WWE 2K23 Review: The John Cena Show and We’re All Gloriously Living in It

WWE 2K23 ends up being a snapshot of a turning point for the company.

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WWE 2K23
Photo: 2K Games

Once again, 2K’s WWE games are back on a yearly schedule, and while WWE 2K23 isn’t as big of a breath of fresh air as last year’s model, it at least shows that developer Visual Concepts took notes. The rougher edges of WWE 2K22 have mostly been sanded out, as this is a less glitchy release at launch. We also get a dodge button that makes close-quarters brawls even faster-paced, and the experience is balanced out by the addition of a stamina meter, forcing players to pace themselves and giving dominated opponents more of a fighting chance.

The physics, too, have been tightened up so that risky moves have a much better chance of hitting their mark. But probably the best addition is a new option for breaking a pin, a minigame where you flick the right analog stick up when two markers on a stamina bar line up, which gets harder the less energy your character has. That’s far more intuitive and less tiring than the constant tapping method, though you can switch to that minigame at any time.

And a smart choice was made to let hyper-charismatic blerd wrestler extraordinaire Xavier Woods be the face and voice of every tutorial. Beyond that, and the long-overdue addition of War Games as a new match type, WWE 2K23 is, mechanically, the simple iterative spitshine you expect from a yearly release, with a “stay the course” approach taken to most of the other modes—including, lamentably, the microtransactional card-based cesspool of MyFaction.

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The thing is, though, the story of the WWE that it’s representing is anything but simple. For those just tuning in, the WWE’s infamous scumbag of a CEO, Vince McMahon, stepped down in the middle of last year due to some truly reprehensible allegations, which were a surprise to absolutely no one who’s heard of Vince McMahon. In the wake of this, however, a new WWE has been able to grow, under the creative stewardship of former wrestler Triple H.

Now, wrestling actually occurs on weekly programming. But only one main roster wrestler has been released in the months since Vince left, and it was for understandable reasons. And more than this, some of the best talent in the WWE has had opportunities to absolutely shine in this new environment. While still imperfect, the difference between how the company presents itself today compared to what it was when WWE 2K22 came out is a vast one.

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All of that, though, leaves WWE 2K23 in a strange place in terms of characterization and presentation. So much has been done to transform the WWE of late that even though the status quo of these wrestlers is accurate up until somewhere around the build-up to Survivor Series in November 2022, the game feels like a faded snapshot of a company in flux. Names have been changed, character arcs have reached their conclusions, new heroes and villains have emerged, and holdover elements from the Vince McMahon days feel more cringeworthy than ever.

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As a result, the way that characters are presented at various points in WWE 2K23 have made the game feel like ancient history. If Vicarious Visions knew that the hilarious, awkward, tagalong toadie of The Bloodline, Sami Zayn, would become one of the most beloved and tragic babyfaces in the world in just a few short months, it certainly doesn’t show here.

It’s a drawback, but it’s one that fortunately doesn’t ruin the two modes at the heart of WWE 2K23: MyRise and Showcase. Actually, MyRise technically counts as two, split across gender lines: The Legacy, which allows players to embody a fully customizable female nepo baby wrestler who gets hotshotted into the WWE by her retired superstar aunt, and The Lock, which puts players in the shoes of a well-known indie signee who must balance the wrestler they were with the one they’ll need to become in order to succeed now that they’re in the WWE.

Both modes, even with some uneven voice acting, are rather interesting ambassadors for the new status quo of the WWE. The branding-speak that was an awful rash all over WWE 2K22 is nonexistent here, and criticisms of the more typical WWE decisions that make a lot of marks roll their eyes—how Money in the Bank actually works, or why the WWE will change a well-known star’s name—are actually incorporated into the narrative in a way that feels like a peek behind the curtain. The guiding principles of how the Triple H era handles its staff and its characters are present and accounted for, and, thankfully, haven’t changed since last year.

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As for Showcase, it feels like the other half of the story. It’s technically a John Cena retrospective, but the approach is less about reliving Cena’s greatest fights than taking the veritable superhero of the WWE and exploring the scattered times where he was the underdog, the heel, or just plain took a loss. You don’t play as Cena, but rather several of his greatest rivals, trying to put the legend down, as Cena himself narrates how he messed up.

It’s a fascinating, honest, and ego-less approach to such a retrospective, culminating in a wild dream match that has to be seen to be believed. And unlike the scattershot Rey Mysterio Showcase, it casts a pretty wide net of stories, with the only major omission—as any hardcore wrestling fan probably expected—being Cena’s feud with wrestler non grata CM Punk.

Maybe it’s just folly to even expect a developer to capture a moment in wrestling history that doesn’t change within weeks with a game, where playing it in stronger narrative times doesn’t feel like regression—good luck, then, to AEW’s perpetually delayed Fight Forever game—but there’s the distinct hope that WWE 2K23 ends up being a snapshot of a turning point for the company, where the characters being portrayed and people you can embody have become steady, reliable presences, still being rendered with this level of slavish respect. At the very least, if they’re still making these in 20 years, there’s gonna be a hell of a Showcase mode about it.

This game was reviewed with code provided by FINN Partners.

Score: 
 Developer: Visual Concepts  Publisher: 2K Games  Platform: PlayStation 5  Release Date: March 17, 2023  ESRB: T  ESRB Descriptions: Alcohol Reference, Mild Blood, Mild Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence  Buy: Game

Justin Clark

Justin Clark is a gaming critic based out of Massachusetts. His writing has also appeared in Gamespot.

1 Comment

  1. 2023 game is going to be a lot of fun. But there is a small problem in this. It is hanging a bit on my mobile. What is hanging in your mobile or laptop or PC or not?

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