WWE 2K25 Review – Solid Game Injured by Bad Management

I have no idea why I torture myself with this game series year after year… Last year, I thought WWE 2K24 was as low as the series would sink, with microtransaction greed replacing a fun game. Man, was I wrong. WWE 2K25 has found a way to not only add more nickle and dime bullshit transactions into TWO game modes, but they found a way to go backwards in terms of gameplay with untra-tight gameplay, horrible spammy AI, and a big “fuck you” if you bother to change the game’s difficulty to “Arcade”, “Normal”, or “Easy”. Strap yourselves in, I’m ready to burn this mother fucker down and make 2K Games hate me more than they did after I railed last year’s game.

Name: WWE 2K25
Platform(s): Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S
Developer: Visual Concepts
Publisher: 2K Games
Game Type: Sports
Mode(s): Single-player, multiplayer
Release Date: March 14, 2025

WWE 2K25: Pay Beyond the Ring (Story/Modes)

Previously, I would look forward to the story modes in WWE games. These were innovative and compelling original stories that gripped you just as much as any storyline that was happening on WWE TV. Over time, those original stories became legacy content, retelling the history of a person or event. WWE 2K24 focused on Wrestlemania, showcasing a very selective event history. This time around we go back to the focus of singular characters, and even MyRise, a mode that had two very well-done stories, has been compacted down into a single format again. The reasoning for this looks pretty straightforward on the surface: Money. Anyone with basic eyesight can see where 2K’s focus is this year, and it’s not on single-player content, but on whatever can make them the most money.

The Island

Let’s start things off with where 2K wants you to begin: The Island.

Also called The Island of Relevancy, you are a newcomer to the wrestling scene who is selected by Roman Reigns himself to prove himself on The Island. From here, you work your way through multiple matches as a storyline builds up as you look to impress The Tribal Chief himself.

Gameplay-wise, you go around through the four sections of the map over and over again completing different match types in order to gain XP, cosmetic items, and some of the slowest VC flow rates known to man. You do this through quests that quests that you are given in the story, otherwise you have to take on PVP matches. The problem is twofold with this: The 2K servers are a crash-filled mess, and people have already abandoned The Island in droves since the content only takes a day or so to fully complete.

I played The City in NBA 2K25 and that game had a better VC flow rate than WWE 2K25 has. With the usual rate of 150 VC per match win, and the most basic item costing 9000 VC, it means to get one item you have to win 60 matches to afford it. With some of the items in the 100,000+ range, that’s around 670 matches needed in order to get some of the bigger items… But you can always just buy VC through the store and buy everything that way, spending thousands of dollars to unlock these items, some of which were free last year.

Speaking of wastes of money, there’s the upgrade system. If you want to add anything to the 20-odd stats that you can upgrade, then you’re going to be paying VC for it… and it’s not cheap either. A single upgrade can cost over 200 VC, so you’ll be grinding out matches in order to get that VC, or again, you can just buy VC and do it that way. What’s a few hundred dollars to upgrade your character’s stats right?

MyFACTION

I made my feelings known about MyFACTION a lot last year… I don’t like it. I hate these card-based modes where you team builds and do the same thing over and over again. However, this time around it seems that 2K learned a thing or two from the mistakes of last year. For example, the Persona cards that unlock alternate costumes or characters for the main game modes. Last year you could mostly get these through code giveaways online or by buying a metric shit-ton of card packs. But this year, you can unlock a lot of them through the single-player World Tour mode. Sure, there are a lot more Persona cards to come that will be unlocked the same way they did last year, but at least there is some “free” stuff people can get.

Other than this little improvement, the game plays pretty much the same way. You’ll do live events, buy card packs, play online matches and all the same stuff. It’s repetitive, but it works, and it plays a lot better than what The Island does.

MyRISE

One of the things that I’ve come to enjoy about WWE 2K games is the MyRise modes. These modes are usually full of creative stories that show that video game writers for this game can still be creative. But this year feels a little off to me. Sure, the stories that are told in this mode are fun, being true to the WWE experience as well as dabbling in some of the more absurd aspects of wrestling storytelling.

I think what threw me off is that there is a pointless amount of create-a-character unlocks tied to this mode, as well as a lot of Persona cards, a majority of them are locked themselves until you complete MyRise for the first time. This means that you will need to play this mode 2-3 times in order to unlock all the items and characters you can get through this mode. I’m not a fan of artificial repeat playthroughs, as it just makes you feel obligated to play through the game rather than wanting to play through the game on your own accord.

Showcase: The Bloodline

Showcase mode is another big single-player experience in WWE 2K games, and this one is a big experience. Showcase mode this year focuses on The Bloodline Dynasty, or the Anoa’i family, the family that Roman Reigns, The Usos, Rikishi, and many other Samoan wrestlers in the WWE belong to.

