WWE 2K22 was a good reboot for a series that was going into a downward spiral. WWE 2K23 built on a strong base to create a very compelling wrestling game. By all accounts, WWE 2K24 was set up to be a further refinement of the current formula, which is perfectly fine for fans and those with a renewed interest in WWE and pro wrestling. It's interesting to see how much of a refinement that really is, though.

If you've played WWE 2K23, you know the core fighting engine. Button-mashing can still be done to avoid submissions, and the same can be done for pins, but using the right analog stick is easier and causes less wear on your hands. Reversals are of medium difficulty, but you can try to perform counters by matching your opponent's strikes at the right time. This is an incentive to learn everyone on the roster to get a better read on their moves. You have quick and strong attacks as well as a block button and a grapple button. For gamepad users, shoulder buttons can be used for running or climbing the turnbuckles or grabbing weapons out of the ring; the right analog stick can pin opponents or pick them up. In short, it's a fighting game with more nuance but is easier to pick up and play when compared to the series before WWE 2K22.

The fighting engine features more significant changes and additions. Some things are small, like seeing your wrestler use the ropes to get back up in the ring. Others are nice touches, such as the ability to throw weapons. Speaking of weapons, there are new ones, such as guitars and water bottles. The backstage area has received a few more locales to fight in, with more interactive elements like elevators and vending machines. Super Finishers are now a thing, where you can unleash a more powerful version of a finisher or a new one altogether — if you can save up three finisher bars to unleash it. This makes the title feel one step closer to an actual fighting game.

The most noticeable change comes from Trading Blows, which is a minigame that appears when both wrestlers are trading punches or chops. The mode asks you to hold down a button and release it at the green zone to unleash a good deal of damage per hit. If you're good enough, you can aim for the very tiny gold zone to unleash a massive hit to immediately end the exchange with you as the undisputed victor. The minigame appears suddenly in a fight, but it doesn't appear that often, so it is a fun little distraction rather than an annoyance.

There is still some room for improvement in this area. Magnetic targeting for air moves is still present, but at least it isn't as prevalent as before. There are moments when climbing the turnbuckles will only get you to the middle versus the top, and you can't seem to do anything if your opponent is in the middle of transitioning in or out of the ring between the ropes. Cheating by heel managers is still done, but the issue of instant disqualification isn't possible anymore, since the referee no longer seems to care. Someone can blatantly unfasten the turnbuckle pads in front of the ref, and they won't care. This also means that the ref will go back to the turnbuckle to replace the pad, which is infuriating to experience if your opponent's companions unfasten it every few minutes. It's a good sign that there have been improvements to reduce the frequency of these occurrences, but it puts some pressure on the next title to get these addressed, since patches never fixed these kinds of things in the previous game.

Last year's roster was perhaps one of the more solid ones that the series has experienced since 2K took over, mostly due to the lack of movement in personnel during the game development. The roster in this year's version is similar; there are no real stragglers when it comes to including wrestlers who are no longer in WWE. The exception is Jake "The Snake" Roberts and Rob Van Dam, both of whom are on WWE Legends contracts. The roster before any DLC is at the 200 mark, with quite a number of Legends and Alumni filling up the field. Most of the roster has been in a WWE title before, but it's awesome to see guys like George " The Animal" Steele and Molly Holly. Not much has changed between the Smackdown and Raw rosters, but the large increase in NXT wrestlers by default is very welcome. The same can be said for the inclusion of real WWE referees, as you'll see the likes of Charles Robinson, Jessika Carr, and at least five others in rotation. There are two notable exclusions — Vince McMahon and Brock Lesnar — who were fielding accusations that were bad enough to get them removed from the game as playable characters.

One issue with last year's iteration was that the timeline was fractured; certain champions came from different time periods, and some gimmicks were mashed together haphazardly. The cutoff point seems to be toward November 2023, and since the championship hasn't changed hands since then, the timeline feels current. An exception is on the NXT side, where most of the championship changes happened in early 2024, while the NXT Women's Championship is currently being held by Lyra Valkyria, who isn't in the game as of this writing. As for the commentary, you aren't going to get any strange mentions of old character gimmicks clashing with new ones, as it all feels recent. Overall, this is a really big improvement over last year's iteration.

