WWE 2K26 Review (Xbox): Moving Towards the Main Event

It’s Wrestlemania season, which means the newest iteration of WWE 2K is upon us. Like most annual sports titles, the questions remain of whether there’s something new to entice longtime players, or if it’s simply last year’s game with a new cover athlete. With over 30 hours diving deep into every mode this year’s iteration has to offer, I can say there’s enough content in WWE 2K26 to keep any sports entertainment fan happy for the long haul, although the way you now unlock that content might be an adjustment to keep an eye on.

Ring the Bell

First and most importantly, WWE 2K26 continues to be a blast to play, with small but meaningful tweaks added to keep things enjoyable with new challenges to overcome inside the ring. 

A newly adjusted stamina system will be the biggest noticeable change, altering the pace of climactic match moments, and adding a bit of risk/reward in how aggressively you want to approach a fight. With the new stamina system, everything from running, furiously striking for prolonged periods, and most importantly, reversals, all contribute to gassing a wrestler. Once you blow through the first bit of your stamina bar, you become winded, making you move slower and unable to reverse opponents’ moves, until you gain back that energy after waiting a short time. It’s an effective way of stopping the reversal spamming of old games, which basically made you untouchable if you had mastered timing, and replaces it with a more thought-out approach, using submission or pin attempts to slow things down, just like the real product. 

I found the newly formed strategies around becoming winded very enjoyable, hoping to be first to your feet added tension when trying to seal a victory, and praying you don’t stumble yourself right into an RKO for an agonizing defeat. 

There is also a new grapple and drive mechanic, which lets you push opponents backwards instead of having to whip them into the corner a few feet behind them. Only a longtime player would even notice the difference it makes, but positioning adversaries in a fast, more natural-feeling way makes setup and execution of moves easy and feels way better than before. 

Also welcomed is a new physics system, which can create painful-looking interactions with the ropes, stairs, or being thrown off the top of a ladder. It gives way to OMG moments when a wrestler takes a fall that would put any normal human out of work for months, but in video game form, it’s a ton of fun to see peppered throughout extremely violent matches. 

The Main Event

Outside of the ring, weapons, match types, and fully integrated intergender options have been added. New match types include I Quit, Inferno, Three Stages of Hell, and Dumpster, with the first two bringing new mechanics as the way to win these scenarios, while the latter match types are reskinned versions of things already present in the game. New weapons include shopping carts and thumbtacks, the tacks being a new personal favorite of mine, letting you pour them on any place in the ring, and they’ll stick into the skin of anyone unfortunate enough to be thrown onto them. 

Are these massive departures from previous WWE 2K games? Not necessarily, but as a player who puts hundreds of hours into this game annually, I always enjoy the things that spice up the experience, and these changes are more than enough to keep me going for hundreds more.

Dishing out pain moment-to-moment and executing signature moves feels great, but how do the game modes I’ll be spending my time in hold up? All of the game modes from previous years return, some with improvements, some taking a step back. One, in particular, became much weirder, for the better. 

Starting with our cover athlete, CM Punk, who is also the main subject of this year’s 2K showcase. Narrated by Punk himself, we take a journey through select highlights and even potential “what ifs” of his WWE career. From his rise in WWE, to his recent return, and fantasy scenarios like changing the history of matches he wasn’t even present for, the wrapping and presentation of these scenarios are charming enough. My main issue is that it serves as a step back from WWE 2K25’s showcase. There, we followed an entire family and bloodline through generations, but focusing back on one man, with half of the matches not even being true moments, made this year’s showcase feel more uninteresting in comparison. I still completed it, as it helps unlock wrestlers and other usable goodies in the other modes, but it was ultimately more of a letdown compared to The Bloodline showcase. 

After finishing that up, I dove straight into MyRise, where you create a wrestler from scratch and go through a cutscene-filled year of their career. These story modes can be hit or miss, all dependent upon how good the story and characters you interact with are, and this year, it’s a positive. 

