Pro wrestling is a variety show. Spend a few weeks with WWE and you’ll see how many tastes the product caters to. Segments can lean into different genres, such as drama, action, comedy, or even horror. Matches themselves are meant to capture a broad spectrum of styles, from Luchadors hitting highspots, to grueling submission matches to storybook endings by way of title matches that took years to build toward. The idea is to offer different styles and flavors to different segments of the audience. WWE 2K25 translates all of this variety very well, offering up many game modes, most of them worthwhile and often attracting different types of players. There are some flops on the card, but overall, this remains another main event-level display.
WWE 2K25 is a great game in its own right and feels like the culmination of several years of effort to fix the series by the Visual Concepts team. WWE 2K20 was so bad and went so viral for that reason that the following year, the game didn’t launch a new version–that’s virtually unheard of in the world of annualized sports (and sports entertainment) games. It clearly helped. Since then, it’s been slowly and steadily improving year over year, making WWE 2K25 the best game in the series.
In the ring, the biggest change is the addition of intergender matches. In the indie wrestling world, it’s very common to have men and women wrestle each other without any added drama or lampshading. Promotions simply depict the competitors as equals–save for someone working heel who might call attention to it, of course. But WWE has long avoided similar matchups. This year, the studio finally got the go-ahead from the wrestling behemoth, so you can now, in one surely popular example, play as Rhea Ripley and squash Dominik Mysterio ad nauseam. It’s great to see WWE becoming more comfortable with this idea and breaking down that needless barrier in its video game.
The mechanics of matches are largely the same as last year’s game, though 2K25 also brings back chain wrestling, which is used optionally in-game like it is in real life as a way to open some matches. The groundwork of the series’ in-ring gameplay was overhauled following the 2K20 debacle, and though this year’s game doesn’t add much more to that, the chain wrestling does improve that area’s best aspect: the way matches can be constructed to feel like the real thing. Opening with some chain wrestling, moving to increasingly more impressive moves, and building up your character’s momentum to perform their signature moves and finisher, all before a false finish (or multiple) allows you to replicate the real-world drama seen on TV several times per week.
One slight but fun tweak to 2K25 is the addition of the Giant archetype, which co-exists alongside older offerings like High Flyers and Strikers. Giants enjoy an additional health bar, almost like a heavily shielded enemy in Destiny or The Division, which must be whittled down and removed before a smaller foe can perform most of their moves on a Giant. Pro wrestling isn’t a traditional sport, and its video game sim isn’t like Street Fighter or Tekken. Visual Concepts routinely displays a keen understanding of these truths, and this Giant archetype, which might seem overpowered in a traditional fighting game, is here understood to heighten the storytelling and psychology–to borrow a popular industry phrase–of a match.
Just like the minigame that sees players trading body chops via quick-time events until one prevails, or how a broken submission is followed by animations that allow both wrestlers to regain their composure, WWE 2K25 is not trying to be a fighting game. It’s trying to capture the spirit of the scripted drama, and it does that extremely well by frequently leaning into the moments that make pro wrestling unique. It’s one part sport, one part stage play, and this series consistently proves its creators regard these elements equally.
Its new match types this year include Bloodline Rules and the MMA-inspired Underground match. Each of these are fun additions that are most valuable in long-form modes like Universe and GM, where match variety is critical to putting on high-quality shows over long periods of time. Like last year’s Ambulance match type, I don’t find either of these to be specifically important, per se. It’s more that the match list ought to grow every year, in the best-case scenario, so having two new match types in 2K25 is a welcome move with little regard to the details.
There are annual sports games that hardly offer one or two compelling modes. Then there’s WWE 2K. By my count, it has the highest number of worthwhile modes in the sports gaming world. Starting with 2K25’s Showcase, this year’s documentary-like mode highlights The Bloodline, the Samoan wrestling dynasty that’s spanned several decades of WWE history. Though the naming convention of “The Bloodline” is just a few years old, much has been made about the impressive lineage–some, but not all, truly bound by blood. Showcase is hosted by Paul Heyman this year, who does a fantastic job of hyping up each member of the family, from past legends like Yokozuna and The Wild Samoans to modern greats like Roman Reigns and The Usos.
This year’s mode is told without consideration for chronology, which is a bit jarring at times, but once more, its best feature is filling in history that players may be lacking. I, for one, stopped watching wrestling for about 15 or so years post-Attitude era, and only got back into it in a major way a few years ago, so I very much enjoy Showcase for introducing me to someone like Tamina or showing me Rikishi’s past work as Fatu, which predates even my earliest wrestling years.
The mode takes several hours to beat and mostly offers manageable challenges that reward you with new characters, arenas, championship belts, and more, so even when a match or two became more frustrating–like Tamina’s Money in the Bank match in which the many CPU opponents have a way of spoiling your challenge checklist–I found it well worth it to ultimately check every box, earn every reward, and experience the full history for myself.
