In the absence of WWE 2K21, we analyze the only wrestling proposal of this year, a crazy, exaggerated and fun game, but also very poor and simple.
Getting over a breakup takes time. It is never easy. And if you’ve been with your partner for almost twenty years, well imagine. Let them tell if not 2K Games, which in 2019 ended its relationship with Yuke’s, the Japanese developer who had been in charge of WWE games since that mythical WWF SmackDown! of the year 2000. We do not know who broke up with whom, nor the reasons, but we do know its consequences. Because we’ve all had some breakup after which we’ve pretended to be fine in front of our friends. We have pretended nothing was wrong and we have launched ourselves to fill the emptiness of our hearts with other people. Whoever invented the happy little phrase that “there are more fish in the sea” should be behind bars. When we accept that yes, something is actually happening, we are sad and we need time, often we have already left several corpses along the way. By then we have already hurt third parties and we have submerged ourselves in a couple of bland relationships that no one fully understood. And that’s exactly what 2K Games is going through.
A traumatic divorce
Last year, the company put out WWE 2K20 as if nothing had happened. As if he were still with Yuke’s, or as if he believed that any other studio could sit at the controls of the series, make a delivery in less than a year and obtain a result similar to the usual. When 2K Games accepted his true feelings it was too late. Consumers had eaten a mediocre title like him alone, with more bugs than we are capable of counting and paranormal phenomena around it, such as the strange case of a graphic section that went backwards like crabs and looked worse than the of the delivery of 2018. That was worthy of Fourth Millennium. The conclusion of our Reviews was clear, “the formula has been exhausted”, and the user ratings on Metacritic speak for themselves. Or more than they speak, they add up, and they add a 1.5 average note. The situation above had its intricacies, because the developer that 2K chose to replace Yuke’s was its main collaborator, Visual Concepts, who had been helping in the license games since WWE 2K14. For more than one, 2K Games cheated on Yuke’s with her best friend.
That first phase of the duel passed. There were apologies for the quality of the game and even a reimbursement program was improvised. Then 2K Games started to miss Yuke’s. He stopped remembering that the titles of this one had stagnated and that they never finished reaching the level of other sports franchises. He forgot that Visual Concepts is the main architect of the NBA 2K saga and that one of the reasons for his choice was to raise the level of wrestling games and equalize both licenses. In 2K’s memory there was only room for good times. For those minimums of quality more than acceptable and those notable among which WWE always moved in the press and public evaluations. The developer believed that she would never find love again and canceled WWE 2K21. But this second phase of depression and self-destruction was also behind us. The company thus entered the third, which can take many different forms and depends on each person. Some sign up for the gym and others for yoga, dance classes or cooking. The fact is that everyone wants to reinvent themselves, rediscover themselves, try new things and do what they always had in mind, but for which they never took the time. They want to show that they have changed, that they are better, and that the other person is missing out. But everything is so forced, so imposed and its final goal is so sad (that the other person finds out about its transformation and regrets it), that often what is actually done is ridicule.
Forget everything you know about wrestling. Battlegrounds takes wrestling fights to a new level and introduces super powers, wild animals, explosions …
Reinventing the way of understanding WWE
For 2K Games, this third phase has taken the form of WWE 2K Battlegrounds, a game radically different from the one in recent years. A test, an experiment. A title that screams so loudly about its transformation that it even seems suspicious. Goodbye to realistic graphics and hello to cartoon-looking figures and sets. The combos and the ambition to be a simulator give way to a much more arcade and tremendously simplistic approach, but which, for example, allows crazy things like handling goats by radio control and feeding our rivals to crocodiles in a swamp. No more that career mode in the vein of FIFA and NBA 2K, no behind-the-scenes sequences and of course not to mention having to face realistic situations, such as conversations with the press and photo sessions. Now the campaign mode is a comic in which we handle new and unknown fighters with superhero looks. With them all we do is fight, fight and fight. Turn to stone, surround our fists of fire and shoot lightning as if we were Zeus. The proposal is so different that you can’t help but glance at who signs it this time. This is Saber Interactive, in whose catalog we find the best possible analogy: NBA Playgrounds. That one went to NBA 2K the same as Battlegrounds is to WWE 2K. A rebellious son, an attractive and dangerous little brother who has his room plastered with posters of WWE Legends, a game he also remembers and evokes.