Gameplay-wise, you will play through 18 matches from the history of the family, both modern and legacy. You’ll play as The Wild Samoans, The Usos, Roman Reigns, The Islanders, and other members as you get to relive some of their greatest matches from WWE history, and a few ‘What if?’ or fantasy matches. In-game, you do the usual thing. You do small objectives to recreate moments from those matches, much like you did in previous years. Thankfully, unlike last year, you are not interrupted by a million video cutscenes throughout the match and actually get to focus more on playing the game.

The only drawback is that there is a new objective added in: Timed objectives. These might be to hit specific moves in under 30 seconds or something. The problem with this is that a lot of the time these will pop up when you are preoccupied with other objectives, making you miss them. Also, some animations take up a lot of time too, so you might need to hit 3 of the same move, but only have enough time to do two. This becomes frustrating as these objectives are tied to the unlocks you get with each match… or you can just buy an unlock pass and play the mode for fun… See, another way to pay instead of play.

Universe Mode

Now we come to some very disappointing points about WWE 2K25. One of the things that a lot fo the community loves is the Universe and MyGM modes. These modes are used to run simulation leagues and other things. So people want these to be bigger and better, but it seems that 2K Games has ignored these people completely this year.

Universe mode is the same thing as last year, with zero improvements. You can pick to control the career of a single superstar or manage a whole company on your own. It’s the usual sports simulation game that they throw in but don’t care about. It’s a shame because there are so many people who want to see this improve, but since there is no money in it, it looks like 2K doesn’t want to waste time giving the community what it wants.

MyGM

Much like Universe mode, MyGM gets the shaft this year as well… Kinda. MyGM does get a new option to play this mode online against other players, but since it would require me to deal with 2K’s horrible servers, I didn’t even bother to test this mode online. It might work fine, it might crash like everything else this game does online, but I don’t care enough to find out. I’m sorry MyGM players, but 2K just doesn’t give a crap about you at all.

Create-a-Something: If you can afford it

One of the biggest draws to WWE games has been the amazing creation suite, which allows you to make anything from wrestlers to arenas, to belts, and so much more. There is a huge creation scene based around the WWE game franchise to the point where you can find anything from gimmick/costume updates, to past wrestlers, wrestlers from other companies, the arenas from past, present, and elsewhere; multiple belts from fantasy and reality. The online community has been something that 2K loves and hates at the same time. They love that people are getting creative and posting anything online that they can think of, some of the models being just as good as their own creations (aka, they can steal this shit for next year). But at the same time, with creators like WhatsTheStatus, a PC modder turned creator who likes to find the in-game files for Persona card wrestlers and publish them on the Community Creations section for people to download for free instead of paying for them. Guys like him are eating away at possible profits… So what do they do?

Well, anyone who is playing the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, or PC versions of WWE 2K25 is getting the shaft. While 2K says this is because they haven’t allowed The Island on previous generation systems, we know since this is on PC that The Island exclusion is just an excuse to try and stop creators like WhatsTheStatus from doing what they do best: Make paid content free. Add this restriction to 2K’s usual thing of locking a lot of content behind MyRise and now The Island mode, and you end up seeing that 2K doesn’t want to allow the community to create without paying or spending a lot of time grinding through the same games modes over and over. Remember kid, gaming is no longer a hobby, it’s a second job.

The PlayStation 2 Era Looked Better (Graphics)

If there was something that I thought was a constant with WWE 2K games, it was the high level of character models that were scanned from the actual wrestlers… But with WWE 2K25, it really feels like the graphics weren’t prioritized as they should have been. With the push for the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 consoles to be the new normal for this series, you think they would be pushing to get the best out of those consoles. However, many things are either low quality or just reusing the scans from WWE 2K24.

If you take a look at the screenshot above and you know how Otis looks in real life, you might be mistaken in thinking that this was a modified copy of WWE Smackdown vs RAW on the PlayStation 2. I have no idea what is going on here, but that model just looks horrible, and he’s not the only one. As always, all the women look like create-a-wrestler versions of themselves, with many of them having the same model they did last year. Hell, if you jump into community creations, you’ll find people who use the creation suite to not only update the outfits but also use other face scans to make character models that look better than what the official developers can do. When this is becoming the norm in these games, then the developers need to put some effort into what they are doing.

However, as a positive, there was one new feature added to show the graphics off: A director camera system that allows you to control the camera when watching entrances and also during gameplay. A lot of this involves being able to move the camera around your selected character and zooming in and out. While this is awesome during entrances, giving you different angles during the otherwise recycled entrances, giving them new life. On the other side though, with the gameplay, since it changes the control scheme, I’m not a fan of using this camera during matches.

