Review update: Summer 2015

Cut to the chase: How the iPhone stacks up

Developers Yukes and Visual Concepts were on the right track last year when they added a stamina system and a chain wrestling system to create a greater sense of pace, and they’ve built on those successes beautifully.


At the center is the reworked reversal system, which makes reversals a limited, slowly regenerating resource. Managing it correctly means you’ve got the ace in the hole you need to escape scary late-match situations, where a less frugal opponent might find themselves forced to absorb a beating. Not only does this create a welcome layer of decision-making previously absent from the series, it adds an extremely meaningful differentiation between characters, as some have more reversal stocks than others.
Working in tandem with the excellent reversal system are the new Working Holds. Wrestling smarks know these are holds that performers use to catch their breath mid-match, and WWE 2K16 smartly incorporates them in a competitive context here. Successful working holds restore your stamina while sapping your opponent’s - effectively allowing you to stall out their offense until you can get some reversal stocks back. That’s just one possible tactic you might employ. The pressure to stall or scrape by until you have the resources you need, and the incentive to force your opponent to waste theirs opens the fighting up tremendously.

Options I used to never care about, like escape-rolling out of the ring, or having a manager distract my opponent suddenly become totally valid choices, since it buys me time to catch my breath. I’ll lay on the ground and let my opponent land a few kicks if I see them getting close to having a finisher, since that’s the bullet that needs dodging. I even started learning which moves, when reversed, give me a big enough window of opportunity to get an attack in, letting those that don’t slide. The net result is matches that have a greater sense of variety and ring psychology; blurring  the line between playing to win and putting on a show.


Most wrestling fans agree that showmanship is at least as important as technical, in-ring ability, and WWE 2K16 doesn’t quite nail all its big spots in this regard. Technically, it’s kind of all over the place: there are no load times between ring entrances, lending a seamless, TV-broadcast feel to match openings, but the loads between other modes, and even just to preview a costume piece in create-a-wrestler can be painful. Sometimes the AI behaves uncannily like the wrestler you know and love, like when Seth Rollins tries to DQ himself to retain the belt, and other times, they quizzically zone out and sort of stare off into space.
This same inconsistency spills over into other areas. Visually, some character models and effects look terrific, like during Randy Orton’s ring entrance, while guys like Chris Jerico seem to be holdovers from the last-gen days.

Finally, the commentary has improved greatly, with far fewer repeated phrases, and more specific insight into many wrestlers’ fighting style and history, but it’s not all the way there yet. There are still a few too many general move callouts, making the play-by-play a bit flat at times. No one issue is big enough to ruin the fun, but together they can periodically undercut the tension and excitement the in-ring action builds so effectively.


The biggest criticism leveled at last year’s game was the anemic roster, and the overall lack of modes and features compared to prior years. WWE 2K16 largely rectifies this, but its bag of tricks hasn’t quite gotten back to the point of overflowing yet. The one exception is in the roster which is, quite frankly, nuts. In terms of separate individual wrestlers, you’re looking at over 120, including many NXT-born stars, who fans were clamoring for last year. Not only are they a joy to play in their own right, but they add some much-needed diversity to the roster.
In terms of match types, much of what we lost last year is back. There are exceptions: no backstage brawl, no 2 out of 3 falls, no inferno etc. Honestly, very little that I cared about hasn’t returned, but it would be nice to see these modes come back in future iterations. Still this represents a huge improvement over last year’s sparse match offerings.

Core modes like create-a-wrestler and MyCareer have been expanded considerably, with the latter spanning multiple years instead of ending with a single Wrestlemania appearance. Diva, belt, and arena creation are thankfully restored. Universe has even more ways to customize your WWE sandbox, including detailed personality sliders that affect in ring behavior.As has become expected, 2K Showcase is back, and is still a great mix of history and fantasy recreation. I miss create-a-story and create-a-move, but even without them, there’s still plenty you can do with this toolset.