Welcome to our review of WWE Battlegrounds, the new arcade wrestling game from the WWE promotion!
The world of WWE is your battleground with over the top, arcade action as your favorite WWE Superstars and Legends battle in interactive environments around the world. Compete using special abilities and power-ups in match types like Steel Cage, Royal Rumble, and more!
Battle Across the Globe!
Play through a new story mode told through original comic strips, alongside Paul Heyman and Stone Cold Steve Austin to find the next WWE Superstars while unlocking unique characters and Battlegrounds.
It’s Your Battleground!
Make WWE 2K Battlegrounds your own with tons of customizable parts as you create and edit your own characters and Battlegrounds!
Battle with Friends – Online or on the Couch!
Compete in Online Tournaments or stake your claim as King of the Battleground against players from around the world! Plus, battle it out in local multiplayer and dominate your friends.
WWE Battlegrounds is a very welcome wrestling game compared to the horrible experience we all had with the latest WWE installment. There are no major glitches present or at least none in the game mechanics that I noticed. I specifically say game mechanics because there are some eyebrow-raising things in this game.
But first, the actual game which was better than I first anticipated, here once again the entire previous game with its many flaws is to blame. The action was quite simple and more a step back towards the original games on the older consoles rather than the new games.
Punching, slapping, kicking and so much more can be done and in true arcade-style, massive power-ups are present as well as cage fights, … In the story mode, I really smirked at how precise some of these deformed wrestlers still resemble their real-life counterparts such as Samoa Joe. He just made me smile in admiration.
What I did find awkward though is how sluggish the movements were after being thrown down on the mat. I fell from the steel cage in a gimmick match and it took me around 10 seconds to get back on my feet. Maybe my character was too exhausted, but it just baffled me a little.
As WWE is not the sole wrestling promotion in the world and in my humble opinion no longer the best either, I was flabbergasted though that I saw female wrestling superstar Tessa Blanchard appear while she was not signed to WWE at the time of my playthrough.
Another weird bit, the in-game currency has a bit of a bitter feeling for me, as they are called Bucks. Bucks is in my mind either slang for money but in a wrestling capacity, I refer it to the Young Bucks, possibly the best wrestling tag team in the world right now. They are also not signed to WWE but to AEW…
Third, in the promo material for upcoming characters, there is mention of the Authors of Pain, Akam, and Rezar. Two very skilled wrestlers but at the time of my review no longer in service of WWE as they recently got let go…
The game is fun, it really is, but what’s up with these details being so sketchy.
In conclusion, the wrestling fan in me has so much to say about all those sketchy decisions to include wrestlers not even under contract and it takes away from the game actually being fun and a welcome change from last year’s debacle…
