“Oooh yeah!” Is 2K madness about to run wild on the WWE video game franchise? If it is, you better dig it, make like the late great “Macho Man” Randy Savage and soar with the eagles!
At any rate, during their recent earnings call, Take-Two Interactive announced the first next-gen installment in the popular WWE video game franchise will be released during the 2015 fiscal year. According to President Karl Slatoff:
“During fiscal 2015, consumers can look forward to exciting next-generation releases from out NBA 2K and WWE franchises, as well as other unannounced titles that promise to raise the bar for excellence. We will have more to share about our titles throughout the next several months as we head into E3.”
Take-Two’s fiscal year ends March 31, 2015.
Most notably, this is the first WWE game under the 2K brand. For those familiar with the franchise, you will remember that THQ was the publisher of WWE-branded games since the end of the ‘90’s, only to be picked up by Take-Two when THQ folded last year. Yukes will still be the developer of the series as they have been for years, but hopefully with Take-Two at the helm, the quality of the next installment will be much better than in years past. Add to the fact that it sounds like Take-Two is launching the game a few months after the traditional Fall release of past WWE games, and it sounds like Take-Two is aiming to knock it out of the ring with this one.
THQ closed its doors with a whimper rather than a bang, and it’s kind of how the WWE franchise has felt for a long time. Personally, I can tell you that I picked up WWE ’13 a few months after it had been released, and while I had never played a WWE game since Smackdown vs. Raw 2006, I was amazed by how little anything had changed. Sure, there were more modes and the design a storyline feature was fun, but other than that? Very little progress had been made.
And don’t get me started on the graphics. I’m not a graphics snob by any means, but come on, a game that late in the Xbox 360/PS3 lifecycle shouldn’t look like a late-gen PS2 title. Here’s to hoping WWE 2K15 (or WWE 2K16 depending when in the fiscal year the game is released) fairs much better than recent past installments.