As for the WWE-related presentation, it remains largely unchanged from WWE 2K23. The LED screens for the ring apron and crowd barricades look nice, and it's great to see some of the more popular wrestlers and groups like LA Knight and The Judgement Day get special chyrons, even if the Titantrons remain as uninspiring as some of the music given to some of the newer names on the roster. The crowd is still vocal, with even more individual callouts before and during a match, and commentary is rather good.

When it comes to game modes, there's quite a large number present. For basic matches, all of the match types present in WWE 2K23 return, so those who skipped last year's game won't miss the chaos of WarGames. There are four new match types, but they aren't new if you were already a fan of the series from the SmackDown era. Guest Referee is where you can take any referee and call the match as you see it, complete with the ability to not be penalized if you attack a wrestler. Controlling the speed of the count is fun, but there are enough safeguards in place to make this feel distinct rather than a typical one-on-one-on-one match with one person wearing the zebra stripes.

Ambulance Match and Casket Match are essentially the same idea, as you have to wear down your opponent before throwing them into the aforementioned casket or ambulance. Shutting the door scores a win. The ambulance is the more exciting version, since the increased elevation allows for insane air attacks, and you can bump people into the vehicle. The last of the new match types is the Gauntlet Match, which acts like a more traditional fighting game in that you need to survive four opponents, with your status from previous match carrying through all the way to the end. There are difficulty modifiers to beef up the challenge, but it feels like a missed opportunity since you can't modify the number of consecutive opponents that you'll face.

MyRise is up next, and the dual story format from last year's version makes a return. Undisputed is the storyline for the men's side of things, and the setup is fascinating if you're paying attention to the current storylines. After over 1,200 days of being the champion, Roman Reigns has relinquished the championship to take a crack at Hollywood success, just like his cousin The Rock. You play the role of a wrestler who has made it to WWE but flown under the radar for a while. Having been handpicked by William Regal to fill in a mystery spot, you enter an impromptu tournament for the belts. You win, but your quest is to hold on as long as possible and face a returning Roman Reigns to prove that you're the new top dog. While the dialogue is still cheesy, the mode is fun thanks to the inclusion of talk show segments and even an impromptu wedding that highlights the fun silliness of pro wrestling.

For the women, Unleashed takes on a different path as you play the role of the top champion of TBD, the hottest indie company in wrestling. You actively reject WWE, but you end up accompanying another wrestler in your company to the Las Vegas tryouts, where she gets into NXT. You get invited as a local talent for a match against Shotzi, who feels like you wronged her years ago. After a successful win, you end up being part of the WWE, where you make a name for yourself. Just like last year, the women's journey feels more exciting because it feels more realistic and less contrived. It helps that the unexpected cameo from last year's game ties together both titles, while the dual campaigns of NXT and the main roster give this more variety. Both are good, but Unleashed will appeal to more people, especially if you're sick of The Bloodline.

Unlike past iterations of 2K Showcase, this one isn't focused on any of the cover athletes of the various versions. Instead, the focus is on WrestleMania, as this year marks the 40th year of the company's biggest pay-per-view event. The mode cherry-picks some of the most memorable matches throughout that run, including the famous Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant match of WrestleMania III, the match between Steve Austin and The Rock at WrestleMania X-Seven, and the Roman Reigns vs. Cody Rhodes match of WrestleMania 39. The mode is presented by Corey Graves, and you get some history with each match, along with footage spliced in from the actual matches between your play sessions. From a gameplay perspective, you're still aiming to hit the given objectives to make this match up with what happened in the actual bout. One of the big changes is that you'll be able to unlock stuff, whether you win or lose. Another big change is that you don't have to follow the script completely, so while you may miss out on some bonuses, you'll still be able to progress to the next highlighted match and not get stuck if, for example, you couldn't complete a specific event.

The mode is cool, but it suffers from a few issues. The first is the long-standing issue with the series' inclusion of real footage, and that's the massive amounts of censoring in just about every shot. It somewhat makes sense to blur out the old WWF logo due to the lawsuit from the World Wildlife Federation, but faces and other things are also blurred out. For example, the opening movie shows the logo for the first WrestleMania, but the location of Madison Square Garden is blurred out, so seeing a large blob appear underneath is very off-putting. Referees and certain crowd members get blurred out. The commentary team gets blurred, which creates a hilarious shot of former commentator Jim Ross as a blur that wears a black cowboy hat.

