WWE 2K26 Review – Off the Top Rope, Onto Your Couch

WWE 2K26 Review

What time is it? Tiffy Time! Time for the annual 2K WWE game! That’s right, WWE 2K26 is just days away from launching. And yes, we do this year after year, and yes, it can feel a bit much. Fortunately, this year’s release delivers a delightful amount of content and polish that’ll makes jumping in feel much more palatable. For starters, WWE 2K26 is delivering a historically large roster, featuring Superstars from every WWE era. And while WWE 2K26 isn’t delivering any new game modes, each game mode from the previous entry has been refined and polished in meaningful ways. Let’s elbow drop in and find out why WWE 2K26 might be one of the best wrestling games to date.

New Era of WWE 2K

After years of offering support for both current gen (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X) and last gen (Xbox One, PlayStation 4) consoles, WWE 2K26 has finally dropped last gen support. If you’re still playing on last generation hardware, you will not be playing WWE 2K26. This time around, WWE 2K26 is only available on Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC. What this means is that certain limitations that last gen hardware caused will no longer hamper this year’s entry. Visuals get a very nice boost. And not just the wrestlers, but also the arenas, entrances, and crowds. Every aspect of the visuals have received a noticeable bump in visuals over previous years. But what is even more impressive is the improvement to physics. Hair looks more impressive. The way the ring ropes react to the impact of Superstars is improved. There is a lot less character clipping, as bodies more naturally react to different items and obstacles. Overall, everything just looks much more realistic.

Creative Endeavors

The Create-A-Superstar option has received some quality improvements. You’ll now be able to refine your created character in ways like never before. The characters body and face can be morphed to impressive amounts, allowing players to create characters of all body types. On top of that, there is an extensive catalog of apparel to further craft your Superstars look. There is no doubt you’ll be able to design a character that best matches your vision. As an added bonus, the amount of Create-A-Superstar slots has ballooned from 100 slots to 200 slots.

I created a character to resemble me. I was even impressed that both my first and last names were included in the potential options, so announcers would actually call out my name during a match. One of my boys happened to come in the room while I was playing and the first thing he said was that character looks just like me without realizing that it was a created character. That’s a pretty strong testament to the tools provided!

Beyond creating your own Superstar, you’ll also be able to customize almost every other faucet of a WWE show. While these have been provided in previous entries, again, there have been improvements that allow for even more creative freedom. Create-An-Arena, Create-An-Image, Create-A-Championship, and Create-An-Entrance have all received updates.

The Return of Favourite Modes

WWE 2K26 does not contain any new modes. However, what they have done is take every existing mode from WWE 2K25 and improved on them in meaningful ways.

This year’s Showcase mode features “The Best in the World” CM Punk. Like previous Showcase modes, this is a sort of greatest hits collection of matches, including a some “what-if” matches and matches that end differently, all featuring CM Punk. The mode is narrated by CM Punk, giving it an added layer of authenticity. It’s an excellent way for new and old fans to take a trip down memory lane.

This year’s The Island mode takes an unique detour by including not one, but three different factions for players to join using their Create-A-Superstar. Each faction is lead by their own respective leader; CM Punk leads the Order of Anarchy, Rhea Ripley leads the Order of Shadows, and Cody Rhodes leads the Order of Tradition. You’ll choose which faction you want to join, and whether you want to choose the men’s or women’s divisions. Ultimately this gives the mode a ton of potential replay value.

And finally, there’s also the return of MyRise, a single-player journey that puts players in the shoes of you, or at least your Create-A-Superstar. As “The Archetype”, you’re returning back to the WWE after an extended absence. From there, you’ll interact with a variety of WWE personnel, all fully-voiced by their real-life counterparts. Different dialog options and choices you make will determine how the story plays out. It’s a fun way to answer the question “what if I was a WWE Superstar?”.

MyGM

While I enjoyed the various modes WWE 2K26 has to offer to varying degrees, one mode that kept me coming back for more was the MyGM mode. In MyGM, you’ll use an existing general manager, or a Create-A-Superstar manager, to lead a brand (ie: Raw, Smackdown, NXT) through a full 50 week season. You’ll compete against up to 3 other AI characters, or online against real opponents. You’ll draft a roster of Superstars, book shows, upgrade arenas and crew, make trades, and so much more. Your goal is to win over fans, make money, and put on shows that are better than your competition. During shows, you’ll have the option to simulate the outcome, spectate the matches, or play the matches yourself. It really was addicting building up my brand and trying to outsmart my opponents.