For the fantasy bookers like me, the most satisfying way to play is in one of two modes with slightly different intentions: Universe and GM. The former is roughly the equivalent of a traditional sports game’s Franchise mode. You run the entire WWE brand, booking shows, creating rivalries, and building stories to your heart’s content. Alternatively, you can focus on playing as just one wrestler and experience it as more of a career mode. Just like how I enjoy building up a small school in College Football 25, I like taking on Universe mode in this way, choosing an NXT star and growing them into a household name, which I did this year with Cora Jade. The great thing about Universe is it can be as intense or as hands-off as you prefer. The story engine has a pretty good way of generating story beats if you just react to what it throws at you, but if ever you want to step in and change a promo, a match, or an entire show, you’re free to.
This year, the mode brings back promos, which have been absent for a while. Like before, their implementation is a little awkward. Without voice acting–which might be a good thing anyway, given how well that goes in another mode–characters are left to merely emote with a mic in their hand, but text-based options help you direct the outcomes of the promos so you can keep the story heading in your intended direction. The mode is better off with promos than without them, so it’s a nice return to form, but it’s not too exciting when an annualized game brings back something that was there before and went away.
GM mode operates with similar goals as Universe, but whereas the latter is more of a storytelling sim, GM offers a more competitive angle. You’re still the fantasy booker, but here you draft wrestlers, create match cards, and upgrade your production value over time, trying to outdo either the CPU or friends as measured in milestones and dollars. The one thing I’ve wanted for so long in GM mode finally arrives in 2K25: online multiplayer. Sadly, it’s not where it should be and feels like a half-measure as a result.
Online GM mode doesn’t allow you to play or spectate matches, only sim them. For some, this won’t matter, as many GM players already sim their matches even in solo mode, but to not have the option of playing or spectating the matches is a glaring omission, and so the inclusion of online GM mode comes with a bolded asterisk. I had plans to host a WWE GM league with a few pals, complete with events streamed on Twitch. Instead, we’re sitting on our hands and hoping next year’s game adds this vital feature. I still love GM mode, and the smaller touches like more GM character options and cross-brand events are good quality-of-life upgrades, but the marquee new feature of this mode is undercooked.
While Showcase appeals to historians and Universe and GM are for the fantasy bookers, MyRise mode is the narrative-first mode that routinely provides some laughs, though not all are intentional. Annually, this cutscene-heavy mode is a fun saga with rough voice acting, and not the mode I would chiefly recommend to players who may be new to pro wrestling or WWE 2K. The reason for that is once again expressed in 2K25: Its story awkwardly exists with a foot both in and out of kayfabe, telling a story that doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense if you look past the surface. It’s also clearly not meant to be taken too seriously, and as an alternate means of unlocking some cool items like characters, clothing, and other customization bits, it’s worth the several hours it takes to finish.
2K25’s story is about former and current NXT stars performing a hostile takeover of the company’s major brands, Raw and Smackdown. Within the framework of the story, it’s suggested that Paul “Triple H” Levesque, head of WWE’s creative team, didn’t know about the takeover, but he lets it play out to see how the story unfolds. Characters speak both in and out of character at different times, and on the whole, it’s hard to follow whether I’m meant to see it as a simulation of living life as an employed pro wrestler or their in-ring persona. But these clashing sensibilities are both familiar to me, as the mode oddly does this most years, and not ultimately a big problem.
I’d not play this mode expecting a good story. I play it because it’s a silly additional mode with some fun challenges, a plethora of unlockables to earn, and another way to view the pro wrestling fandom. My kids enjoy this mode, too, and it was this year’s storyline, which followed their custom characters of Batman and Billie Eilish, that made me realize MyRise really is for kids above all others, which subsequently helped me forgive the sometimes absurd plot.
Those custom wrestlers came from the game’s creation suite, which could borrow a phrase from CM Punk’s glossary: It’s the best in the world. Every year, the WWE creation suite offers remarkably deep tools to make any character, sign, moveset, and more, with virtually countless options that purposely lean into digital cosplay, knowing so many fans want to bring famous faces into the ring. Within a few minutes of browsing this year’s suite, I found jackets meant to resemble those worn by Alan Wake, Joel from The Last of Us, and Leon from Resident Evil, and these are just a few examples of so many. Movesets similarly allow players to create out-of-company stars like Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay. If you can imagine a character, you can most likely bring them to life in WWE 2K25.
The face- and body-sculpting tools are impressively deep and yet easy to use, and combining those with the game’s enormous wardrobe means basically anyone can–and will–be in the game. Thousands of pages of fan-made content are already available, and its base edition is not even for sale as I write this. There’s so much to this suite that it’s hard to call out specific items or tools that may be brand-new, but each year this amazing toolbox comes to the game is another win because it adds so much. It’s essentially there for a markedly different definition of fantasy booking, one that allows me to pit the legendary characters from horror slashers against the cast of SpongeBob SquarePants and see who wins.
With nearly all sections of the WWE fandom accounted for in the above modes, that leaves one more: competitive multiplayer fans. However, it’s this sect that will be most disappointed. For the game’s sweatiest users, MyFaction returns as the card-collecting mode akin to Ultimate Team in EA’s games. It similarly suffers problems revolving around pay-to-win schemes, choosing not to partition the game’s spendiest whales from its free users. It’s just not fun to join a multiplayer game with your Faction and take on a user who paid their way to the top. This problem is far from unique to WWE 2K, but it’s frustrating to see it appear in every major sports game every year.
