Ask any fan what they’d like to see improved in the WWE games, and pretty much all of them will beg for better graphics.
You see, developer Yukes has nailed down the controls and gameplay for its yearly installments of digital wrestling, but while other sports games (yes, I’m calling professional wrestling a sport) feature nearly life-like character models, the WWE series’ athletes have looked like an alien’s interpretation of the real thing — if said alien was trying to clone each wrestler based off of the description of a 5 year old.
Thankfully, WWE 2K15 will finally remedy this problem, and it doesn’t have to look far for the solution. Another 2K sports franchise, NBA 2K, uses an advanced head-scanning technology to make its in-game models look as close to the real thing as possible (as shown in the tech demo below). WWE 2K15, the first in the series to hit new-gen consoles, will now use the same technology.
THQ actually owned the publishing rights to the series until the publisher went bankrupt in late 2012. Last year’s WWE 2K14 was the first one that 2K published. It kept most of the gameplay and graphics from previous versions, so the transition was pretty much unnoticeable. Now we’re finally seeing the benefits of 2K’s acquisition of the WWE franchise.
2K gave me a peek of the new model for WWE superstar John Cena. Unfortunately, I can’t show you what I saw, but it was a huge improvement on the model from last year’s entry. Every facial feature, down to the last dimple, is clearly visible. It looks much more like the actual Cena than some scary action figure brought to life, and 2K said that the model I saw wasn’t even final.
Above: The models from last year’s WWE 2K14 are getting a big upgrade.
2K told me that it already has most of the roster scanned, and I even saw a picture or WWE legend Hulk Hogan going through the process. It’s incredibly comforting to know that the series’ Xbox One and PlayStation 4 debut will actually represent a huge graphical improvement for the franchise.
WWE 2K 15 comes out for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 on Oct. 28.