Choosing to go after the men’s or women’s main title, you play as The Archetype, a former superstar who is coming back to claim glory. Keeping the grinding of random matches on the shorter end, MyRISE focuses more on your narrative decisions, such as choosing what kind of comeback story you’ll have, being the underdog who works hard to reclaim your place, an absolute villain willing to cut corners, or both. It’s designed to be replayed so you can see more outcomes, as well as unlock different things depending on the path. Short, sweet, and simple enough to get through with the good type of cheesy writing these modes are famous for, the few hours of distraction it gave were worth it to see how things can end up.

With the narrative-heavy stuff aside, the meat and potatoes of WWE 2K26 are MyGM and Universe Mode. Both modes allow you to live out the fantasy of running your own wrestling show, and both improved once again after an upswing last year. 

Starting with Universe mode, this is the typical franchise running option, allowing you to control every aspect of every show. Run as many shows as you like, play through a calendar of events, control rivalries, change rosters and champions, it’s the full control fantasy booking you’ve always dreamed of. New additions include the ability to draft, allowing roster shakeups to keep seasons from getting stale. 

MyGM mode also sees some love, with new ways to enjoy the nerdy, strategic side of running a wrestling promotion. New options allow booking matches with up to 8 competitors, 50-week seasons, adding multiple new PLE’s to compete in, and additional match types put more meat on the bone you can chew at for a long time.

Chasing Gold

Overall, WWE 2K26 has improved from last year in terms of modes and gameplay. That said, there are problems with the game’s monetization. 

Starting with MyFACTION and The Island, these modes have the microtransaction trappings that some find troublesome in modern gaming. MyFACTION is the card collection mode, where you build a roster to take on challenges, with the roster being built through blind card packs. The game does reward you with plenty of these packs for free through gameplay, and the mode itself gives you towers, a rogue-like mode to go through with curated scenarios to conquer, and keeps you coming back. 

Getting cards and being competitive wasn’t an issue during my time with the mode, but be aware that the blind box aspect is present. The Island returns and serves as the hub world for a created character to run around in, join factions, and battle players online or take on CPU challengers. Very similar to NBA2K The City, it’s a social hub filled with VC to grind to dress up or make your wrestler better. Like MyFACTION, I’ve never felt the need to throw down real cash to feel competitive in this part of the game, but as someone who largely prefers the single player aspects, it was never going to be the main way I spent my time, and the hours I did play, I didn’t see the need to spend money to bypass any hurdles. That said, it has been an ongoing sticking point for fans of the 2K sports games, and it seems that it’s here to stay.

The Weekly Grind

One major issue I did have was the newly implemented Ringside Pass, a battle pass-style unlock system that replaces the traditional way of unlocking content. For the base content, it isn’t much of an issue, as you play matches and modes, you’ll accrue XP and start unlocking levels and rewards. Traditionally, you’d gain currency during play that you could use to purchase wrestlers, arenas, and titles, so putting those on a battle pass isn’t the biggest deal. The problem arises because, in the past, you could pay extra or get a certain version of the game that came with those unlocks. That option is no longer available. It’s all Ringside Pass grind or pay real money to advance. 

I do like the idea of rewards for play, but taking the old option away, I’m not super hot on. In addition to the free Ringside Pass, a premium version, which is paid, unlocks more rewards along the same path as the free version. So, where you would buy the season pass or a particular DLC drop of wrestlers you wanted has all been replaced by a battle pass system you need to unlock. On its face, I didn’t dislike the idea, but having to grind for things I used to simply pay for leaves a sour taste in a once simple way to unlock content. 

Final Verdict

WWE 2K26 is a solid improvement on a series already on the upswing. The changes to stamina make the moment-to-moment gameplay feel more real to life and add risk and reward to every match, and the plethora of options to see your dream matches play out are all solid to great, MyGM being a personal favorite. Ringside Pass changes the entire content unlocking system to a bit of a battle pass grind, but in terms of booking and living out the wrestling fantasy, WWE2K26 takes home the world title.

WWE2K26 was reviewed on Xbox with a code provided by 2K. It is also available on PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2 and PC.

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