Source: https://www.f4wonline.com/news/wwe/attitude-era-edition-of-wwe-2k26-announced/
Yes, so the first official word or trailer for the upcoming WWE 2K26 video game that you people gobble up has some semblance of Attitude Era content… because apparently, the game didn’t sell well enough last year that we need to bring back one of the beloved eras of the 90s… or something.
In case anyone didn’t get the hint, I know nothing of the sales numbers. I’m sure they did okay. And I’m assuming this new game is going to be 2K’s attempt at their own take on WWE ’13 from over a decade ago. For those who don’t know, WWE ’13 was actually the final WWE game to be published by THQ before that company’s bankruptcy, which lead to 2K acquiring the WWE license that continues to this day. The only other thing that was seemingly announced was that CM Punk would be the cover star and there’d be a mode dedicated to him.
For the record, I haven’t touched a WWE video game since 2K22 and never really bothered with any of the follow ups, especially once they started stuffing a billion DLC packs for jobber talents and things of that nature. I miss the days when you had a full game first and then expansions came along to add replay value to the game. Now it feels like every game is half-baked and we’ll fill in the blanks later with DLC… but then again, it’s been like that for decades and it’s seemingly gotten WORSE.
So there’s a 100% chance that I’m not touching this thing, just as there had been 100% chances of my not touching the previous releases. What’s the point? You support this game for about a year or so before the next one is announced and then you drop all the online support for the old game to force everyone onto the new game, except the new game doesn’t play anything like the old game because of a couple needless changes you made and… look at that. I’m yelling at a cloud again.
As for them bringing back the Attitude Era content… yeah, we’re going back to that well again, huh? Despite the fact that you have guys like Cody Rhodes and others saying that we don’t need to revisit that era because this is the hottest WWE has been, 2k apparently felt otherwise. I don’t know what the mindset behind these decisions are, but is anyone really clamoring for Attitude Era stuff to be brought back? That stuff happened THREE DECADES AGO for fuck’s sake. I don’t remember the old Smackdown games deciding that we needed a game dedicated to the days of Sammartino, Morales, Ivan Koloff… quick, name me some other WWWF stars from the 1960s that I can fill the void with…
It’s sad that every one of these games have vintage 90s stuff being brought back in some form or fashion. I’m not entirely against the idea; sometimes, it’s nice to replay old stuff in these new games and seeing how slick they look. That’s the appeal of these WWE 2K games and their Superstar Profiles or whatever they’re called. But to do an Attitude Era edition after the last one… oh wait, WWE 2k16 was dedicated to Stone Cold Steve Austin, wasn’t it? That’s another Attitude Era game right there.
Shit, there goes my theory.
Just about the only thing that almost piques my interest is the CM Punk showcase, which apparently includes a possible what if scenario regarding how Punk’s career would have turned out if he hadn’t left WWE back in 2014. I’m almost intrigued by what they come up with in their fantasy booking endeavors and how they’re going to navigate around certain holes in the roster that they can’t presently fill, such as Bryan Danielson, who won the WWE title at Wrestlemania that year, but is currently signed to AEW. There’s a number of talent from those days who are signed with AEW at the moment, so it’ll be interesting to see how they tackle that scenario with those restrictions.
Doesn’t mean I’m going to buy the game… not unless you offer a sweet, sweet deal to package all your would-be content at a genuinely affordable price. That was the main draw for the Steam versions initially; they’d come out months after the console releases, but the upside was that you got all the DLC included at no extra cost. Once the releases became synchronous and DLCs were no longer part of the deal – that and also my infrequency in playing these games that were mainly used for video fodder more than anything – it became difficult to justify purchasing these games.
And now I can’t even buy those older games because they’ve been delisted. This is where one would make the case for physical media, but that’s not the be-all, end-all solution, either. The physical media is just what’s on the disc. All the DLC that followed is long gone. Good luck trying to buy the extra WWE 13 content on the PS3 Shop. It’s not happening unless you’ve got a time machine of some sort.
I shouldn’t have to make this clear because I’d figured that this would be plainly obvious, but I am not telling anyone to not buy this game. If you want this, by all means, get it. I’m not giving you reasons to not buy this game. I’m giving you reasons to why I’M not buying this game. This isn’t a news site. I leave the source link for the news to anyone who wants it. This is a place where I type in almost a thousand words to digress about trivial things like this.
With that in mind, I’ve got more than enough vintage WWF and WWE games that lets me revisit the old days just fine. They might not have the prettiest graphics and some of the gameplay doesn’t quite hold up, but given the chance, they can be fun to play. I should probably fire those up one of these days.
Thanks, 2k Games. You might not have sold me on your latest $200 WWE game, but you’ve reminded me that I still haven’t touched Day Of Reckoning in a good long while. We might give that a whirl one of these days.
Almost 1,050 words. Nailed it.
Later.
dtm666 