Review in Progress: WWE 2K23

destructoid.com:

WWE 2K23 is basically the same game as last year.

I put over 60 hours into WWE 2K22, and that was despite its best efforts. Everything was okay as I performed my review, but the moment 2K Sports started patching it, the whole thing broke. For many of those hours, I was completely unable to access Universe mode. Support said to completely erase all of my save date, and I didn’t spend so much time creating my stable of wrestlemen and wrestleladies just to start from scratch. This was a problem many other users reported, and it was never fixed throughout the game’s support.

I poked at WWE 2K22 for the remainder of the year, locked out of my favorite mode. It was one of my biggest disappointments from 2022.

So, I was excited to get into WWE 2K23 because maybe this will be a product that works. And it does. However, I need more time with it before I give it my final evaluation.

This year John Cena is on the box, and he gets the spotlight in Showcase mode. I legitimately can’t think of a wrestler who I’m less interested in. That’s nothing against John Cena. He’s a fine wrestleman, is reportedly a very decent person (my husband met him in an airport once), and has had a successful career. However, he’s the wrestling equivalent of dry toast.

WWE 2K23‘s Showcase mode is very much the same as it was last year. It intercuts kayfabe interviews with footage from the star’s more famous encounters and gameplay. The actual gameplay part of it has you going through a list of specific moves and events. It is tedious. It works as a way of interacting with a part of wrestling history, but I wouldn’t call it fun.

Then there’s MyRise mode which has you playing through a narrative career. There are two distinct stories, one for male and one