After a year of frustrating game play and technical glitches in WWE 2K20, the video game series won’t return in 2021, WWE interim chief financial officer Frank Riddick announced on Thursday’s quarterly investor call.
“There’s not going to be a launch of a game this year,” Riddick said.
While there was no announcement on the future of the 2K series, WWE’s confirmation comes after former WWE 2K writer Justin Leeper reported that 2K would publish a, “different kind of WWE game,” from a different developer this year, effectively replacing 2K21.
The 2K Games product was developed by Visual Concepts for the first time this year after taking over for former developer Yuke, which had developed every WWE game since the original Smackdown. IN February, Strauss Zelnick, CEO of 2K’s parent company, Take-Two Interactive, spoke out on disappointment in WWE 2K20.
“While we’re disappointed that WWE 2K20 did not meet our expectations, both in terms of sales and quality, 2K is actively working with [WWE 2K20 development team] Visual Concepts to ensure that these issues are addressed in the future,” Zelnick said, according to Dual Shockers (H/T CNET).
“The WWE brand continues to expand worldwide, and there remains a substantial long-term opportunity to grow our WWE 2K series by improving the quality of the game.”
For now, we’ll have to wait and see what’s next in the WWE video game series.