At a graphic level, the game bets on the Unreal Engine and a new cartoon approach in which the fighters look like action figures and are surrounded by special effects. It fits you like a glove.
Gym and contact 0
Some things can be rescued from that obsession to show that you have overcome it and that you are a completely new person. After all, going for a run, signing up for painting classes, or starting a rooftop garden also has its advantages. In search of a new identity, WWE 2K Battlegrounds is full of news, but many of its changes were necessary and have done the brand well. Perhaps the reduced price is the most obvious, since the game is launched at € 40. Then that nice cartoon look would come, which presents the fighters as action figures and surrounds them with very varied and colorful scenarios. The Unreal Engine envelops the characters with all kinds of effects and at times they even seem to transform into saiyans, with electric-colored auras floating around them. It suits you wonderfully. Thirdly, we would mention its new gameplay, much simpler and more carefree. The difference between an expert hand and a newcomer has been greatly shortened. Anyone can make a special move and soon after we get in the ring we will be fighting. Grabbing, counterattacks, and kick-starting skills are as easy as pressing a button or twisting the right stick slightly. In that sense it is a very grateful game in local cooperative. Any guest to our home will grasp the concepts in a matter of minutes and accept the challenge delighted. It is accessible and intuitive. But without a doubt the highlight is his conversion to hyperbole with legs. The game is the exaggeration of something already exaggerated such as wrestling. It takes each feature to the extreme and borders on parody, but it is thanks to that that it is fresh and fun.
After a few games, no one will be surprised if we jump into a helicopter, fly off the stage, and launch an airstrike from the sky. Nor that we put our hand under the canvas and take out a Harley Davison with which to hit our rival. And of course, the daily bread will be the confrontations in which, instead of a briefcase with money in the center of the stage, we are surrounded by an electrified fence from which bales of bills hang that we must collect. It is normal for the ring to break and fall, that animals appear in the middle of the battle and that we can use explosive barrels as a weapon. That’s how things are in WWE 2K Battlegrounds. The movements and rules are twisted and exaggerated. Randy Orton never jumped that high, Andre the Giant never hit so hard and Undertaker was never so close to denting the ring with the heads of his opponents.
The famous relapses
The great danger of this “phase three” after a breakup is that everything looks positive, but it is not. Because you join the gym, it’s true, but at night you pour yourself a bowl of chocolate ice cream and cry watching a new marathon of romantic movies. You set up an urban garden, yes, but you forget about it after two days and the tomatoes drown with the first rain. You go to painting class, correct, but only to the sample session, the free one, the one that does not require you to pay for the brushes. Then you exchange the oil for the bar and the beer. It seems like you’re getting over it, but no. You stumble over and over. WWE 2K Battlegrounds is the same.
It comes out at a reduced price, but seeing that it is overflowing with micropayments and that it has much less content than previous deliveries, the reduction seems small. It has fewer modes, fighters and options than usual and its format is reminiscent of some free to play. It has a very accurate cartoon aspect, but let’s face it, it is much less demanding and that is why we do not understand that even then a stable frame rate has been achieved. There are jerks, it backfires and it doesn’t always go smoothly. Not to mention the continuous failures in the collision system, the null artificial intelligence and the “magical teleportations” that the characters carry out to place themselves in the right place when we execute a special movement. The cuts have even taken away the fighting with more than 4 people (before there were 5, 6 and 8). Well, they have taken that and the expressiveness and correct recreation of some members of the squad, especially female. Similar happens with the gameplay. It is more accessible and intuitive, but after a few hours you can see the seams. It lacks any kind of depth and ends up being a button masher. More than a fighting game, it looks like a brawler. One of a rather slow pace and quite rough in animations. For a couple of games when friends come home it is fine, he complies, but online and alone the guy can’t stand. Almost all the characters are identical. They hardly differ in strength and speed, traits that are sensed based on their height. The taller ones pick up heavy objects that the others cannot and the shorter ones jump more. Point. There are not many more differences even though they have different valuations and are divided into several categories (superstar, campaign, high-flying, technical, specialist, brawler and powerful). As the hours go by we see that all its news and improvements have a trap.
