WWE 2K18: 7 Things You Can Learn From The Game’s First Footage
A little lighting goes a long way...
This is a big year for WWE video games, because long-running fans of 2K's wrestling simulators expect something colossal from a series that has treaded water recently. Systems like PS4 and Xbox One haven't had that killer WWE title yet, so the upcoming 2K18 needs to deliver. Judging things on the game's first footage, it's looking promising.
2K's creative director Lynell Jinks may come across like he's cutting a promo most of the time, but he's clearly excited about the potential for 2K18 to be special. Right off the bat, Jinks said the team had been working on building a new system from the ground up. That's the kind of fan-pleasing comments we want to hear.
The question is: is it working? Will 2K18 be different to recent titles that have made the franchise pretty boring? The video 2K released may only be two minutes long, but you can learn a lot when reading between the lines of chirpy dev babble and sparse clips of the game in action...
7. There's More Variety In The Crowd
It's almost like every major developer has suddenly realised that gamers expect in-game crowds to be more than basic cardboard cut outs for titles like FIFA and WWE's 2K series. Just like EA, 2K have been busy overhauling the character models watching your matches from ringside, and it shows. Finally, these folks look more like real people.
Not only that, but there appears to be less repetition behind the barriers too. In 2K17, every third or fourth person was pretty much the same. They even followed the same animation cycles, and that only made it look like these 'fans' weren't reacting to what was happening in front of them. That's the next stage, but simply fleshing out the variety of models is a start.
One thing 2K should do is put more kids in the audience. WWE's product caters towards the younger fan these days, so it'd make sense to see those New Day unicorn horns and Enzo Amore wigs out in force on cheery little boys and girls.