13 Reasons WWE 2K20 Was So Bad

To say WWE 2K20 was met with poor reception is a huge understatement. Since its debut last year, the latest in WWE”s usually top-notch series has been slammed as one of the worst games of 2019 and one of the worst wrestling games of all time. From the tired engine to poor graphics to the horrible series of bugs and glitches, everything that could go wrong with it did.

The results were so bad that WWE announced they were not going to have 2K21 and just skip a year. This gives them time to fix many issues, yet it’s still impressive that what should have been the jewel of WWE’s gaming crown turned into a tarnished mess. Here are just ten reasons why WWE 2K20 has gotten such a horrible reception, and one can only hope they avoid these problems next time.

Updated on December 30th, 2021 by Patrick Mocella: It's quite amazing to see what a year off can do for a sports franchise. While there are not that many details released for WWE 2K22 yet (which is a bit concerning considering the game is set to release in March 2022), what has been shared is encouraging. The return of GM mode alone has fans of that mode from the Raw Vs. Smackdown salivating but it is looking back on the mistakes of WWE 2K20 and seeing if it 2K22 has a shot of redeeming them. There are also issues with 2K20 that we can further explore now that we are removed from the original release by more than 2 years.

13 * Awful MyCareer Story

WWE 2K has yet to present a truly awesome original story mode since they received the WWE license in 2014, but 2K20 has to be the absolute they ever tried. While previous entries simply didn't have original stories or presented mediocre ones, 2K20 tries to be bold but fails completely.

While it is worthy of praise for including the option to play as a female character, the story is filled with unlikeable main characters, reinforces stereotypes about wrestling fans that most will be happy to move past and the tonal shifts between cheesy goofy shenanigans and serious moments are jarring.

12 * Virtual Currency

In recent years, 2K Games has brought over their maligned VC system from the NBA 2K series into WWE 2K. While fans of older WWE games may remember having to unlock wrestlers, movesets and Create-A-Wrestler parts with digital money earned in-game, the 2K games have made this a bigger hassle than it was in years prior.

This is far from an issue exclusive to 2K20, but it is still a problem with the game when you must blindly open loot packs (thankfully, WWE games don't include the option to buy VC with real-world money like the predatory system in NBA 2K does) in the hopes of getting something you may actually want to use. You could purchase individual items a-la-carte, but the prices for these are so unreasonable that you would have to grind matches for ages in order for it to be worth the price tag.

11 * New Control System

Wrestling games can be some of the most daunting games to teach new players due to the sheer amount of things a player is capable of performing in a match. By WWE 2K19 though, gamers had just gotten comfortable with 2K's control scheme. For whatever reason, WWE 2K20 saw fit to throw in a new control scheme out of nowhere (akin to a Randy Orton RKO).

RELATED: What Was The Best Smackdown Vs Raw WWE Video Game?While this is a smaller issue compared to others on the list, mapping the reversal control a button rather than a trigger like had been the norm for WWE games since the early 2000s and needing to press two buttons for a finisher did not prove to be popular amongst many players.

10 Tired Engine

Sports games generally work on the same types of “engines” for performance and graphics. There can be upgrades, but most stick to what works. However, keeping to the exact same style of performance gets pretty stale. 2K Games have been using the same engine for years, and it’s obviously tired.

A 2K15 match plays exactly like one in 2020 with only minor shifts. It’s long past time WWE overhauled it to make the matches flow as right now, the games are more tedious and routine than typical WWE programming.

9 Removing Many Characters

Dropping past wrestlers is commonplace for WWE games. Yet when you promote a video game involving tons of stars over the years, removing several legends from it is annoying. Lex Luger is still on good terms with WWE, so removing him is baffling.

There’s also the loss of guys like Rick Rude, Bam Bam Bigelow, and Mr. Perfect. It’s also off that the same game that offers a female career mode drops groundbreaking women’s wrestler like Alundra Blayze. Losing them in favor of fictional characters like the Terminator is a puzzler.

8 The Poor DLC

WWE has always had its issues with downloadable content. They got flack in the past for charging fans for wrestlers that could easily have been available from the start and leaving off major stars. Yet the current DLC has almost nothing to do with wrestling with Asuka in a cyberpunk story or a horror movie-themed adventure.

That’s not to mention adding fictional characters. Asking fans to waste time on such non-wrestling themed towers isn’t the best way to sell the game.