The game is accessible and intuitive, the movements come out on their own and anyone can fight. Now, it is also a simple and repetitive crush. The two things should not be linked.
The clearest and most painful of his mirages resides in the game’s menu. At first it impresses and seems to have ways to bore, but if we compare it with previous ones, it is easy to blush WWE 2K Battlegrounds. And not only in number, but also in terms of their quality. Its story mode, for example, was sold to us as one of the great assets of the title and at heart it is little more than a tutorial. We are testing all the types of combat, the different scenarios and the new fighters that 2K has invented specifically for this installment. The difficulty increases little by little and between fights we can read several comic pages through which the story is told. An anecdotal, forgettable and somewhat ridiculous story. It consists of 120 events, which seem like a lot, but that number is another trap, because sometimes an event is just the reading of a comic and there are some that only consist of giving us a reward. We have completed them all in just a couple of afternoons. It won’t be longer than three, four hours. It is light years away from the defunct “My Career” mode. Its protagonists have been made for us to play with all types of characters (men; women; tall, resistant and strong; small, jumping and fast). We understand the decision, but with so few differences, it makes no sense and takes away all the grace from the character editor. Because we still have the option to create our own heir to the belt, but this only serves to play the “Battleground Challenge” mode that consists of combat after combat against the AI to increase the statistics. There is no story, no context, no variety. It is repetitive, boring and then on top of that we cannot use it online, so it loses its grace. The latter is repeated with the scenario editor, with the addition that in your case we can only create a maximum of three courts.
For the rest, no repeating historical WWE events, no specific WWE women’s campaign mode and no challenge towers focused on each type of game. We’ve gone from around 50 weapons to just four or five of them (and losing their respective publisher along the way). In the same way, and as we said, we have run out of modes for 5, 6 or 8 fighters at the same time. Also without handicap games. You cannot put genres together, there are no Extreme Rules modes, no Ladder, no Table, no TLC, no Fall Counts Anywhere, or so many others that there were in the past. The number of fighters is around 70, and taking into account that many are little more than skins, we do not understand how that of past years has not been reached, well above a hundred of them. Even the voices of the commentators (in English without subtitles) repeat the same comments every two by three, as happens in the menus with the few songs that there are, more pounding than the soundtrack of a clothing store. If you take out the magnifying glass, the cut is insane. It’s like that episode of How I Met Your Mother (series to avoid after a breakup) in which its protagonist refuses to go to restaurants where he could meet his partner … and ends up not being able to go to any of New York. In 2K Battlegrounds the same thing happens. Okay, you don’t want to inherit anything from your closed stage. Okay, you do not want to coincide and you are looking for something new and your own, but if that means losing so much content, variety and depth, then the same thing is to think twice. There will be those who believe that it is not fair to compare this arcade spin off with the main saga, with WWE 2K, but Battlegrounds cannot stand the comparison even with games of its style, such as NBA Playgrounds 2 and WWE All Stars.
Party game or service game?
