Imagine the rush of adrenaline that must exist when a superstar hoists the WWE World Heavyweight Championship belt over his head, as 75,000 fans cheer him on. “WWE 2K16” allows for that to become a virtual reality.
Looking at the gameplay, the variety of options in “WWE 2K16” are fantastic. Players can play every type of wrestling match, from a basic one-on-one matchup to the 30-man battle royal match known as the Royal Rumble. If basic exhibition mode is too boring, the career mode, 2K Showcase mode and the myWWE Universe mode provide long term experiences that maintain the game’s replay value. Aiding the replay value is the depth of characters. WWE and 2K created the largest roster ever, with 135 wrestlers on the roster so far, with more to come via downloadable content.
Unfortunately, there are only 13 women, known as “Divas” on WWE programming, on the roster, so that aspect is rather limited. Also frustrating is the lack of four of the most popular women on television right now. Becky Lynch, Charlotte, Sasha Banks and Bailey are noticeably absent from the game, despite being in some of the best wrestling matches of the year. Also glaringly absent is the option to have a female career mode. This is disappointing, since there has been a growing push for women in both sport and gaming. If “WWE 2K16” included more female options, it could have been used to mirror the televised efforts by the WWE to highlight the excellent women’s wrestling that viewers have witnessed over the last year.
In said career mode, players create a brand new WWE superstar, molding everything from hair style and color, to clothing design. Players then take your created wrestler into the WWE’s developmental territory, NXT, and have complete control of his actions. Taking one’s created wrestler through NXT, the player can create rivalries, forge alliances and determine which title to go after. The post-match interviews allow for the player to shape how the virtual crowd reacts to their superstar, either embracing him as a good guy, or booing him as a villain.
2K Showcase mode tells the history of one of the most popular wrestlers to ever step inside the squared circle: “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. Players can see Austin’s growth from his early days wrestling in World Championship Wrestling as “Stunning” Steve Austin; one half of the team known as the “Hollywood Blondes,” to his days at Extreme Championship Wrestling and culminating with his triumphs with WWF/WWE. By playing each match and completing certain tasks within them, players can unlock the hidden characters and event locations that provide even more variety to this already deep game.
MyWWE Universe mode gives players complete control over the WWE. From creating a new weekly show, creating special shows, adjusting the rosters on each show and setting rivalries, players can turn the WWE into whatever they want it to be. Given the number of performers, there’s plenty of variety to keep this mode fresh and fun for a long time.
Even though there is a lack of female wrestlers, 2K allows players to fix that as they see fit, finally returning “Create-a-Diva” to the creation zone. Just like the “Create-a-superstar,” players can make a wrestler, completely adjust how they want them to look, and insert them into the myWWE Universe mode. With the options available, players have the ability to create whoever they want, and can play however they like to within those modes.
Also returning to “WWE 2K16” is the revamped “Create-an-entrance” that allows players to customize any wrestler’s entrance into the arena. Adjust the lighting, music and motion for the wrestlers and show your creativity to the world. This can result in some very serious entrances, or some hysterical experiences. For example, take the two meanest, toughest wrestlers on the roster, and make them come to the ring as bouncing, giggly cheerleaders, or take a created wrestler, and craft an entrance that inspires an extra touch of realism.
In terms of actually playing the game, the controls are very good. Matches take on an ebb and flow feel to them that actually exists in real wrestling matches, and the stamina system forces the players to be more methodical in their approach to the game, rather than just running at their opponent and hitting every high impact maneuver they can.
2K has revamped the reversal system, as there are now a limited number of reversals possible to each character. Though they replenish in time, players cannot reverse everything, so they must choose their reversals carefully. Avoiding that punch may mean being unable to keep out of the bigger move later. Timing for reversals is still frustrating, but this is still a marked improvement over the previous iterations of this game.
The main annoyance in the gameplay is the submission system. Once in or applying a hold, players are taken to a minigame where they need to rotate a colored bar around a circle. If the rotation followed the control of the sticks better, this might be a nice idea, but the execution was poor. It feels more uncoordinated than controlled, and this harms the fun because players can lose to a basic submission early in a match if they do not move their colored bar fast enough.
Visually, this game is exceptional. The wrestlers look exactly as they do on television, and the entrances are more detailed than ever. Unfortunately, the game still struggles with some spotty hit detection, so the punch a character throws can appear to go through the opponent’s head before he/she react to it. Also, some other visual glitches happen, such as a player’s character floating away, or having to fight an invisible opponent. These issues can take away from the excellent gameplay this game has.
Overall, “WWE 2K16” is a fun, but flawed, game. The gameplay is overall decent, and if 2K fixes the submission system, gameplay would be excellent. The depth of characters is great, but it would be nice to see more of the women that revitalized women’s wrestling. Career mode does a good job crafting the feel of being a real, up-and-coming WWE superstar, but adding a diva’s option would go a long way into making this a more inclusive game. If WWE and 2K Sports fix these problems, next year’s game will be one of the best ever. As for this game, it gets a ranking of 3.5 stars out of 5.
