WWE 2K Battlegrounds Review

It’s been a long time since we have had a WWE game that wasn’t simulation-based. The last couple of games that I can remember were WWE Wrestlefest and WWE All-Stars in 2011 and 2012. Of course, 2K had to go in a different direction this year while they righted the ship with the main WWE 2K series, which had been quite a mess when WWE 2K20 released late last year. It sounds like a good idea, right? Make a game that is all about fun and less about all the tiny nuances of wrestling. The videos and screenshots all looked promising, but I’m here to tell you that beyond the flashy animations, there is just no substance.

Gameplay

Moveset

One of the main things that makes a decent wrestling game is that each Superstar has its own specific moveset. This is what sets each Superstar apart and gives them their own unique personality, in addition to their appearance and mannerisms. WWE 2K Battlegrounds gives you the same tiny moveset for anyone within the same class of either Powerhouse, Brawler, All-Rounder, Technician, or High-Flyer. That means most of your heroes will play the same way with very little variety. Sure, each Superstar still has its own specific Signature and Finishing move, and some have moves tailored only to them, but that’s hardly enough to stop you from getting extremely bored while playing through this game.

Class System

The class system does save things a little bit because these classes matter a lot and play very differently. Brawlers can create weapons and have extra power in their strikes. Technicians can cause limb damage (leading your opponent to stagger around) and have powerful throws. High-flyers can get to the top rope fast, use running throws, and jump off the ropes. Powerhouses are slow but can power through an opponent’s strikes. Then there’s also an All-Around, which is a mix of everything. I like this system, but I felt like there could have been a few more thrown in there to make things a bit more varied.

Power-Ups

There’s a power-up system that works quite well with this type of game. These are basically temporary buffs that give your character a competitive advantage when you activate them. An example of this would be one that makes your opponent work harder to escape the pin. There are plenty of buffs to unlock, and you’re mostly getting things like increasing your damage, increasing your health regeneration, or making it so the other player can’t block your attacks. I liked this system, but because of the lack of depth, it didn’t feel like it mattered as much as it would in a normal game of this nature.

Lack of Depth

The weakest part of WWE 2K Battlegrounds is the gameplay. It’s far too easy to reverse, and you can literally strike the CPU over and over again without them ever really getting a chance to hit you. The moves are easy to execute, and anyone can pick this thing up and play it with no problem. I can’t see any adults really wanting to spend much time with it, given the game’s lack of depth and general ease. Strike a bunch, hit your finisher, pin. It’s a win 9 times out of 10.

Campaign

Battlegrounds has a campaign that looks promising when you start with a comic-book storyboard in which Paul Hayman convinces Vince McMahon to let him start his own wrestling brand. This sees Paul traveling around the world recruiting wrestlers and having them fight on their own home turf. It’s a weird little story, and you aren’t given much of a reason to care about these new characters you’re introduced to because they don’t receive much more than a page or two of a comic strip to get you familiar with them.

The campaign is pretty straightforward. You have the main series of matches you have to complete to get to the subsequent areas, but you can also play extra matches to earn extra unlockables like new power-ups, characters, and battlegrounds. As is the issue with the rest of the game, there isn’t a whole lot of substance here, and you’ll find yourself bored and trying to get through this as quickly as possible.

Battleground Challenge

Battleground Challenge isn’t much better than the main campaign. This one doesn’t have any story, and you can use a created character. The issue with this is that this progression system is riddled with microtransactions. There are actually way too many microtransactions for a game like this. Each character that you want also costs between 75 cents and 3 dollars. You can unlock a lot of them through the campaign, but the attires are also locked behind a paywall. This game can get pretty pricey. King of the Battlegrounds was probably my favorite mode, as you’re working to eliminate players from a Battle Royale gauntlet-style (a new player enters each time you eliminate someone).

Match Types

What I did like about this game is that there are different match types, not just singles. Steel Cage matches require you to frantically grab money on the sides of the cage before you can escape the cage, which is strange, but it was fun to do. You get Triple Threats, Fatal 4 Ways, Royal Rumbles, and Tag matches as well. The main issue I ran into with multi-person matches is that getting that pinfall is so difficult because these characters pop right back up in seconds. Even if you keep someone down, one of the other characters is likely to break that pin and keep things going for a long time.

Presentation

I loved the art style of WWE 2K Battlegrounds. There are many colors and effects, and the characters look like caricatures of themselves, drawn at a fair. The atmosphere and art style are probably the best parts of the game. It’s perfect for this type of game. What isn’t perfect? How about the commentary? Jerry Lawler and Mauro Ranallo sound great, but the commentary is almost always off the mark, delayed, or just plain nonsensical. It’s bad, and that’s a sad thing because Mauro will probably never do another WWE game, considering he just left the company.

Final Thoughts

WWE 2K Battlegrounds just isn’t what I expected. It’s just not very fun with barely any depth or reason to keep playing beyond a couple of hours.