* This sadly seems like something that may suffer further problems in WWE 2K22. As a result of WWE's various and seemingly random releases, two of the next game's DLC packs for more characters have reportedly been cut from the game. However, a later report from Forbes stated that there's not necessarily anything preventing WWE from keeping those wrestlers who were released such as Adam Cole, Bray Wyatt and more. It will remain to be seen if some of the nearly 80 wrestlers released in 2021 will appear, but it certainly must have been disheartening for the 2K developers to see their hard work potentially go to waste.

7 Still No General Manager Mode

It’s been ten years, yet WWE refuses to listen to the most demanded video game item. The General Manager mode was a hit for the old Smackdown vs RAW series as gamers loved playing the GM, managing a roster, trading for other wrestlers, and being their own booker.

Related: 10 Old Wrestling Video Games Actually Worse Than WWE 2K20As fun as Universe or My Career modes can be, the GM one is what fans want, so WWE refusing to have it put in is another blow against this game.

* It seems that wrestling fans can finally rejoice! In November 2021, a trailer for WWE 2K22 was dropped that promised the return of GM mode in the game. While no specifics were given, fans are eagerly anticipating what 2K has cooked up with the extra development time and the return of a feature that has been absent for 15 years.

6 Rushed Too Fast

Obviously, WWE wanting a new 2K game every year is pushed by how every other sport gets a new entry annually. Yet it seemed foolish to be rushing this game in just a few months when all they had to do was keep updating 2K19.

It takes years to make a game look terrific (and sometimes even that fails), so expecting Visual Concepts to get it right in so short a time was foolish. The results speak for themselves and prove that WWE's hopes to make this the best effort just made it the worst.

* In an unprecedented move for a sports game franchise, WWE 2K21 was scrapped in favor of giving more development time for WWE 2K22. This news was met with a relief from fans as this should promise a much more polished product and include some significant overhauls to the system outside of a new roster and a rushed new control scheme that nobody asked for.

5 Removing Some Great Past Touches

Every annual version of a game should have some good touches and additions to make it shine from its predecessors. Instead, 2K20 removes some of the great stuff of the earlier models. Preset moves, switching tag partners, crafting a new championship, and marring up face paint are all absent.

For so much talk on “customizing” characters, one can’t do it for things like paint or championship belt plates. It makes little sense to remove stuff that worked so well before.

4 Horrific Online Play

As bad as the game is when trying it solo, online play is even worse. Every glitch and graphical bug is enhanced, and the lag times are as if one is playing a pre-Wifi connection. It’s impossible to control a tag partner, and “cooperative play” is a contradiction in terms.

The topper was when a “2020” game couldn’t even be playedin 2020 thanks to a bug with the 2K servers. It’s as if the developers never even tested this before release given the mess online play is.

* Unfortunately, while the online play in WWE 2K20 was a disaster, this is nothing new to the franchise as WWE 2K has always had a reputation of being one of the buggiest and broken online gameplay for any sports/fighting game. If WWE 2K22 doesn't improve their servers, it will be yet another game in the WWE franchise to feature poor online play.

3 Yuke's Departure Hurt The Game

yuke's wwe 2k20 ends relationship split video game developer

Many of the issues regarding this game revolve around the switch in developers. Yukes’ had handled the previous entries in the series and was trusted for their work. This time around, WWE went with Visual Concepts, who had done well with other sports games and aided Yukes'.

But given solo operations, the developer wasn’t up for the challenge, leading to the horrible mix of bad graphics and glitches that turned the game into a disaster. Trying to take this on themselves was a bad idea.

2 The Graphics

Logically, an upgraded game should mean better graphics. Instead, 2K20 is a major step backward. The obvious issue is how few of the wrestlers actually look like themselves (especially the women) as a fan-created mod resembles them better.

The ring is also a problem, and the action looks terrible. Even the crowd backgrounds are tired, and cliche. Trying to mimic classic PPV shows is a wasted effort. In 2020, a video game has no business looking this bad.

1 The Glitches

Oh, the glitches….Entire videos have been made of how WWE 2K20 is one of the most bug-filled games to hit in years. It’s one thing to have a minor glitch here and there. It’s another for wrestlers to be sinking into the mat, phasing through the ropes, or hitting someone who’s supposed to be ten feet away from them.

WWE has been bad with updated patches, and the result is a disaster. Wrestlers look like total nightmares, and no one wants to play a game that works worse than an early 2000s port.

* While the team at Visual Concepts were hard at work to fix the game and their Quality Assurance team certainly did the best they could, you could only polish garbage so much before you realize its still garbage. Players still report regular crashes during matches, wrestlers becoming horror movie nightmares and all manner of weird glitches occurring. The extra polish for 2K22 should hopefully eliminate many of the glitches from past titles, but this remains to be seen.