WWE 2K20 review: 5 things that went wrong
With a Metacritic rating of no higher than 45, it's safe to say that WWE 2K20 wasn't the most... acclaimed of the series. Sadly for 2K, that poor reception has also lead to poor sales, and next year's iteration of the game is now in doubt (although, to be fair, with circumstances the way they are right now, the future of pretty much any unproduced piece of entertainment is in doubt).
So what happened? How did things go haywire for the normally anxiously anticipated sports entertainment simulator?
Well, that's what we're here to look at today. Keep in mind, this is being written by someone who actually really liked the title when it first released and still enjoys it to this day. But even with my own rose-colored glasses, I can see obvious problems when they are obvious.
On that note, here are 5 things that went wrong with WWE 2K20.
#5 A sudden change in developers
For years - years - Yuke's were the team in charge of developing the WWE 2K franchise, from the early PlayStation titles all the way up to 2K19. However, for whatever reason, Yuke's and 2K had a falling out and suddenly the publisher was in need of a new developer. Enter Visual Concepts.
Visual Concepts are by no means some fly-by-night operation. They are the team behind some of the best sports titles of all time, including the legendary NFL 2K and 2K1 on the Sega Dreamcast. Those are considered two of the best American Football games ever made.
They're the team that handles 2K's successful NBA 2K line. They aren't strangers to the WWE 2K series either - they've assisted Yuke's in the development of the line ever since 2K purchased the rights to the license from a bankrupt THQ.
So they were pretty much the obvious choice to take over the project after Yuke's left. But here's the thing: assisting a studio and taking over from them altogether are two different things.
The 2K/Yuke's split happened during the development of the game, which meant that Visual Concepts were also working on a pretty tight deadline.
So no, we're not hanging the blame for whatever went wrong with 2K20 entirely on the VC team. They actually did the best they could with the situation they were handed. But it's clear that the chaos that ensued when Yuke's split, contributed heavily to the problems of the game.