Thankfully, WWE 2K’s take on this mode has enough single-player content that I don’t feel like I need to jump into multiplayer or spend any money to enjoy my time with it. Thanks to the game’s World Tour mode, which periodically pushes me back into other solo modes within MyFaction to improve my roster and take on its bosses, I had more fun with MyFaction this year than ever before. That doesn’t change the fact that blatant pay-to-win design is on display, and I really loathe that aspect of it, but I was heartened to see I could dodge those worse bits in favor of something more enjoyable.
A second mode debuts in 2K25 with the competitive community in mind, but I’ve saved it for the end of this review because it requires special attention due to how disappointing it is. The Island is a PvPvE space modeled closely off of NBA 2K’s The City. In theory, I actually love this idea and firmly expect all major sports games will soon adopt something like it. However, WWE 2K’s first attempt to roll out this endeavor in its own way is simply awful.
For one, it performs the move I was hoping it would not but assumed it would: Like MyFaction and NBA 2K’s The City, it offers pay-to-win schemes, and similarly throws free-play users up against the big spenders in a way that is sure to drive constant frustration all year. This social hub lets players bring custom characters into a shared world and compete in events to earn badges, XP, and Virtual Currency (VC) that is spent on improving your player. However, like I wrote about NBA 2K last fall, the game is all too happy to sell you the VC instead, thereby allowing you to completely skip past the slow build of your character.
Custom wrestlers who don’t benefit from a paid upgrade to greatness start at a rating (OVR) of 75 out of 100. In my first few days of The Island, I was routinely pitted against folks who were upwards of 90 OVR–some of them were already 100 OVR. These players had poured a ton of money into this process, just like the NBA 2K community does annually. But a major difference past that foundational flaw is that, with NBA 2K, at least The City itself is fun and interesting. The Island has little to offer, especially when the game otherwise gives players so many fun things to do. It’s an eerily quiet, largely empty, and occasionally broken place. Its name is meant to tie into The Bloodline, with aesthetic allusions to the island of Samoa, but it reminds me more of where they hosted Fyre Festival.
Sometimes the match preview screen, on which my opponent and I could see one another’s characters as we loaded in, would display my correct rating, while other times, it would say I shared my opponent’s rating, or even a number different from either of ours. It never made sense, and initially, I wondered if the game was “upscaling” my character to reach parity with my opponent, but they never felt like it, so I’ve come to determine this was merely a visual bug–my lousy 76 OVR Larry David was thrown to the wolves, staring down instantly unstoppable brutes who would spam me with moves until my health bar was merely theoretical.
Online play, in general, can be rough in WWE 2K, as slight input lag makes reversing attacks very hard and can lead to you being on the wrong side of a squash. Playing online can actually make me worse at the solo experience, because it demands I time my inputs on two tracks, one for solo play and one for competitive online matches. This is a legacy issue for WWE 2K, so forming an entire mode around PvP before fixing this problem would’ve hurt even a great version of The Island.
Exploring the space is strange, too. There’s no map for the open-world setting, though it’s hard to say if the team ran out of time to make one or if including one would’ve only made it more apparent how lacking The Island is; there are many more cosmetic shops than play spaces. You can’t watch matches unfold like you can watch other players compete in NBA’s live social hub, so instead, the world is filled in with NPCs and other players hustling from one mostly lifeless quadrant to another. Also, the story is told mostly through static images and text boxes, giving this brand-new mode the feeling of being ancient in presentation terms. Roman Reigns’ aura is palpable, his character is unforgettable. Having The Island tied so closely to him as the game’s cover star and leader of The Bloodline feels almost like one of the bad promos from his earlier years when he didn’t seem utterly invincible.
It may seem odd, but I’ve wanted WWE 2K’s take on The City for years, and despite this year’s poor showing, I still do. Should the team try it again next year, I hope this mode eliminates the pay-to-win filth from dirtying what could be a fun wrestling hangout space. Currently, it’s a needlessly darkened pit with little to do there. The equivalent of a rundown shopping mall you used to visit as a kid, The Island is a drab eyesore with bad vibes and a few merchants annoyingly desperate for your business. I feel bad for anyone who immediately spent money improving their character for The Island before learning how shallow it is.
Admittedly, this is a sour note to end on, but it doesn’t color my full impressions. WWE 2K25 is an excellent game on a mechanical level, offering tremendous depth and breadth to create matches that mimic reality in exciting ways. Its bevy of game modes comprises several worthwhile timesinks and interesting new wrinkles, each of them appealing to one or more sections of wrestling fandom. Its creation suite is in a tier of its own and deserves to be the envy of everyone else bringing user-generated content into their games. Online multiplayer woes exist in both previously seen and new forms this year, but there is so much here that deserves praise. I wouldn’t throw out an otherwise exciting WrestleMania over a bad match or two. Similarly, I don’t feel a handful of poorly implemented PvP features leaves WWE 2K25 as anything less than the number one contender for sports game of the year.
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