Wrestling with Asthma (Gameplay)

With wrestling being the main thing to do in WWE 2K25, you’d think that by now the system being used would be perfected right? WRONG! I don’t know if 2K knows the saying “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” but somehow they think that they need to improve the gameplay every damn year. This year sees the return of the chain wrestling system, which is just a series of moves chained together through selection and activation via using the left stick. While this is a good return to the game, 2K decided they needed to add to it to make it more complex for no reason. Rather than selecting from three options like last time, you have 4 options you need to select one, activate it by holding the stick in a specific direction, then select the move, hold the stick, and repeat. Why does this need to have so many steps?

Another thing that has been changed once again is the pinfall and submission systems. By default, you are on these new systems. The pinfall one has a swinging bar that goes back and forth, you have to flick the right stick upwards at the right moment inside the bar to kick out… It’s annoying when you are in a desperate situation where the bar is so small that you’re going to miss a pixel, resulting in a loss and making you want to throw the controller through the screen. On the opposite side, the submission system now uses the LT/RT (or L2/R2) buttons to swing those bars back and forth, making things a lot easier with the submission system. However, if you don’t like these new systems, you can go back to the button-mashing versions of both systems, which are superior, to be honest.

One last thing about gameplay… While a lot of games will go off without a hitch, there are a LOT of bugs with WWE 2K25. The usual collision issues with the ropes, invisible borders, the elimination chamber, and other things are still happening even after 4 patch updates. While the bugs are not at the level that WWE 2K20 had, it is pretty close. You can go on YouTube and find a lot of videos showing these issues, but as with all bugs, your ability to get them will vary.

If you want to go online and play some matches in WWE 2K25… Good luck to you. As always your biggest opponent isn’t going to be the one in the ring, it’s going to be the 2K servers themselves. Disconnections, input lag, graphic lag, and people just dropping out if you pick specific characters. These are all things that have become common with this game. My advice: Don’t bother playing online unless you have to for something like MyFACTION or The Island.

Replay? I Barely Want to Play This Once (Replayability)

I don’t know what it is about WWE 2K25 but as soon as I got enough of a feel for the game for this review, I felt good to let it sit for a while. This is something I did last year before one day jumping in and smashing through everything. However, this year, I don’t know if I’m going to do that. I’m not even really interested in downloading AEW wrestlers and running a company simulation like I did with WWE 2K24. I can’t put my finger on it but I just feel like I’m being pushed to play WWE 2K25 as an obligation to the game itself, not because I want to play the game for myself. MyFACTION demands a daily login in order to get items and a little VC or a card pack, but the odds in those packs are too small to make anything worth it. I’m not rich or a streamer, so I can’t blow thousands of dollars on VC to get all the locked content to make this game complete. Even the unlockables in MyFACTION, MyRISE, and The Island don’t seem worth it as a lot of it is just stuff from WWE 2K24 & WWE 2K23. I can sense the laziness of the development team in this game. So if they can’t be bothered to put in the effort, why should I?

DLC is usually something that would make me want to stick around. We are getting a good update with newer signees like Guilia, Stephanie Vacqur, Penta, and the Motor City Machine Guns… And that’s it. We will be getting more legends as the packs are released, including ECW hardcore legend New Jack for the first time, but I don’t care. One of the best things about New Jack was his music: Natural Born Killaz by Dr. Dre and Ice Cube. I don’t think WWE or 2K are going to throw money around to license that track for one character, but instead do some cover track or use the ECW theme. Not to mention there are 5 spots over 3 packs reserved for 2 celebrity guest characters and 3 NBA characters… So they learned nothing from the backlash to the Pat McAfee and friend pack from last year… Fuck this company.

WWE 2K25 Keeps Going Backwards (Closing)

As always, WWE 2K25 has kept up the 2K tradition over the last few years: A few steps forward, and multiple steps backward.

I was told before starting this review that I need to keep the whole microtransaction mess out of my review opinions and score, that the developers should not be punished for the decisions made by the greedy management of 2K… but I can’t do that. Microtransactions are at the center of a lot of core game modes that are needed to unlock things for the general offline and online modes, so much so that I cannot ignore it. I’m not a fan of predatory practices in video games, especially when the total being paid by some players is almost 5 to 10 times what the game offers in enjoyment. But as the saying goes, a fool and his money are soon parted.

Outside of that, WWE 2K25 is just an update of WWE 2K24. All the modes are the same, they play the same, and there are some minor tweaks to gameplay so that it feels fresh, but once the freshness wears off, you soon realize that you’ve been ripped off. It’s something that I hate to admit since we had to buy a copy of WWE 2K25 this year (2K didn’t supply us with a review copy for the first time in almost 7 years, but they only gave review codes to the “big outlets” who do nothing but repeat the talking points and give everything a 7/10 or better.) but we are now in that horrible era of sports games where these are nothing more than expensive roster updates with predatory transactions built into them.

WWE 2K25, it’s time for you to hang up the boots.

Review Disclosure Statement: WWE 2K25 was bought by The Outerhaven for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy for more details.