Game review: WWE 2K24 (Xbox Series X)

The WWE has been a company now for several decades and it's still the number one most popular pro wrestling federation in the world. While stars like Hulk Hogan and Stone Cold Steve Austin have retired, newer wrestlers like Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns are the highlights of the company now. 

Even though Hulk Hogan and Stone Cold cannot wrestle in real life right now, you can play as them in the all-new WWE 2K24 video game. For example, you can play through dream matches that never happened, such as Stone Cold vs. John Cena or even Roman Reigns vs The Rock. 

It's not just the men that are highlighted in WWE 2K24 either, because the game also features many current and past female wrestlers. The late great Chyna is included in this game, and you can pit her up against the company's current top favourite, who is Australia's Rhea Ripley. Even New Zealand's own Dakota Kai is playable in this year's game, too!

Another cool thing about WWE 2K24 is the fact that even more wrestlers will be included in the game as DLC. Wrestlers that are expected to be available later this year include Nia Jax, Kairi Sane, and even CM Punk just to name a few. 

Even though WWE 2K24 has arguably the biggest and best roster in years, there are still some notable wrestlers missing. Sadly, wrestlers from the rival AEW promotion aren't allowed to be in the game. This means guys like Daniel Bryan, Edge, Mark Henry, and Big Show aren't in this year's game. 

The biggest omission, however, is that 2K Games decided to remove Vince McMahon and Brock Lesnar from WWE 2K24. I'm not going into the details as to why they have been removed, but Brock Lesnar is only available in the game's Showcase mode. He's not playable in any other mode in WWE 2K24 this year. 

Speaking of Showcase mode, WWE 2K24 celebrates the 40-year anniversary of the famous WrestleMania event. 2024 marks the company's 40th WrestleMania iteration, and it will be headlined by a rematch between Roman Reigns vs. Cody Rhodes. 

Despite celebrating nearly 40 years of WrestleMania history, this year's Showcase mode only features 21 matches in total. If you are a huge WWE fan like me, you will notice several famous matches are missing. The Rock vs. John Cena at WrestleMania 28 is not here and nor is Hulk Hogan vs. The Rock at WrestleMania 18. 

It's disappointing that this year only has 21 matches because over 45 matches were available in WWE 2K14's Showcase mode ten years ago. The only reason 2K Games may have limited the number of matches is probably because they wanted to focus more on the several other game modes in WWE 2K24. 

The next biggest game mode in WWE 2K24 is the MyRISE career mode. MyRISE Undisputed is the men's career mode and there is a storyline where Roman Reigns vacates his WWE Championship to act in Hollywood. You are a relatively unknown wrestler who has been in WWE for two years, and now is your chance to become WWE Champion, thanks to Roman's absence. The funny thing in this storyline is that The Miz is the Smackdown General Manager. 

MyRISE Unleashed is the female career mode, and this features its own unique storyline. In this storyline, you play a female wrestler who wrestles for a smaller independent company called TBD. After a small tryout, your character then gets a chance to wrestle for the WWE after impressing WWE scout William Regal. 

Both career modes don't offer many different features from previous games, but they do have unique storyline branches that you can choose from. Not to mention, you get two storylines in one video game since other sports video games only offer a career mode for male players. 

While MyRISE may not feature too many new things, there are some new match types you can try out in the Exhibition mode. The three new match types are an Ambulance match, a Casket match, and even a Gauntlet. The Ambulance and Casket matches are similar because you need to knock your opponent senseless until you close them inside the aforementioned objects. 

The Gauntlet match is similar to the old-school Slobber Knocker challenges from the PS2 Smackdown video games. It is here where you need to survive and fight many opponents in a row. You can choose to face only four wrestlers, while the maximum number is trying to beat 30 wrestlers. Thankfully, you don't have to face all the wrestlers at the same time, but your wrestler's body can take a good beating, wrestling so many people consecutively. 

There's not much else to say about the My GM and Universe modes as they're pretty much similar to how they were in last year's WWE 2K23 video game. Universe mode is where you can play through your own matches and see generic cutscenes that aren't fully voice-acted like the career modes. It can be fun to play, although I usually prefer the career modes. 

MyGM is when you become a wrestling promoter, and you have to book your own matches and sign your own wrestlers. This mode can be very challenging because you only have a set budget each week, and you cannot book the same wrestlers all the time. If you overwork some wrestlers, they will become injured, so you have to make sure the whole roster is ready and available each week. I enjoy playing through this mode, although it's challenging to make every wrestler healthy and happy each week with a small budget. 

Lastly, the other major game mode in WWE 2K24 is MyFACTION. I really don't like this mode because you have to open card packs, and you only get to play as random characters. My favourite wrestlers are Roman Reigns, Randy Orton, and Katana Chance, but I didn't get any of them when opening my first card packs. Aside from Sheamus and Asuka, the rest of the wrestlers in my deck were jobbers. 

You have to play MYFACTION a lot if you want to earn better cards and better wrestlers in your deck. I didn't really want to spend too much time in this mode as I didn't have much fun, and it's kind of pay-to-win. 

Much like every year, there is a creation suite where you can create your own wrestlers, arenas, signs, and more. The best part of the creation suite is that you can download other people's creations online. This is a cool feature because you can download wrestlers from AEW, like Edge, Daniel Bryan, and others. 

Graphically, WWE 2K24 looks great most of the time. The graphics are similar to that of WWE 2K22 and WWE 2K23, but most wrestlers look and play realistically. I do admit Bayley looks off, and Stone Cold's move animations are inaccurate. Apart from these two, most others in the game look and play great. 

WWE 2K24 is also mostly glitch-free too. I only saw a few glitches when my wrestlers were floating in the air. Another glitch I saw on Twitter showed the Ambulance phasing in and out of existence when a wrestler was inside. However, I didn't encounter as many bugs as previous games in the series. 

As a whole, WWE 2K24 is still the king of pro wrestling video games. It arguably has the best roster in WWE video game history, and there are lots of game modes to dive yourself into. The only thing that kind of bugged me is the small selection of Showcase matches. Other than that, though, most WWE fans will be satisfied with this year's effort. 
 
 Verdict: 8.5/10