Since Visual Concepts’ WWE 2K wrestling game series hit current-gen platforms after a year off – skipping a 2K21 – it’s been a genuinely great series instead of a middle-of-the-road yearly sports release. From WWE 2K22 onwards, the games have been steadily improving with smart changes and new features, and WWE 2K25 is once again a great wrestling game that improves on what came before.

The core wrestling feels like a great mixture of arcade and simulation styles, with counters, combos, and freeform carry moves giving each wrestler a deep moveset. This year’s entry brings back the Chain Wrestling mechanic that was last seen in WWE 2K20; this allows matches to kick off in a far more realistic way. Wrestlers will lock up in a grab and use a minigame to maneuver around their opponent to get the edge at the start of the match; it’s only available at the beginning of a bout and gives the early match a momentum more akin to what you see on TV, as opposed to just going all out right away.

It’s also the best-looking game yet, with wrestlers now being covered in welts and bruises as a match goes along, and those who wear body paint having it come apart over the course of the match. Meanwhile, the TV-style presentation is top-notch, with camera cuts akin to real WWE TV.

The big new addition this year is intergender wrestling, allowing men and women to compete against each other. This features heavily in this year’s My Rise storyline, but outside of that, I feel like it could be more. For example, title matches are available in the mode, but it’s only for designated ‘intergender’ titles, which mostly consist of 2K’s made-up titles and a handful of official WWE titles like the 24/7, cruiserweight, and hardcore titles, but without being able to have Chelsea Green win the WWE Championship, it feels a little half-baked.

Bloodline rules

This year’s 2K Showcase focuses on ‘The Bloodline’ – the WWE canon name for the Anoaʻi/Maivia family of Samoan professional wrestlers, including the likes of The Rock, Roman Reigns, Yokozuna, and Umaga. Where previous editions have followed single wrestlers, you take on the role of a majority of the family members this time around.

This mode is presented and narrated by Paul Heyman this year, who is already the greatest talker in WWE history, and his rundown of the events is fantastic and keeps you engaged throughout the long cutscenes.

Since not all Bloodline members are created equal, 2K25’s matches are split into three categories. The usual reliving prominent wins (like Yokozuna beating Hulk Hogan at King of the Ring 1993) returns. But for those members who don’t have any big wins or standout matches, there are rewritten and dream matches like Tamina winning the first women’s Money in the Bank or having The Wild Samoans take on The Dudley Boyz.

The last few years of 2K Showcase intercut real-life match footage during gameplay, leading to players sitting and watching matches without commentary instead of playing the game for long stretches. This year, 2K has mercifully ditched that and recreated match cutscenes in engine and added new commentary from the game’s announce team. This style makes Showcase way less of a slog this year and turns it into a standout mode.

The only real issue with the mode this year is the goals. When recreating matches, the game wants you to redo certain beats from the real match, which will unlock new items when done correctly (you can play the match normally too, but you’ll miss these unlocks). This year’s game introduces timed goals, which usually require you to do a certain move or an amount of damage. But if you don’t get it in time, it’s skipped, and you’ll need to replay the match entirely if you want another crack at it.

Some of these timers are ridiculously short, and in multi-person matches like Money in the Bank, another wrestler doing one grab to you is enough to guarantee you failing it. The dream match goals, on the other hand, are terribly bland, mostly being ‘do x amount of damage’ and then ‘now win.’

Mutiny on the Bounty

This year's My Rise – an original story following your created wrestler – is a mixed bag. It’s far and away the best storyline found in any of these modes. It follows a faction of former NXT wrestlers attempting to take over WWE with their new NXT Mutiny brand, and your character leading the fight against them. It’s full of great twists and turns and kept me engaged the whole time. But, instead of the two gender-specific stories, this time you have to make a male and female-created character to go through the story.