The Learning Curve

Booting up WWE 2K26 is as intimidating as squaring off against Brock Lesner. There is such an overwhelming amount of content and modes in the game, it’s difficult to decide where to start. The best starting point is the extensive tutorial the game offers. But this isn’t your average game tutorial. A tutorial playthrough here can take the better part of an hour depending on how fast you can learn the different controls. Even after completing the tutorial, it was difficult to remember all the different moves.

WWE 2K26 does a great job of having on-screen prompts when you first encounter almost every screen in the game. It does a solid job of trying to ensure players have the necessary information, but even then, it’s easy to get lost and overwhelmed. It does get easier with time and patience.

Once you’re finally in the modes and competing, despite taking the time to learn as much as you can, don’t expect the game to offer any free handouts. WWE 2K26 is a tough beast to wrangle. I had so much difficulty hitting the reversal prompts during matches that I would frequently get my butt whooped. Fortunately, there is a robust set of difficult options and other tweaks to make the game a bit more enjoyable for those of us who are still learning the ropes.

Multiplayer

Given the short turnaround, I didn’t have any opportunity to play matches online. I did, however, play some local multiplayer matches. I honestly believe that playing matches against others in the same room is easily the best way to experience WWE 2K26. There’s something so fun about trash talking and sharing laughs when playing a game like this. There is just so many great match types to enjoy in multiplayer, including four of brand new match types; Inferno, I Quit, Three Stages of Hell and Dumpster matches. The highlight for me were the various extreme rules matches – adding weapons to the mix just makes things so much more, well, extreme.

Ringside Pass

One of the best parts about playing a WWE game is being able to play as your favourite WWE Superstars. Unfortunately, WWE 2K26 has locked away a significant amount of wrestlers behind their Ringside Pass. The rate of unlocking content in the Ringside Pass is agonizingly slow. I imagine it’ll take most players ages to unlock all the tiers. I’ve spent many days with WWE 2K26 and I’ve hardly made a dent in the Ringside Pass. I wouldn’t be surprised if they eventually adjusted the experience earning rate so players could unlock items a bit quicker.

The Ringside Pass includes both free and premium tiers, so all players will eventually unlock all the free tier characters. Another positive is the fact that Ringside Passes will not expire, even when a new season drops. So, unlike other games with passes, you don’t run the risk of losing the ability to unlock content just because a season ends.

The Ringside Pass will return with 5 additional seasons throughout the year, adding more free and premium tiers. This replaces previous years where characters were unlocked by purchasing DLC. Personally, I would have preferred to keep the old style, since it’s often difficult to find the time to grind these passes.

Patch Issue

During my review, WWE 2K26 received a 5 gigabyte update that bumped the version up to 1.02. After the update, a noticeable stutter began to occur during the course of matches within every tested mode (Showcase, MyUniverse, MyRise). This issue was not present at all prior to the update. Since the update, WWE 2K26 is still very much playable, but the stutter was definitely present, and can be an annoyance. I am not sure if this issue applies to only the Xbox Series X version, or other platforms too. At the time of this writing, we have been advised that the development team is aware of the issue and working to resolve it. We felt it was best to include this in our review, but since we’re confident that this issue will be patched soon, we’re not letting it impact the overall score.

The Show Never Stops

WWE 2K26 is a massive effort from the team at Visual Concepts. They’ve spent the past 12+ months refining everything about WWE 2K25 to make an even better wrestling game. Every mode has been improved upon. The games roster is absolutely massive, with over 400+ playable characters. The biggest issue for these WWE 2K games is the significant learning curve and demand for perfect timing. It can be very intimidating for new players. The new Ringside Pass has presented a significant roadblock for enjoying the game, forcing players to grind it out just to unlock many different Superstars. Despite the issues, there is still a ton to appreciate about WWE 2K26.

***WWE 2K26 Xbox Series X code provided by the publisher for review.***