But the biggest contradiction probably lies in the focus of your proposal. If WWE 2K Battlegrounds is a party game that shines with friends and when we play short and very long games in time, why are the most famous fighters (those who will want to use our visits) are blocked in the first place? Why do you have to farm solo to unlock them? Well, it’s either that or paying Golden Bucks, which is the currency that is within the game itself. A new euphemism for micropayment. It makes no sense to insist on the singleplayer when it is the poorest section. Being the AI so fair and the games so simple and repetitive, the title would have to bet everything on multiplayer, not only local but also online … but Battlegrounds lacks matchmaking in many of its sections! If we want to enjoy multiplayer in a specific type of game we will have to do it either locally or with someone from our friends list through invitation. Matchmaking is only available for a mode called “tournaments”, which are games with predefined rules that rotate and change every day. It’s a shame because most of the time the tournaments are only 1v1 games. They are inconspicuous, tiresome and often uneven. Instead of enhancing the chaos and exaggeration of his proposal, he puts us in closed scenarios, without external elements and to fight at a “professional level”, which is the same as spamming launches over and over again until the superpower is charged. In addition, the online has eliminated the prestige ranks, the side plates and the option to use our creations and fight against others. In other words, there is no sense of progression. There is only one stat sheet that shows how many tournaments we win. There is not much reason to get hooked, even though we have been promised to add more than 60 new fighters via DLC in the future. Why turn this into a game – service and not leave it on the air and focus all efforts on next year’s delivery?
The online mode, which is practically reduced to 1 vs 1 in neutral scenarios, is most disappointing. What a limited matchmaking.
Broken heart
We would say that we do not understand the reason for many of these decisions, but deep down we do. Because, as we said at the beginning, getting over a breakup takes time. It is never easy. And if you’ve been with your partner for almost twenty years, well imagine. WWE is learning to live without Yuke’s and it can be tough at first, we know. But these blind sticks are necessary. Even with our countless reservations, we are glad to have 2K Battlegrounds among us. Better that than leaving the license in a locked drawer and forgetting about it. Also, the only way to get from the top of one mountain to another nearby peak is to pass through the valley that separates them. Get down and get back up. Today’s title is more polished than WWE 2K20, being more entertaining and even enjoyable in its fair measure. That is to say that we are already going up. The game may have served to buy time until WWE 2K22 and kill the wrestling monkey among its most ardent fans. And if 2K Games takes note, it can also get a secondary saga from here that is very interesting. A WWE 2K Jam. Either option is positive. So the only advice we can give you to finish turning the page is to keep going. Keep trying.
CONCLUSION
More than a real choice within the genre, WWE 2K Battlegrounds seems like an attempt to step out and have something, whatever it is, to offer this year to wrestling fans. It’s as if after its breakup with Yuke’s, 2K Games didn’t really know what to do with the franchise and was testing everything it could think of. The result of those tests and experiments is a minor installment, with overwhelming cuts in terms of content and quality (that story mode and its matchmaking could not be more disappointing). In the end there is an overly simplistic and repetitive brawler that shows all the seams after a couple of hours. It only works as a party game for when we have a visitor because it is accessible, easy and at least first, fun. However, instead of being focused like this, like a party game, the title is full of policies that go against it and dirty that idea, see the case of micropayments. 2K has made some interesting finds, like the cartoon-like graphics and the new outrageous nonsense that can now occur in combat, but it should have boosted them more and accompanied them better. As it is, the experience ends up being that of a bland machabotones and only recommended for fans of the license.
THE BEST
- It comes out at a reduced price.
- The cartoon graphics suit him great.
- Casual, accessible and intuitive gameplay.
- Some of the nonsense that now occurs in fighting.
WORST
- It is riddled with micropayments.
- The cut in number of characters and game modes is insane.
- The story is very weak. We miss My Career mode.
- He ends up becoming a too slow, clunky and repetitive button-masher brawler.
- Loading times, jerks, reduction in the number of people on the screen …
- Very poor and limited matchmaking.
- Halfway between party game and service game.
Improvable
It may have acceptable elements and be entertaining, but overall it’s an experience that won’t leave a mark.
