WWE 2K25 review: rock solid wrestling sim teases its heel turn

If John Cena’s recent move to the dark side has taught us anything, it’s that no babyface is immune to a heel turn. That’s an inevitability that I fear 2K games are setting us up for with WWE 2K25.

Don’t get me wrong. This year’s pro wrestling simulator is another solid offering from a series that has successfully rebuilt itself into a main eventer after bottoming out in 2019. It’s the Cody Rhodes of video game franchises, going from undesirable to undeniable. The core brawling is still strong, standout modes like MyGM are better than ever, and the roster just keeps getting bigger. But the seeds of a not-so-shocking twist are starting to poke out from under the ring, as 2K25 teases the kind of corporate turn that TKO board member Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson would be proud of.

Enjoy the franchise’s current babyface run while you can: WWE 2K25 could be the franchise’s last feel good moment if new modes like The Island are any indication of where the story is going next.

Maintaining the core

Love it or hate it, it’s hard not to respect how strong WWE 2K25’s core is. The wrestling simulator is still in great shape following 2024’s career-defining entry. Not much has been changed here, and that’s for the best. The fundamental wrestling is largely the same as what we saw in WWE 2K24, with fine-tuned tussling filled with grappling and dramatic reversals. Though it could still stand to better explain its myriad of nuances to players, it’s still a fairly easy system to pick up and enjoy.

The bulk of the changes are small ones. Players can perform suicide dives, the submission wheel minigame makes its return as an optional gesture, and there’s one totally new idea in chain wrestling. That last one is another minigame that can take place early in a match that has players choosing a submission and then tilting a joystick to find a sweet spot on a wheel to execute it. It’s a bit confusing, and adds yet another minigame to a system with one too many at this point, but it’s largely unobtrusive and a fun way to replicate a more technical aspect of pro wrestling that’s hard to adapt.

The only thing that really stands out to me here is that tag team matches are significantly improved this year. That’s thanks to a tweak to computer-controlled characters, who will no longer break up every single pinfall they can. If their partner is likely to kick out on their own, their pal won’t get involved. It makes tag matches feel much closer to the real thing, turning one of the series’ worst match types around. That’s the kind of nitty gritty tweak that developer Visual Concepts is now in a position to make since it has everything else down to a science. A game like this should get better and better with each new entry when it comes to pure gameplay, not deteriorate. 2K25 has problems, to be sure, but not where it counts.

Beyond that, 2K25 does a great job of expanding a wrestling sandbox that felt like it had nowhere left to go. Intergender matches are a great addition that open the door for way more dream scenarios. Women are allowed to bleed in matches just as men can, which adds more intensity to those bouts. Underground matches are a fun little addition that’s easier to grasp for casual players, while Bloodline Rules matches add a bit more run-in chaos. There’s nothing too groundbreaking here, but you can never have too many options in a WWE 2K game. This year’s entry mostly feels up to date with the product, aside from its lack of Netflix branding, which is exactly what you want out of these games.

This year’s roster is perfectly acceptable too, even if it prominently features a surprising amount of freshly released wrestlers. The already loaded list of superstars gets a nice infusion of classic talent this year thanks to 2K25’s Bloodline branding. The entire package is themed around cover star Roman Reigns and his extended family of Samoan legends. It’s great to see stars like Peter Maivia, Samu, and Haku right alongside folks like The Undertaker and Rob Van Dam. The roster feels fairly up to date with current stars like Jacob Fatu as well, and even newcomers like Penta are already confirmed for DLC. Anyone that’s missing should be easy enough to create in the returning creative suite, which remains the series’ most powerful tool.

Doubling down on greatness

Those fundamentals are strong, but they’re only ingredients in a WWE 2K game. The real trick is cleverly shuffling them into a host of modes, while still making each taste different. It’s the Taco Bell approach to engineering Mexican cuisine — and that’s an apt comparison considering that 2K25’s modes range from delicious to nauseating.

First, there’s the good. Universe mode still provides an excellent wrestling simulation that spits out surprisingly cogent stories. My current run has Kairi Sane heeling it up with Asuka against the Unholy Union. The feud has been filled with cheap shots and run-ins that make it actually feel like a running TV feud rather than a limited computer simulation. One match ended when Alba Fyre beat Asuka to a pulp on the outside before dramatically diving back in the ring to beat a 10 count and win. The next match had her trying for the same move only to nearly have it backfire in her face. That wasn’t scripted; it was a totally emergent moment that speaks to how strong the simulation is.

The standout MyGM mode continues to impress, especially with its much-needed online play this year. I still haven’t grown tired of booking my own shows and managing a growing roster of egos. This year shakes things up in some fun ways too, with go home shows, trade periods, and season-changing bonuses that are awarded after a premium live event (PLE). The only change that doesn’t totally land is a new approach to PLEs that turn every show into a cross-brand event. Competing players only get to book two matches apiece. The opening match and main event are always reserved for brand vs. brand matches. There’s no way to really build a story for those, so they just end up feeling like random exhibition bouts with no stakes on the line aside from bragging rights (I guess it’s a fairly accurate representation of Survivor Series before its War Games days in that sense).

If I had to give an award for Most Improved, it would have to go to MyRise. I’ve long been a critic of the mode for its cheap presentation and dull storytelling. To my surprise, this year’s campaign might be my favorite piece of the package. Rather than making two separate campaigns like previous years, 2K25’s MyRise tells one singular story that has players controlling two superstars. The story revolves around a scorned group of disrespected NXT wrestlers who take WWE hostage. Players control a hot free agent who finds themselves in the crosshairs of the rogue group. In my story, I played an MMA fighter who had to call in back-up from her luchador ex to help get the situation under control. It’s a fun, goofy story that plays with the very real tension among wrestling fans about how NXT stars are often misbooked when getting called up to the main roster.

