Despite the series' ongoing strengths, this year is a royal stumble.
With the exception of WWE 2K16, the common thread of the WWE 2K games for the last few years has been “one step forward, at least two steps back.” WWE 2K18 does not break that trend. A new graphics engine makes the same fundamentally solid wrestling action look dramatically better, and the already enormous roster is bigger than ever before with 174 playable wrestlers right out of the box, but the primary single-player story mode is botched and none of the modes and features that needed the most work from last year’s game have been addressed.
The big new addition to the gameplay this year is the ability to lift and carry opponents in four different positions – fireman’s carry, cradle, over the shoulder, and power bomb – and then walk them around freely before slamming them. This opens up a number of fun options, especially for big men like Braun Strowman, who can hoist smaller wrestlers up and then power bomb them straight out of the ring. That feels awesome, especially when it’s in a Battle Royale or Royal Rumble match.
Hot tags have also been revamped to occur more frequently and no longer have cutscenes associated with them that interrupt the action. When a character receives a hot tag, they simply come in with a buff that allows them to run roughshod over anyone in the ring.
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Eight-man matches add an extra touch of chaos.
Rounding out the list of new features are tag-team matches that now also feature the much-needed multi-man fatigue system that was introduced in 2K17, making it easier to secure a win while one of the wrestlers is outside recovering. You can also now put up to eight wrestlers in the ring at once during ladder matches, four-on-four tag matches, and battle royales. Finally, there are now even more backstage areas to explore and interact with during backstage brawls. The eight-man matches are particularly welcome as they add an extra touch of chaos to Battle Royales that accurately simulates what goes on in an actual WWE ring.
As far as big, noticeable changes to the wrestling gameplay go, that’s pretty much it. Nothing groundbreaking on the scale of the reversal system added in 2K16, nor anything that substantially improves how certain match types are played. As someone who plays every year, that’s a bit disappointing.
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Nothing saves Universe from feeling dull and repetitive.
</span>With the core wrestling feeling mostly the same, it falls to MyCareer and Universe Mode to pick up the slack, which… well, they don’t. Universe Mode feels all but untouched since last year. You still play through week after week of WWE programming, simulating matches you don’t care about and affecting the outcomes of the ones you do by playing through them. There are some small tweaks to rivalries and some new cutscenes to make matches feel more like the real thing, but nothing that saves Universe from feeling dull and repetitive.
Rather than bring back or revitalize the fantastic 2K Showcase mode that elevated the single-player experience of every WWE 2K game it was in before disappearing in 2K17, Yukes appears to be stuck on trying to make the floundering MyCareer mode work. Like previous years, MyCareer centers around creating your own superstar who rises through the ranks of the WWE. It begins at the WWE Performance Center and runs through getting your first taste of championship gold at NXT, to getting called up to the main roster, to being a main event star worthy of Wrestlemania.
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To put it mildly, MyCareer's writing is not up to the task.
In what seemed like a good idea on paper, this time around WWE 2K18 adopts a much more RPG-like approach to MyCareer, giving you the ability to explore the backstage areas, chat with superstars, align yourself with or against The Authority, and take on side quests that further your alignment as a face or heel and unlock perks. But like most RPGs, its success hinges on the strength of the campaign’s writing. And, to put it mildly, the writing in WWE 2K18 is not up to the task.
Dialogue between you and the wrestlers that roam around backstage is completely banal, the trash talk and insults that are exchanged would sound juvenile even on an elementary schoolyard – Akam of the feared tag-team known as the Authors of Pain tells me “You seem paper-thin, paper boy.” To which I can respond: “You’ll find that I’m a rock-man.” – and perhaps the worst part of it all is that the awful promo system from WWE 2K17 returns, which makes any feuds and storylines to arise from this mode utterly meaningless.
Promos are performed by first selecting a vague dialogue choice that starts you ranting on a particular topic, like how you’re fed up with how overlooked you are as a wrestler. After that first choice, you must choose between four more vague dialogue options with the goal of maintaining the same tone you started with. The more you keep to the same tone, the better your promo score.
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There’s so much wrong with this promo system.
There’s so much wrong with this system, from the awful writing to the awkward and wild pantomiming that goes on in the ring, but the biggest problem is it feels more like answering questions on the reading comprehension portion of the SATs than anything close to simulating how promos work in WWE. It’s simply not fun to do. All in all, MyCareer is kind of a mess – and it’s a shame because it has some great ideas that are just not executed well at all.
Tied to MyCareer is its online counterpart, called Road to Glory, which allows you to take your created character and compete against others online in daily match types to earn stars to qualify for Pay Per View events. As of this writing, I’ve been unable to test what playing in a Pay Per View event actually means since the first one is scheduled for Friday, Oct. 20, but it’s definitely something I look forward to checking out.
It’s also worth mentioning that loot boxes are a part of the progression system in WWE 2K18. You can purchase bronze, silver, or gold loot boxes that contain new moves, attire, or stat boosts that affect Road to Glory mode. These loot boxes can only be purchased with virtual currency, which eliminates the problem of “pay-to-win,” but they do come with the inherent problem of adding a secondary luck-based barrier between you and the gear you want. If you want your MyCareer character to have glowing super saiyan hair like Goku from Dragon Ball Z, all you can do is cross your fingers and hope that you get it and grind more currency until you do.
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Outside of MyCareer mode, the creation suite isn’t affected by loot boxes.
Fortunately, outside of MyCareer mode, the creation suite isn’t affected at all by loot boxes and it remains one of the most impressive and powerful sets of creation tools that you’ll find in any video game. Before WWE 2K18 was even out, the community creations section was already full of wrestlers and hilarious renditions of pop culture characters to download that look absolutely incredible.
New to the creative suite of WWE 2K18 is the ability to create custom matches. That’s a great feature and allows you to adjust the win condition on most match types, in addition to adding time limits and giving you the ability to tweak starting health, recovery time, and whether or not you start with a finishing move. You still can’t get too crazy, like having a ladder match inside Hell in a Cell, or adding weapons to a Royal Rumble, but aside from those limitations, you can mostly create any match that makes sense.
The Verdict
Under the better-than-ever graphics and great-as-ever core wrestling gameplay, WWE 2K18 is a largely disappointing iteration. It wastes too much of its ambition on the poorly written and dull MyCareer RPG mode, leaving its other promising modes to languish for another year. What few enhancements we get to the carry mechanics and eight-person matches are welcome, but not as much of a year-over-year refresh as would be needed to keep the excitement level as high as it’s been in past years.
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