It’s never great when a hashtag bashing a new game is trending on said game’s actual release date. Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened yesterday (October 22) when WWE2K20 officially dropped in stores and online. Although it’s already made for some hilarious memes and comments, the hashtag #FIXWWE2K20 will tell you everything you need to know about this game. Simply put, there’s a lot wrong with this game, and fans of the series are not happy.
The Good
Let’s start with the positive. This year’s Showcase Mode focuses on the careers of the infamous Four Horsewomen of WWE/NXT. The mode includes some career defining matches from Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, Sasha Banks, and Bayley as they climb the proverbial ladder during the women’s revolution. I really appreciated the video narration and video packages from the four ladies, much like I did for Daniel Bryan’s story mode last year.
In exhibition mode conversely, we are now able to finally play mixed tag team matches. This is something that has sorely been missing from the recent installments of the game.
Another better late than never move, is the ability to play as a female in the My Player mode for the first time ever. You can toggle back and forth between your male and female create-a-wrestlers (CAWs) throughout the story. The story itself is pretty cute with time jumps and flashbacks following the career of your CAWs.Keep an eye out for some clever Easter Eggs along the way — like the future versions of our characters reference “President Johnson” a.k.a The Rock!
Speaking of Easter Eggs, the game is full of them. Especially when it comes to the creation suite. The preset CAW entrances you can choose from are more vast than ever and include some hidden entrances for the likes of Tessa Blanchard (I’m told), AJ Kirsch, “The Natural” Dustin Rhodes, RVD, and Dean Ambrose/Jon Moxley just to name a few. My personal favorite easter egg is popular Indy Wrestler Serpentico’s mask being featured in the game!! I absolutely love stuff like that.
The Bad
Let me start with this – before the game was released I was informed by someone close to 2K that there will “probably” be patches and such on the way. This was the first red flag for me aside from some of the early selection screen graphics I had seen. Let me tell you those selection screen character renderings are worthy of a Playstation 2 game at best. They are atrocious. The quality is not there.
The characters in the ring are much better, but just a tad more cartoon-y then we saw in 2k19 — a game I gave a pretty solid review. Again, the hair and beards look like games from the older systems as they are just not up to par.
The controls have now switched from a one button finisher to a two button finisher activation. The Reversal button has also changed making the game play unfamiliar. I also feel that the pacing is off, but to be fair I feel that way every time a new version of the game releases.
Something else that super bummed me out was the delay on the release of The Fiend and The “Bump in the Night” DLC. This was advertised as the pre-order bonus, but I’m being told it won’t be available until Oct. 28th. Again, this game is just not ready.
The Glitchy
I’m just gonna leave this here…..
https://twitter.com/MahNamesShaq/status/1186762071154790401
This gif is just one of many glitches trending on social media (#fixwwe2k20) right now, but perfectly sums up everything wrong with the game.
Let’s put it this way. Before discovering the #fixwwe2k20 movement online, I was on the phone with both Playstation and GAMESTOP the morning of the release.
It’s that unplayable. The glitches are frequent and sometimes really funny. But here’s the kicker…
Anytime I would try to get to the entrance creation suite the game would have the loading screen go for well….infinity! The loading screen also froze anytime I tried to use my CAW in a match. Statistically I had played three full matches after resetting my PS4 11 times. Let that sink in.
After discovering the #fixwwe2k20 movement online I was able to see that other’s were having the same exact issues and some were even able to obtain full refunds from Playstation. I may very well look into that option. It’s a shame that the game was released this way and in my mind a patch at this point is too little, too late.
Honestly, it’s very hard to give this game a fair review because quite frankly, I can’t play it without encountering an issue. The timing couldn’t be worse as WWE has definitely been under heavy criticism for being “complacent” as of late, and this does not help their case. It’s a shame because this game was meant to break the glass ceiling, but in reality it’s more broken than Matt Hardy.
Rating: 4 out of 10
SHE'S A MANIAC. #FixWWE2K20
Glitch credit: @ftw_42 pic.twitter.com/BgbqL9daoJ
— cozy superkick ♻️ (@cozysuperkick) October 22, 2019
Fans are sharing hilarious WWE 2K20 bugs using #FixWWE2K20 to draw attention to the game's performance and graphical issues. https://t.co/rsQwhFpUMX pic.twitter.com/vnBgPW0fBs
— IGN (@IGN) October 23, 2019
