WWE 2K Battlegrounds Reviews
There's an opportunity to have fun with WWE 2K Battlegrounds. Playing with friends or family who aren't fully up to speed on how wrestling games works should make for an enjoyable experience.
WWE 2K Battlegrounds is striking for its simplicity. It is the game equivalent of a popcorn flick. This is something goofy, simple, affordable, and likely intended to be enjoyed in brief bursts.
So would I recommend this game? Well, it depends what you want out of a WWE game. This would probably be a really fun game for a parent to play with their young son or daughter. I also think it could be a fun budget title if you just want a party game to trot out with some wrestling buddies. Overall, it's not a bad game, but it doesn't feel as special as something like WWE All-Stars either.
WWE 2K Battleground is a fun take on wrestling after the messy WWE 2K20, but microtransactions felt absolutely unnecessary.
Review in Italian | Read full review
WWE 2K Battlegrounds is a welcome spin-off for the franchise, giving it the extravagant, over-the-top, enjoyable gameplay that captures and magnifies the WWE's best aspects.
The agressive monetisation in Battlegrounds goes a long way to undermine an otherwise fun and thoroughly entertaining brawler
Easy on the eyes and ears and fun to play, WWE 2K Battlegrounds is a simplified title that mainly works. Its horrific paywall system, however, immediately kills much of its good will.
WWE 2K Battlegrounds is a decent fighting game marred by multiple bad campaign and transactional decisions. Like the real WWE, it's best enjoyed when you focus on what's happening in the ring and ignore everything that surrounds it.
When it’s all said and done, I can’t shake the feeling that WWE 2K Battlegrounds is a quick pivot after last years disastrous WWE 2K20, a way to simply distract wrestling fans with a new shiny object while they work on what will hopefully be a stronger WWE 2K22. So much of this wrestling experience is copy and paste, from the animations, to the move-sets, to the painfully slow method of unlocking the roster and even the lack of polish that sometimes brings frame-rates down to a grinding halt. There’s a fun arcade fighting experience to be had, especially when it comes to local multiplayer where the shallow nature of the gameplay is less obvious. But while this may be accessible and “fun for the whole family”, it’s ultimately about as successful as a Sasha Banks title reign. Satisfying at first, but inevitably short and disappointing. We deserve better.
WWE 2K Battlegrounds is a budget brawler with a high price tag. Despite the core gameplay being quite solid, a lot of the content is locked behind microtransactions and grinding away at matches. These things stop it from rising to Superstar status.
The concept behind WWE 2K Battlegrounds is a solid one, but it's let down time and time again by limited and repetitive combat, dopey AI, an excessively locked roster and a series of bewildering design choices that really should have been questioned at some point during production. We hope it eventually gets an improved sequel, but until then, the Switch is still lacking a proper main event-tier wrestling game.
WWE 2K Battlegrounds is the best WWE game in a long time. Its over-the-top combat leans heavily on cartoon violence, so if you're looking for a wrestling sim, you won't find that here. What you will get, though, is a fun, fast-paced, and lighthearted wrestling game.
WWE 2K Battlegrounds feels like a missed opportunity at the best of times. What could have been a mad breath of fresh air until WWE 2K22 comes along, is instead a boring grind that's all style and no real substance. Invasive microtransactions tarnish the few remaining bright spots of this game, barely allowing it be okayfabe.
WWE 2k Battlegrounds brings us the craziest and funniest wrestling, but it ends up being repetitive.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
I am so mixed on WWE 2K Battlegrounds. In some ways, I really dig that 2K decided to create an arcade-style wrestling game. I do believe the basics of this game make a solid foundation for another entry. The “pick-up and play” direction is great if you want to play with a few friends. Still, a lot of its flaws make it hard to recommend to those who usually play these games alone. After a couple of hours, all of WWE 2K Battlegrounds’ silly over-the-top gimmicks lose their luster.
WWE 2K Battlegrounds is a game that seems like it exists purely to house its storefront, offering predatory microtransactions which would be overly pricy in a free-to-play game. In a paid title - even a budget one - they're offensive. The only silver lining here is that the game is rubbish anyway, so feel free to skip it without feeling like you're missing out.
Far less stuffy than the mainline WWE 2K series and designed for quick bursts of entertaining casual play with friends, WWE 2K Battlegrounds lack of depth and technical issues sadly undercut its energetic audiovisual presentation. Hardly the sequel to WWE All-Stars that so many wanted, WWE 2K Battlegrounds could simply be so much more - but it just... isn't.
Over-the-top action, ridiculous animations and attacks, and a cartoony reimagining of your favorite superstars aside, WWE 2K Battlegrounds is hampered by its lackluster class-based movesets, as well as a system that requires you to grind for a vast majority of superstars that still need to be unlocked. With limited customization options and game modes, it's best played in short bursts, and you'll hardly feel engaged from a single-player standpoint.
WWE 2K Battlegrounds is clearly a rush job, but the game's simple, fundamentally sound action can be a real breath of fresh air at times. Unfortunately, that air is tainted by overbearing microtransactions that feel particularly crass given the game's cartoony, kid-friendly aesthetic. Battlegrounds could have been a contender if 2K had truly believed in the game, but once again, the publisher only seems to be interested in wrestling open fans' wallets.
A great idea and a lot, a lot, a lot of repetitiveness. The change in style and setting could bring a beneficial breath of fresh air to the WWE wrestling produced by 2K, instead the game made by Saber was lost due to an excessive trivialization of the fighting styles accompanied by a system of microtransactions quite invasive.
Review in Italian | Read full review