WWE In Talks With EA Over Future Video Games - 2K Sports Partnership Ending?

By Andy H Murray / March 8, 2022

WWE has held talks with Electronics Arts about bringing its line of video games to the group, as the wrestling promotion's long-running partnership with Take-Two Interaction could be on the verge of ending.

Fightful Select reported on the EA talks on Monday, doing so on the same week that WWE 2K22 is set to be published by 2K Sports, a Take-Two subsidiary. Per the report, 2K22 is being seen as a "make or break" title with a lot riding on it.

It is believed that WWE and Take-Two signed a six-year publishing deal in 2016, meaning that 2K22 could be the last release on that contract. The game's success will be determined by sales and public reception. If those metrics are strong, WWE and Take-Two could renew, though failure may increase the odds of WWE taking its games to EA.

This latest round of WWE/EA talks commenced in early 2021, though the two sides have been talking for years. Fightful's sources note that the discussions fired back up following the massive disappointment of 2K20 and poor reception to 2K Battlegrounds.

Said one of Fightful's sources:-

“WWE has shown a lot of frustration with the reception and lack of success of recent games. The gaming market is a major selling point for them, and they believe they’ve fallen behind the competition.”

Other sports games are seen as the competition here, with WWE believing that instead of buying their games, consumers are opting for other sporting franchises. The increasing cost of video games in this generation of consoles has led to WWE believing that they need to do more to justify the price tag - something that they believe that the last few 2K games have failed on.

Marred by myriad bugs and other problems, WWE 2K20 was a huge critical flop upon its 2019 release, leading to WWE 2K21 being scrapped outright.

WWE 2K22's standard edition is released this Friday, 11 March, though the nWo 4-Life and Deluxe Editions are out today.