WWE Ends Relationship With Yuke's After WWE 2K20

After a 20-year relationship, WWE cuts ties with gaming developer Yuke's.

by Andrew Pollard
WWE 2K19 Promo
2K Games

With gaming fans being disgruntled with the past several instalments of the WWE 2K video game franchise, now comes news that WWE has severed its ties with game developer Yuke’s.

After a 20-year working relationship, WWE has taken the decision to end their partnership with the developer and will now turn their attention solely to Visual Concepts.

Visual Concepts is a California-based company that has actually co-developed some of the more recent WWE 2K games – and they’re overseeing the upcoming WWE 2K20.

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In a statement to the Video Games Chronicle website, WWE explained: “As we’ve continued to invest in the WWE 2K franchise, we’ve seen the Visual Concepts team display incredible passion, talent and commitment to the future of the series. We thank Yuke’s for their years of partnership and are excited to see what the Visual Concepts team brings to the franchise moving forward.”

This comes on the back of the news earlier this year that Yuke’s is working on a new original wrestling game – a gaming property that is said to still be in development, even if details are minimal on it at this stage.

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For that WWE and Yuke’s partnership, that’s been in place since WWE SmackDown's 2000 release on the first PlayStation.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.