I am a huge wrestling fan, I talked about this in my top 5 WWF 8-Bit Wrestling Games I did a little while back. The mess that was WWE 2K20 seems like a lifetime ago now! Since WWE 2K22, they have been on a roll and last year’s game was great. Well, I can tell you right off the bat that WWE 2K24 is even better, it is the best wrestling game in years and I am so glad that I picked up the Deluxe Edition as I can see myself playing this for a very long time.
Let’s start by looking at the 40 Years of WrestleMania mode which is the main game mode and in this one, we get to play through some of the most iconic matches in WrestleMania history. They had a similar mode back in WWE 2K14 for the 30th anniversary. This is your typical “showcase” mode where you play through the match, completing various objectives. The difference here is in the presentation, the way that it goes from video footage to gameplay is far more seamless than it has ever been before. With the last two games being based on Rey Mysterio and John Cena, this allowing you to play as far more wrestlers makes it feel so much “bigger” and more varied.
We also have our My Rise game modes. This is where you take your created wrestler on a story driven experience as you unlock new moves and stats as you go. If you pick the female wrestler, you take part in a story where you are running a small indie fed before getting the call from WWE. The male option sees Roman Reigns retire for Hollywood, vacating the WWE title as he does. This is fun stuff, with some great voice performances, I downloaded a CAW of Britt Baker from AEW and I have been having a blast playing through it. I have not yet played the male superstar path yet, but I am looking forward to it.
My GM Mode is something that I always spend a ton of time in and I think this mode just gets better and better with the tweaks that they add to it. The presentation here with Tyler Breeze and Xavier Woods is just so much fun. As well as adding in some new features like new promos, turns, and more. My GM Mode in WWE 2K24 adds in four new GMs that we can play as. You can be Paul Heyman, Teddy Long, William Regal, and Ted Dibiase. I have started my first GM Mode as Ted Dibiase and I am loving it so far. It feels much more easy to navigate and you have more things at your disposal. It is such a fun mode and I love how they flesh it out a little more each year.
The other two game modes are My Faction and WWE Universe. While I think the exclusive versions of superstars you get in My Faction is awesome. It is a mode that has never clicked with me and I do not see WWE 2K24 being different. It feels like such a chore to play through and I lose interest and find it very frustrating, especially the stuff on the higher difficulties. WWE Universe is a mode where you basically run your own WWE. Or, you can create your own federation. I always intend to get into this mode and if it were around when I was a kid, I know for a fact I would have been addicted to it. I just always end up losing interest. I am not saying the mode is bad, it is awesome, it is just not for me.
Now, we do need to talk about the core gameplay. I feel like last year’s game played great and WWE 2K24 is more of the same. It is fun to play, it has a bit of depth to it, but not at the expense of having fun. The AI puts up a decent fight on the normal difficulty and I have a lot of fun just playing random matches. You have a ton of superstars to choose from, even without the DLC! And there are tons of match types too. We have a few returning match types such as Casket Match and Special Referee, but they feel like they need a bit more work. Casket Match is just frankly not all that much fun and Special Referee is only for one on one matches. The new match type Ambulance Match is awesome! Playing this with a friend is a blast as you try to shove your opponent into the ambulance and then win the back and forth mini-game to trap them inside!
Visually, when WWE 2K24 is good, it is very good. The wrestler’s faces look so real, the attention to detail in their outfits and also the arenas you are wrestling in is amazing! Without a doubt, this is the best looking WWE game I have ever played. Yet, it is still not perfect. Long hair in the WWE 2K games has always looked terrible and it is no different here. I hate the way it looks and I hate the way it moves, it just looks so awkward, and I would rather it not move if that would make it look better. Also, some of the animations for the wrestler’s entrances are a little off as you can tell it was someone else that did the mo-cap, granted that is the wrestling nerd in me talking to be fair.
I love WWE 2K24 so far! They have just built upon what they did last year and made it better in pretty much every way… well except the hair. If you like WWE 2K23, there is no way that you will not like this more!