The big deal this year is choices. There's stuff that will affect certain story beats, like where your wrestler came from (Indies, MMA) and their relationship with the other wrestler you make (used to date, best friends) that introduce different dialogue. And there are bigger choices, like which wrestlers you recruit to fight Mutiny. This means there’s a bigger focus on replayability too, which becomes a bit of a hindrance when there are unlockables involved. From what I can tell, you’ll probably need to play through the mode a good three or four times to get all of the extra characters and arenas available.

There only being one story isn’t the only cutback this year either. There are no more side missions, and the runtime feels shorter than in previous years. There are ‘Live Events’ that allow you to do generic fights, which also have unlocks attached to your star rating. Assuming you get five-star matches every time (which takes a while), it’s still 56 fights to unlock everything. I can’t help but feel like things were cut down in favor of another mode.

Here comes the money

The Island is the brand-new mode exclusive to the current-gen versions of the game (not PC, though), and despite being the big thing for WWE 2K25, it’s easily the worst thing about it. The mode plays out like a bad MMO where you go talk to NPCs, play matches, and compete against others.

But the mission structure is so bland; one of the early questlines has you walking in and out of the same building to talk to two different sets of NPCs multiple times. Plus, the story is told via still images with text, with the occasional video of Roman Reigns. It would be a harmless, kind of bland mode, but then its character progression shows its true colors.

You create a new character for The Island, and this character’s stats are upgraded via VC – the game’s premium paid currency. Not only that but there are also exclusive cosmetic items for your characters that also cost VC. You can earn VC while playing matches, but it’s a pittance compared to the prices of gear, leading you to either grind like mad or pull out the credit card.

Every online match (which took ages to find and disconnected immediately most times) in the mode placed me against the sweatiest-looking created wrestlers with maxed-out stats, so the mode is also basically pay-to-win, although thankfully it’s not interesting enough that I care. I play these games for around 80+ hours every year, but I don’t see myself touching this mode after the review.

Speaking of money, My Faction – 2K’s take on Ultimate Team – returns with all the same problems as before. Exclusive characters are locked behind ‘Persona’ cards, which are either a massive grind to get or require random drops from card packs. The new ‘World Tour’ within My Faction is the best thing added to the mode in years (allowing you to unlock some of those ‘Persona’ cards), but it also has walls that require you to have specific card types to continue through it.

My GM is another mode that has similar problems to before. I love GM Mode with all my heart, but the weird penalties in 2K’s version are off-putting. Characters all have roles and styles; some vibe well with others, and your matches are worse off if you don’t have the right pairings.

But this isn’t emblematic of what WWE is like in real life; CM Punk and Seth Rollins are in the midst of a blood feud right now on TV; both of them are good guys. This mode has the potential to be the best thing about WWE 2K, but the same old restrictions once again overwhelm any improvements.

WWE 2K25 is the best wrestling game of the modern era. The Showcase and My Rise modes are the best they’ve been with some minor issues, and the core wrestling feels great with an ever-increasing number of match types keeping it fresh. But the money-hungry Island and My Faction modes – which can’t even be ignored due to their unlockable content – hold it back from its rightful place at the head of the table.

Should you play WWE 2K25?

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Accessibility

Accessibility-wise there’s not much to write home about. The various mini-games for the likes of pins and submissions are customizable. There’s rapid button pressing for submissions, which can be switched for a slider minigame, while pins are a timed minigame that can be swapped for rapid pressing. There’s also an option for rapid press inputs to be replaced by holding buttons. However, these changes are not available in any online modes (including vs the CPU in My Faction).

How I reviewed WWE 2K25

I played 30 hours of WWE 2K25 between a PS5 Pro on a Samsung Q60D TV and a Samsung HW-T450 soundbar. I also played on a PS5 on a Samsung Odyssey G5 gaming monitor with a PlayStation Pulse 3D Headset.

During this time I played all of the Showcase mode (including both sides of the Wargames match), one playthrough of My Rise, a year of My GM, a few months in Universe, and about five hours of My Faction. I also played through the first few chapters of The Island, with a couple of PVP matches in the mode.

First reviewed March 2025