea for a plot, was poorly executed. Even the MyCareer Mode of WWE 2K19 and the CAW Storyline in WWE SmackDown VS RAW 2010's Road to WrestleMania was better than this.
    • Terrible voice acting in the MyCareer mode, especially from Bret Green as Tre (Male MyPlayer) and Gavin Hammon (The voice of Kenny from TellTale's The Walking Dead) as Reilly Flash.
      • And Gavin Hammon sounds like he was bored of voicing the character too, which is a shame since he previously did amazing acting as Kenny from TellTale's The Walking Dead.
    • All the cutscenes in the MyCareer mode are unskippable, meaning failing a segment on there makes you watch the cutscene again.
    • Notable plot hole in the MyCareer mode: Cole Quinn, despite knowing that Barron Blade ruined his friend Buzz's career in WWE 2K19, still shows up on the revived BCW. (It has to be noted, though, that he is shown to be reluctant to sign an exclusive deal with Blade, and subtly discourages Tre and Red from doing so as well.)
    • Just like WWE 2K19, every item in the MyCareer mode is locked under Loot Packs. Except for entrances as they are already unlocked for you.
    • The glitches also made their way into the MyCareer mode cutscenes, surprisingly.
16. In a very ironic twist, once the new decade rolled in, the game almost didn’t work at all, as it was plagued by an especially nasty crashing issue that left most, if not all modes unplayable, and became known as the Y2k20 bug. Thankfully, this was fixed.
17. Content locked off behind time challenges: braids were only accessible during a Survivor Series challenge and hence assuming the servers had not been switched off by then to be able to try and use them you have to wait until late November.
18. Accelerator does not actually unlock all content, merely allowing content that can be unlocked with game points with the rest only accessible with loot boxes known as Loot Packs in the game (Yes. There are loot boxes in a WWE game!) and timed challenges.
    • To make loot boxes worse, they are probably the reason why this game has a slightly smaller roster! as the rest of the characters are possibly locked behind a loot box paywall. It is the third WWE game to have them, with WWE 2K18 and WWE 2K19 having them too. (But more easier to earn.)
    • Thankfully you can only use them in MyCareer Mode if you wanna use them for your own CAWs (Red and Tre) on that mode.
19. Because of the release of WWE 2k22, this game is no longer getting updated. The game’s final patch version 1.0.8 and it still has bugs and glitches. It was confirmed that the game was way too broken and the code was not supported for it.
20. You cannot use the MyCareer Mode cutscenes in Create A Video mode, forcing the player to use mods in the PC Version to make their own version of the cutscene of their choosing.
21. The 2K Originals DLC packs, while adding more content and superstars to the roster, were not very good.
22. As well as 2K's standard practice of only having online functionality for their latest game every year they have had the WWE license, without fail, have your data corrupt and unusable with no way to recover it. The hundreds of hours pumped into into 2k14? Gone. Same with 2K15, 2K16, 2K17, 2K18, 2K19 and 2K20. They know about this problem for years problem is they just don't care.
23. As of June 30, 2022. The online servers for the game have shutdown, meaning you can no longer upload or download any community creations. Unlike WWE 2K19 however, 2K20's servers only lasted for 2 years.

Redeeming Qualities

1. The 2K Originals DLC packs were a pretty interesting concept.
   • And the DLC comes with new wrestlers, such as "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt and a Demon King Finn Bálor.
2. A lot of the new arenas are awesome.
3. Lots of more match types in Online.
   • New match types such as the Mixed Gender matches.
     • In order to commondate the Mixed Gender matches, Joan "Chyna" Laurer made a huge return after her appearance in WWF SmackDown! 2: Know Your Role.
       • Hulk Hogan is back after a long period of absence.
4. The main menu screen is great.
5. A lot of new weapons that you could unlock.
6. While 2k20’s My Career Mode is a step back from WWE 2K19, it does have its positives.
   • There are some good performances, most notably from Kylie Brown as Red (Female MyPlayer), Maya Rose Berko as Brooklyn, and even Samoa Joe as himself.
   • This would be the first time you created and controlled a Diva and a Superstar on a My Career Mode
7. Most of the major bugs, have been fixed. However there is still some bugs that are still intact.
8. While the new controls can take some time to get used to, they do function a bit better than the older controls. It helps on the Xbox One version as pressing the right trigger to reverse is a 50/50 chance to get your wrestler to reverse.
9. The community creations system is easier to upload more stuff to download. As the download count for the ranks is fairly small, although this could be terrible for quality control, like the previous WWE games that has that feature.

Reception

WWE 2K20 was met with mostly negative reception from critics and gamers alike, with the latter group heavily panning the game, and is widely considered as the worst WWE game from 2K since the Nintendo Switch version of 2K18. On Metacritic, the game has a critic score of 45/100 for the Xbox One, and a 43/100 for the PS4 and the PC. The user scores were a 1.1/10 for the Xbox One, a 1.5/10 for the PS4, and a 1.2/10 for the PC.

Due to the number of bugs, many players complained so much to the point #FixWWE2K20 began trending on Twitter.

The game was so broken, that Sony issued refunds because of it.

Due to the poor sales and reception from critics and fans, WWE 2K21’s chances of being released were in doubt due to Visual Concepts developers for WWE games dropping massively.

WWE 2K20 is listed as number 5 in WatchMojo’s "Top 10 Worst Video Games of 2019" video. Angry Joe ranked it as the 9th worst game of 2019, along with NBA 2K20, Madden 20 and FIFA 20 (Switch). and The Completionist listed the game as number one in his "Top 10 Worst Video Games of 2019" video. Also, it was the first video game to ever be nominated to WrestleCrap's Gooker Award, an annual award presented to the worst of the year in professional wrestling.

The game's disastrous performance in 2019, combined with the effects of the COVID–19 pandemic, resulted in the planned WWE 2K21 game being cancelled. 2K announced a spin-off with arcade-style gameplay from WWE 2K banner called WWE 2K Battlegrounds developed by Saber Interactive.

Videos

References

Comments

Loading comments...