55/100
Players26 ratings: 45/100
Critics7 reviews

Where to get it

2019 · Visual Concepts · Professional wrestling · Simulation

WWE 2K20

2K invites players to Step Inside the squared circle with WWE 2K20, available October 22. Your favorite WWE Superstars, Legends, Hall of Famers and NXT’s best will join the festivities and celebrate the rebirth of the WWE 2K franchise! WWE 2K20 will feature key gameplay improvements, streamlined controls, and the most fun and creatively expansive entry in the franchise to date. WWE 2K20 will also feature a brand-new 2K Showcase focused on the story of the Four Horsewomen/Women’s Evolution, the return of 2K Towers, an all-new MyCAREER that prominently features both male and female playable characters, and Mixed Tag Matches featuring male and female competitors.

Released: 22 October 2019
Platforms: PlayStation 4 Windows Xbox One
Genres: Professional wrestling Simulation Sports
Developers: Visual Concepts
Publishers: 2K Sports
Series: WWE 2K
Modes: Co-op Multiplayer Single-player
Perspective: Third person Side view
Themes: Action Non-fiction
Country: United States
Age ratings: PEGI 16 ESRB T CERO B ACB M USK 16 CLASS_IND 12
Languages: Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish (Spain)

About

WWE 2K20 is a professional wrestling video game developed by Visual Concepts and published by 2K. It was released worldwide on October 22, 2019, for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. It is the twenty-first installment of the WWE series, the seventh under the WWE 2K banner, and the successor to WWE 2K19. 2K20 is the first game in the series not to be developed by Yuke's, which had developed every entry in the series since its inception in 2000. Visual Concepts, who had previously worked with Yuke's as co-developers since 2014, took over as lead studio for the series.

WWE 2K20 received overwhelmingly negative reviews, with game critics noting a regression in quality compared to 2K19. The game has since gained notoriety in both the wrestling and gaming communities for its many bugs at launch, glitches and other technical issues. In response to its failure, 2K would cancel WWE 2K21 and put the series on hiatus for two years, with a spin-off, WWE 2K Battlegrounds, released in 2020, followed by the main series' return with WWE 2K22, which released on March 11, 2022.

Keywords

wrestling
controversial
controversy
multiple playable characters

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

WWE 2K20's 2K Showcase mode revolves around the Four Horsewomen of WWE (Bayley, Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair and Sasha Banks), from Charlotte VS. Natalya for the NXT Women's Championship at NXT to a triple threat winner takes all match between Lynch, Flair and Ronda Rousey for the Raw and SmackDown Women's Championships at WrestleMania 35. Players take control of different unique models of Bayley, Banks, Lynch, and Flair, in 15 matches. The 2K Towers mode, first introduced in WWE 2K19, made its return to the series.

WWE 2K20 features a female MyCareer story alongside its male story, the first for 2K. (Previous THQ games had female stories) The story is set in April 2029, where Red and Tre were inducted to the WWE Hall of Fame as members of the Class of 2029, which happened before WrestleMania 45 in Las Vegas, Nevada (also known in-game as WrestleMania 2029, as a fictional version of that year's event), 11 years after the end of the WWE 2K19 MyCareer storyline, as in which, the matches follow the perspectives of their career before putting their spots on the line against Samoa Joe and Brooklyn Von Braun at WrestleMania 45 at the end of the story.

Reception

WWE 2K20 received "generally unfavorable reviews" on all platforms according to review aggregator Metacritic. Reviewers criticized the physics, graphics, targeting, change in controls and the numerous glitches.

Brian Fowler of IGN said the game was a "mess", and that the game's quality had degraded since its predecessor, and many of the character models looked like they had "crawled out of a PS2-era wrestling game." GamesRadar+'s Ben Wilson gave the verdict that "WWE 2K20 plays like a work-in-progress demo that's yet to be stress-tested – but there's a decent game somewhere under the hot mess." Writing for GameSpot, Richard Wakeling criticized the MyCareer mode, the new control layout and the numerous technical issues, and declared as the worst of the WWE 2K series, and the moment the series "hit rock bottom".