The only classic mode that feels like a downgrade here is this year’s Showcase, which takes players on a tour of Samoan wrestling history. On paper, it’s great. Paul Heyman leads the documentary, giving players plenty of historical background on the decorated Anoaʻi family, from the WWF days to present. What’s a bit of a shame, though, is that Visual Concepts has ditched its signature Slingshot tech, which would seamlessly transition gameplay cutscenes to clips from actual wrestling history. A developer I spoke to during a preview earlier this year noted that the move was done to keep players in gameplay more often, but that doesn’t really check out. Real footage is just replaced with long animated sequences. The hands-off time is the same, but without the excitement of feeling like you’re playing a documentary.

Generally, Showcase finds itself in an awkward transition phase. It feels like Visual Concepts is trying to get away from the documentary aspect of it and turn it into a more flexible campaign. This year’s threads total fantasy matches in between real ones, which just makes it feel creatively incohesive. It almost feels like WWE is trying to push some revisionist history to pump up The Bloodline’s historical impact by imagining a world where The Headshrinkers were allowed to go over at Wrestlemania. It’s still a fun mode with lots of match variety peppered in, but MyRise usurps it as the main draw for those looking for a fun single-player campaign.

Heel turn incoming

While those modes give fans a lot to cheer for, there’s a dark side here that I fear may turn the series into a full-on heel within the next few years. WWE 2K25 is riddled with appalling microtransactions on top of a full priced game. I’ve never been a fan of MyFactions, the series’ card game mode that exists to milk cash out of diehards with gacha booster packs, but it’s at least a mode I felt I could ignore. It has its fans, and I do understand why. It’s fun to collect wrestlers and shuffle them into customizable factions. It’s not my cup of tea, but it’s always been a fairly polished mode for folks who want something like it.

I can’t say the same for The Island, 2K25’s big new addition. The fresh mode is WWE 2K’s version of NBA 2K25’s The City, where Roman Reigns has created a wrestling amusement park of sorts that players can freely explore. I don’t hate the concept in theory. Street Fighter 6 showed me that an open-world component can work in a fighting game if it’s implemented well. That’s not the case with The Island; it’s so embarrassingly low-quality that I’m shocked 2K Games allowed it to ever see the light of day.

The closest parallel I can think of here is a licensed Rugrats game from the Nintendo 64 era that you’d find at the bottom of a bargain bin. The island itself is garish in its visual design, all decorated with the kind of gimmicky booths you’d find at a fan expo. Aside from some filmed inserts of Roman Reigns, most of the dialogue with NPCs takes place in ugly, static title cards with no voice acting. In fact, there’s practically no sound design at all in the mode. It is eerily silent as I walk around the area between quiet quest-givers. It feels like a leaked pre-alpha build of a cancelled mode.

Why release something like this at all? Money. The Island isn’t a mode that exists for players. It exists for 2K Games. When I first make my character, I go through the process of assigning wrestling stats to her. When I confirm, I realize that all those stats will cost currency and I’m quickly kicked into a shop where I can buy up to $100 worth of credits with real cash. Considering that PVP is a part of The Island, you can connect the pay-to-win dots there. When I’m not wrestling matches or looking at a JPG of R-Truth, I can go into shops to buy cosmetics, where I can also spend real money. Brands like Nike have their own shops here, for some reason. It’s like a satirical joke someone would make if they were trying to make fun of the video game industry’s obsession with microtransactions.

I’d say that you should just ignore it all together (and you’ll have to depending on what platform you own, because The Island isn’t compatible on past-gen consoles despite looking like it was built for PS1), but there is something so deeply cynical about The Island that has me worried about the series’ immediate future. Even just the fact that you have to buy certain cosmetics from it feels like a feature built to prey on those who live by the creative suite, the very players who help keep the series exciting every year for free. Worse of all is that The Island feels like it was built for kids first and foremost, with its goofy theme park attractions and fantasy humor. The use of microtransactions here feels downright predory in a way that I never quite felt in MyFactions. It feels like 2K Games spent the last few years building up good will here just to pull the rug out just when it had won over its audience.

You can even see that in the release strategy for this year’s game. WWE 2K25 “launches” on March 14, but that’s not really true. It actually launched on March 7. That’s the day that anyone who pre-ordered one of its pricey special editions could access the game one week early. Those who did were greeted by game-breaking bugs including one that made MyRise largely inaccessible for its first weekend. Imagine paying over $100 for a video game to play it early, having it not work right, and then popping into two modes that are begging you to pony up further. It’s the kind of despicable business you’d expect from The Final Boss.

I’m still quite positive on WWE 2K25 overall. I’ve been having a blast in Universe mode and MyGM, where Ethan Page and CM Punk are having the title feud of a lifetime. There’s so much content here that you really can ignore its two egregious modes and still get your money’s worth and then some, but this year’s entry feels like the start of a villain arc. The Island is a new low for a series that has seen rock bottom; if you’re going to squeeze money out of players, at least give them a good show, not the Wonka Experience. I hope that 2K Games will take the right lesson from Wrestlemania 40 and listen to the fans next year. All heat may be good heat in wrestling, but it isn’t in video games.

WWE 2K25 was tested on PS5 Pro.