I have been watching wrestling since 1989 and playing wrestling games for just as long. Yet in 30 years, I have never seen a WWE game get the negative reception that WWE 2K20 has. It has been well-documented what a mess this game was at launch. Visual Concepts and 2K did work hard for a few months to try and fix things, but does it matter, or is it too late?
How to Download WWE 2K20
To download the game, click on the Download button below the review. Check out also our reviews of the previous WWE games: WWE 2K19 and WWE 2K18.
The Game Review
Let me start with the “good”. WWE 2K20 is absolutely stacked with game modes. The main gameplay modes you have on offer are Showcase Mode, Career Mode, Universe Mode, and Towers Mode. Having four main single-player modes in a game is very impressive, but in truth, none of them are done very well.
Showcase Mode is themed around the Four Horsewomen: Charlotte Flair, Baylee, Sasha Banks, and Becky Lynch. Showcase Mode lets you replay some of the biggest moments of their career and it is a great idea. The gameplay is mixed in with live-action video and this is quite clever.
The gameplay in Showcase Mode though has been annoying for years. The biggest problem I have is that there are no checkpoints in matches. Some matches have 10 or so objectives for you to do and if you fail one it can cause you to fail the whole match! Plus, some of these matches are really long and the AI is super and I mean super cheap in this mode.
Career Mode tries really hard to be a cinematic showcase of what it is like to go from the bottom of the WWE to the top. You create your wrestler and set out on your path to be a legend and for the first time in this mode, you can play as a female. This mode is just so poorly done, I suggest you go on YouTube and check out some of the cutscenes it is not an exaggeration to say some are PS3 quality!
WWE Universe and Towers mode are probably the most fun you will have in single-player mode. The universe is great if you like to pretend you own a wrestling company. Towers is kind of like having various arcade ladders to play through. If the gameplay was not what it is, Towers is a mode that would be a ton of fun.
The overall presentation of WWE 2K20 is a mixed bag. To be fair, this has been the case for wrestling games for years. For every wrestler that looks great, one looks just flat-out horrible! There is a nice mixture of legends and current superstars, but I would say at least ¼ (and I am being generous here) look strange. One area that is very well done though is the various arenas of which there are many.
The biggest and most notable problem that WWE 2K20 has is the gameplay. At launch, WWE 2K20 was a broken mess. I do not even know where to start, but the actual in-ring action was so broken that some matches were unplayable. 2K and Visual Concepts tried to fix things, but it never worked.
Even now as I write this six months later. WWE 2K20 still is full of weird bugs that just ruin the overall experience. Truth be told, this is a game engine that has been used for so many years now that the series has gotten beyond stale and this is before factoring in what a broken mess it is.
You know your game is bad when you are forced to take a year off from the franchise which is what is happening in 2020. WWE 2K20 is a flat-out bad game that is poorly made and still full of game-breaking glitches. The only reason I can see anyone wanting to own this is if you are a die-hard wrestling fan (like me) who needs it to complete their collection.
