We are mere hours away from early access for WWE 2K25! It's looking like we're in for another solid installment in the franchise, so I'm looking forward to logging on at 10 PM Mountain Time tonight for a little bit of late night gaming.
But before we get to that, let's break down the roster changes and some of the new features that we can expect from the new game!
Who's Out?
Legends/Other
- AJ Hawk
- Bad Bunny
- Beth Phoenix
- Big Boss Man
- Boston Connor
- Darius Butler
- Jerry Lawler
- Muhammad Ali
- Post Malone
- Robert Roode
- Ronda Rousey
- Sanga
- Shane McMahon
- Ted DiBiase
- Ty Schmit
No longer with the company
- Bobby Lashley
- Cameron Grimes
- Damon Kemp
- Dijak
- Drew Gulak
- Jinder Mahal
- MVP
- Ricochet
- SCRYPTS
- Veer Mahaan
- Xia Li
Current main roster superstars who didn't make the cut
- Shockingly, I think that the DLC pretty much covers all of the recent additions to the main roster!
Notable missing NXT superstars
- Hank Walker
- Jazmyn Nyx
- Karmen Petrovic
- Luca Crusifino
- Meiko Satomura
- Ricky Saints
- Tank Ledger
- Zaria
Who's in? (* = DLC)
Main roster
- Akam (no longer with company)
- Alex Shelley*
- Andrade
- Chris Sabin*
- Elektra Lopez (no longer with company)
- Erick Rowan*
- Finn Balor (Demon)
- Jacob Fatu
- Kiana James
- Naomi
- Penta*
- Rezar (no longer with company)
- Tama Tonga
- Tonga Loa
NXT
- Charlie Dempsey
- Eddy Thorpe
- Ethan Page
- Giulia*
- Jaida Parker
- Jakara Jackson
- Je'Von Evans
- Jordynne Grace*
- Kelani Jordan
- Lash Legend
- Lexis King
- Lola Vice
- Oba Femi
- Oro Mensah
- Shawn Spears
- Sol Ruca
- Stephanie Vaquer*
- Tatum Paxley
Legends/Other
- Abyss*
- Afa
- Alundra Blayze
- Billy Gunn*
- Bull Nakano
- D'Lo Brown*
- Great Khali*
- Headshrinker Fatu
- Headshrinker Samu
- Hunter Hearst Helmsley
- Islander Haku
- Islander Tama
- Jamal
- Jesse Ventura*
- Junk Yard Dog*
- Mark Henry*
- Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff*
- New Jack*
- Peter Maivia
- Road Dogg*
- Rocky Maivia
- Rosey
- Sid Justice*
- Sika
- Tito Santana*
- Victoria*
Managers/Non-playable Characters
- Afa
- Armando Estrada
- Ava
- Brother Love*
- Captain Lou Albano
- Mr. Fuji
- Nick Aldis
- Paul Ellering (no longer with company)
By the numbers
According to The Smackdown Hotel, this is the biggest roster ever for a WWE video game, boasting "383 characters," which is a bit inflated because of "persona" characters (alternate versions of wrestlers, like "Masked CM Punk") and throwback versions of wrestlers (like "Becky Lynch," "Becky Lynch '17" and "Becky Lynch '18," which they're counting as three different people). The website says that there are 69 new characters this year, which seems like a lot.
Roster take-aways
This actually feels pretty good. The only really significant wrestler that didn't make the base roster or DLC is NXT's Zaria, which is probably a lot more important to hardcore NXT watchers than it is to me. I'm sure that's nothing that a quick Community Creations download can't solve. The roster would have been looking really great about a month ago, before a handful of surprising releases, including Baron Corbin, the Authors of Pain and Paul Ellering, Blair Davenport, and (most shockingly) Sonya DeVille, among a few others. But their inclusion in the game doesn't feel nearly as egregious as what happened a few years back when the game launched with a significantly outdated roster on Day 1.
THANK GOODNESS that Pat McAfee's dumb friends aren't in the game anymore. Man, what a waste of DLC last year. I lowered the stats for all of those fools and beat them up so many times. They had such punchable faces. This year, we're getting a few surprise celebrity wrestlers and a couple yet-to-be-announced NBA stars, who I assume will be WWE superfans Tyrese Halliburton, Jalen Brunson and somebody else. Maybe Shaq or something? Not really excited about any of those, but maybe we'll get a few more punchable faces before all is said and done.
What else is new?
- The biggest addition this year is WWE 2K25's "The Island" mode, which is basically a wrestling version of NBA 2K's "The City," which I've never really cared for. It will be fun for people who like to play online against other people.
- Intergender matches. I have absolutely zero desire to beat up a woman with a male character, so the only time I can see myself doing an intergender match would be to have Rhea Ripley beat up Dominik Mysterio.
- New backstage areas. You can even fight on the old SmackDown! fist.
- Underground matches. Yeah, that weird gimmick from the COVID era that has shown up in NXT from time to time over the past few years will be in the game this year.
