Review: WWE 2K Battlegrounds

The world of sports is closely linked to the world of video games, and there are many titles that bring us closer to the experience of practicing them, comfortably from the armchair of our homes. For this reason, most of these tend to seek simulation-oriented gameplay that is as much as possible, both in terms of graphics and controls.

However, we cannot forget that video games are just that, video games. Arcade titles tend to simply seek to amuse us and forget about that more “demanding” aspect and that is why there is a large sector of the community that prefers simulators. The Saber Interactive studio knows this very well, and its experience in this type of video game is quite considerable. They demonstrated it with NBA 2k Playground and now they bring us WWE 2k Battlegrounds, a title based on the popular wrestling license.

What we liked!

• Ideal technical section: As with every aspect of the game, the technical section of WWE 2k Battlegrouds takes a 180-degree turn away from realistic graphics. This doesn’t mean that the game looks bad, far from it and the truth, is that its peculiar cartoon-style appearance suits it quite well. If you are a fan of this franchise, you will be able to perfectly recognize the 70 superstars that make up the game’s roster, and that way of presenting them to us as if they were action figures suits him like a glove.
• Some pretty funny rings: Regarding the rings where we will dispute the different fights, the truth is that we will find a lot of variety, and each one is quite well themed. In some of them, we will find special areas, where we can launch our enemies such as huge and very hungry crocodiles. Although it is true that these two aspects are well cared for, where perhaps the title wins whole is in the possibility that it offers us to create both our character and rings.
• A game worthy of WWE: As with other previous installments based on the WWE license, this new Battlegrounds is created to give us hours and hours of fun. Perhaps this is why a considerable part of the Superstars roster is unlocked at the beginning of our game, and to unlock them we will have to “buy” them. For this, we can use a currency that we will get as we play (it is essential to play connected to the servers for this) or we can buy them with real money if we want to unlock them quickly.
• A wide variety of game modes: WWE 2k Battlegrounds has a good handful of modes to play, but its biggest star is undoubtedly the campaign mode. In this mode, we will see a story where we will find different characters who are not yet known, and we will have to accompany them on their journey to be a WWE superstar. The narrative is told in a rather funny comic style but that abuses many clichés. This adventure is composed of 118 events in which we will have to face different rivals and where we will find several types of combats, each with its own rules. The events are not all mandatory, and there will be quite a few that will be optional but that will help us to unlock a large number of power-ups and other cosmetic elements. This mode will be the first in which we will immerse ourselves and that is where we will learn the playable bases of the title, especially if it is your first WWE game.

Somewhere between

• Quite repetitive modes: As an alternative to the campaign mode, we will have another mode called Battleground Challenge, which will follow a similar scheme to story mode, but where we will only control our created superstar. This mode has left me a rather negative feeling, and it’s basically the same by taking away the entire narrative, so it doesn’t give too many incentives to play it and after a few hours, it becomes repetitive and boring.
• Duration: As is usually common to all the games of this type, its difficult to establish a specific duration. WWE 2k Battlegrounds is a fighting game, and as such it has options to bore. Its campaign mode is certainly extensive, and if we dedicate ourselves to completing absolutely all the available events, we may have to dedicate around 12 hours of play to it.

What we disliked

• A loot box variable: As I said before, we can unlock the most popular characters with the game currency that we will get only by playing, but we can also unlock them with real money. This decision can be a bit controversial, especially considering that the superstars who are blocked from the start are the most popular. Despite this, we will have a large number of unlocked characters with which to jump into the ring and start giving us blows with a fairly simple control that will not take us too much to master. Personally I have found the control very interesting, although it is true that it can become quite repetitive, especially when we play against the machine.

Buy it here on bol.com!