Even though they mention some wrestlers by name like Honky Tonk Man, the scene of him getting pinned to help tell Ultimate Warrior's win as Intercontinental Champion suffers because his face is blurred. The recent accusations against McMahon and Lesnar have caused them to get the blur treatment, but it remains inconsistent since they show up without the blur in some scenes. Overall, the censorship creates a mess, as the scenes that would've made the mode memorable devolve into a blur.

The second issue is that the mode was done before — and better. WWE 2K14 had its showcase highlight WrestleMania at 30 years, and it featured a little over double the amount of matches, clocking in at 47 versus WWE 2K24's count of 22 matches. That match count was also spread out over more WrestleManias, making this iteration feel paltry, since whole WrestleMania events like I and II were skipped entirely. You can make the argument that WWE 2K14 featured roughly 15 matches that couldn't be done now due to some wrestlers no longer being under WWE contract, but that still leaves the game with 10 more matches than what WWE 2K24 has for the mode. Making things worse is the fact that some of the really big matches, like The Rock vs. "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan are completely missing, despite those two wrestlers being on the roster.

The core of MyGM mode remains the same as before, with the same roster of general managers with various buffs, depending on which GM you pick and which show you choose to run. The situation variety has been increased, but the real highlight comes from the ability to level up wrestlers who appear on each show. It makes for some interesting scenarios, as you're now encouraged to keep your favorites booked while also keeping in mind that they'll become prime targets for a trade between other brands, another new feature that deepens the mode.

The rest of the modes have seen little to no changes occur over the past year. Online play remains solid, and there are some nice fallbacks if players drop out, but it's disappointing to see crossplay absent for yet another year. MyFaction doesn't see much beyond new cards, but no amount of criticism seems to harm this mode, considering how many people are spending cash for various boosters. Universe adds in a few things, like Loser Leaves Town matches and Double Title Matches, which gives a robust mode a little more to play with, whether you choose to go with one wrestler or take over the whole organization. The same goes for Creation mode, which is relatively unchanged except for the addition of a few more moves and entrance animations.

From a graphical standpoint, the changes are minimal. The wrestlers look awesome, and except for a few inconsistencies, like Hulk Hogan having more hair than before or Molly Holly using her modern short hair look, there's no mistaking who's who. The animations are mostly good, with the exception being mouth movements during cut scenes. The faces have been improved, but it looks bad when you see someone speak and their mouths don't bother to match the dialogue. The crowds are more diverse, with the presence of kids in some scenes and far less crowd cloning than before. Particle effects are decent enough but nothing that'll look bad otherwise. The few FMVs are cleaned up, so there's no banding on the opening "WWE Then, Now, Forever, Together" video. Performance is solid on just about any hardware configuration, so reaching 60fps with everything cranked up is no problem, but you wish that the team would finally take the time to upgrade to more upscaling solutions; just having FSR 1.0 isn't cutting it anymore. Linux users will find that the game runs just fine out of the box with the latest official version of Proton, and ultrawide monitor users will like that the game supports the format, even if the menus and movies still stick to 16:9.

As for the sound, its changes almost feel nonexistent. Except for some new lines, the quality of the commentary remains unchanged. The voice-overs in other modes range wildly from excellent to feeling unnatural in their delivery. The sound effects also vary, with the in-ring action getting pumped-up effects while the action out of the ring feels subdued. The soundtrack covers a few more genres than last year's, but the quality remains subjective. Some may find last year's selection headlined by Bad Bunny to be more pleasant than some of the stuff headlined this year by Post Malone.

There aren't many visible changes with the engine, so Steam Deck users who played WWE 2K23 know exactly what to expect with this entry's performance. The game defaults to a mix of Ultra quality shadows and shaders, with standard model quality and texture quality. AMD FSR 1 is on and with VSYNC off, the benchmark runs in the mid-50s throughout. During a one-on-one match, the frame rate can fluctuate wildly between the 40s to 60s, depending on the camera. It feels fine, but some tweaking is needed if you want a consistent 60fps. That frame rate drops once you start doing more multi-man matches. Battery life can average around two hours on a full charge, so don't expect to go past that mark unless you carry a battery pack or stay near an outlet.

WWE 2K24 remains a very good wrestling game. The fighting engine is solid, and while there are still a few things to work on, the new additions make it stronger than last year's entry. The modes may have some flaws, but the modes are fun and plentiful enough to keep players busy for a very long time. Add in the robust presentation, and WWE 2K24 is an easy pick-up for wrestling fans. It also means that the series needs to continue to make significant tweaks to stay on top.

Score: 8.0/10