- "Bloodline Rules" matches. Just like on -the TV shows, I have absolutely no idea what that even means, unless there are, like, five scheduled run-ins per fighter. For real, though, what is the difference between "Bloodline Rules" and "No Holds Barred"?? Somebody explain this to me.
- I just confirmed it - it's a No-DQ match in which you can schedule up to three run-ins per side. Man, that's hilarious.
- New match types for Special Referee stipulations. You can now do a special ref in 30 different match types, as opposed to it only being for 1-on-1 matches, like last year. That's cool.
- New weapons! Trash can lid (my personal specialty!), safety cone, Undertaker urn, juggling pin, clown horn, clown shoe, "sugar rush," "Damian's Chair" and carnival hammer. I assume there is maybe some kind of amusement park tie-in for MyRise mode or something, because that's a lot of random clown crap.
- Showcase Mode: "Bloodline Dynasty." We'll get a full helping of Roman Reigns and family this year, which is not probably the most enticing option for me, personally, but whatever.
- New MyGM Mode features. You can play online now (I won't), there are new Premium Live Event features (PLEs are now shared across shows instead of each brand doing their own full show - I'm not sure that I like that, despite it being more similar to real life), nine new GM character options, and a few other things. Although the newly introduced mid-card women's titles are not an option (yet?), there is now a feature to have women's tag champions, which will be a nice improvement.
WWE 2K Q&A with A-Town
- Who will you play with first?
- I mean, heel John Cena is sounding pretty good right now, considering what happened at Elimination Chamber last weekend...
- I'm really looking forward to getting Penta and Jordynne Grace on DLC in the next few months.
- Who don't you want to play with at all?
- Probably 95% of NXT and the legends. Probably as few "Bloodline" characters as possible; I simply don't have any interest in playing with any Samoans that pre-date The Rock.
- What is your go-to match type?
- Last year, I probably played more standard 1-on-1 matches than anything, and I tried to take the action outside of the ring as little as possible. I just wanted to hit a couple special moves and pin or submit my opponents as quickly as possible.
- What is your favorite game mode?
- I really love GM Mode, but like I said last year, I wish there was more incentive to play that mode a lot. I thought that the WrestleMania showcase was really well-done last year (if not a bit too lengthy), but the replayability is extremely low for that mode.
- Is there anything you wish you could change or improve about these games?
- There absolutely needs to be about 150% fewer ladder matches this year. When I was playing MyFaction last year, it was like 66% ladder matches, and most of those were tag team matches, so they were truly aggravating. MyFaction was better last year than it probably ever has been, but it was such a chore to do those tasks that I never switched up my roster and I simply played it because I had to, not because I actually wanted to.
- I think they might have patched it eventually, but I remember when I first started playing 2K24, the ref would take their sweet time getting to the three-count. It was ridiculously slow. Like I said, I think it got better, but that was horrendous.
- They've got to got to got to fix the "Statistics" feature on these games. I have no idea what stats they're tracking, but I can tell you that they are completely inaccurate. Please, for the love, just track all of my play stats, regardless of what mode I'm in.
- I think that the logic used in GM Mode that penalizes you for putting, say, Drew McIntyre and Roman Reigns in a match together is totally stupid. "The fans don't like to see this." Excuse me???? That's a great match. I get that it's not the same as Rey Mysterio fighting the Great Khali or something, but don't tell me that fans don't like two powerhouses going at it. That's crap.
- Make up a new tag team that does not currently exist:
- I mean... Drew McIntyre and Bronson Reed? They would absolutely WRECK. (I actually really liked Bronson teaming up with the New Bloodline for War Games. Thought he fit in well with them. Too bad he busted his ankle for the love of the game.)
- Give us brand new champions for every single main roster belt:
- RAW:
- Men's Title: CM Punk
- Women's Title: Move Jordynne Grace up to the main roster and give her the belt
- Men's IC: Chad Gable
- Women's IC: Dakota Kai is the obvious choice, but it should stay Lyra Valkyria
- Men's Tag: Heel New Day would get nuclear heat if they won
- SmackDown:
- Men's Title: Heel John Cena
- Women's Title: Jade Cargill
- Men's US: Jacob Fatu
- Women's US: I refuse to pick anyone other than Chelsea Green
- Men's Tag: Motor City Machine Guns shouldn't have lost the titles so quickly
- Inter-brand Women's Tag Team Champions: Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross
- Who are you most looking forward to beating up?
- Dominik Mysterio, Liv Morgan, Carmelo Hayes, maybe even Bianca Belair
The Bottom Line
Overall, I'm pretty happy with how things are shaping up. I was kind of surprised to see that we aren't swapping out any match types, so we are getting new stipulations and keeping the casket and ambulance matches from last year. The roster is solid, we're keeping the Judgment Day's old entrance theme (which was such a banger) and I can immediately change John Cena's alignment to "Crowd Reaction: Boo," which is still so crazy to think about. Let's get to it!
And now, if you've got a couple minutes, let us know what you're thinking about the current state of WWE in the comments section, on Twitter (here and here) or on Facebook, if you can find us.
Let's get ready to rumble!
Until next time.
