1. Universe
The Universe Mode has been hugely popular since its creation but many have been disappointed by the regulations surrounding it. Contenders could only be decided by a ranking system, tag teams would randomly be broken up and superstars made inactive would suddenly challenge for titles. WWE 13 removes those barriers and creates an opportunity for you to have complete and utter control. There are 200 new storylines in the game some of which are superstar specific and THQ werent alone in creating them. Legendary ECW mastermind and current Voice of the Voice of the Voiceless Paul E Heyman helped to create the new storylines using his decades of experience in the business. Storylines have been vastly improved as well. Decisions used to be made without your consent, whether it was breaking up your favourite tag team or Brock Lesnar randomly interfering in your match. This is not the case this year. The options are now available for you this time round. One cutscene showed R Truth and Kofi Kingston celebrating after a match, with an option for Kofi to attack Truth, Truth to attack Kofi or for nothing to happen at all. This kind of freedom means the options are in your control and it is you who defines the goings on in your Universe. One of the most frustrating things about the mode in previous years has been the ability to change match cards. In WWE 13 you can change an entire card at any time, which saves so much time. PPVs and the major shows also now have more matches on the card. Talking of freedom, you now have the ability to create your own show, whether major (e.g. Nitro) or minor (e.g. Heat), any day of the week. You can delete shows and PPVs from the schedule and create PPVs on any Sunday, meaning you could have one each week. Like last year you can assign the roster, the arena and other options to your own show. This also applies for PPVs, meaning you can now have single-roster PPVs and assign themes to them, such as TLC or MITB. WWE 13 allows you to make wrestlers inactive, so hopefully they wont randomly turn up on your show and you can also vacate belts. Certain stories, such as injury or tag-team break up stories frustrated players last year so there are now options to turn off/on different kinds of storylines. If there has been one thing that fans of the series have asked for Universe, it is records. THQ have listened and details are now kept of your Universe, as well as historic records from real-life. Championship history is now included, as well as smaller details like the most Royal Rumble eliminations, meaning you can break real records, including a certain WrestleMania streak. The statistics also keep note of your own character, taking note of their win/loss record, how they won etc. On top of all these changes there is one more inclusion for the mode. If at any point you wish to start again, there is now an option to reset your Universe.