RADICAN’S TAKE: Thoughts on WWE virtual press conference with WWE 2K26 game developers

I attended a virtual press conference with the WWE 2K26 developers earlier this week. 2K has done a good job of making the game fun in recent years. It looks fantastic and it is easy to pick up and play no matter your level of skill.

There are a lot of things to look for in WWE 2K26 that the developers covered in this virtual press conference that should improve the overall experience for all players playing the game no matter which mode they prefer. During the early stages of the press conference 2K Developer Lynell Jenks said the goal of the dev team this year was to make the game more fun.

The popular showcase mode will feature the standard cover athlete C.M. Punk. He will narrate his showcase, which will feature moments from his WWE career. To fill in the gaps between him leaving and coming back to WWE there will be some scenarios included that look at what might have happened had he never left WWE.

There are four new match types: Inferno, Three Stage of Hell, I Quit, and Dumpster match. There will also be some new weapon updates with thumbtacks, shopping carts, and stackable tables introduced into the game. Without seeing how they’ll work in action, it’s hard to comment about these additions, but the stackable tables sound like they will definitely ramp up the action in the game.

One change to the gameplay that should make WWE 2K26 play differently from WWE 2K25 is the new stamina and reversal systems. The developers said that they wanted to revamp how stamina works and what that means to the game and flow of strategy.

The developers didn’t shed much light exactly on what the changes to stamina would be, but I would assume it will force you to pace your attack more deliberately during matches. Wrestlers got tired in WWE 2K25 from performing a string of attacks, but it was easy to do a lot of damage without making much of a dent in your stamina bar in previous editions of the game.

The biggest change in WWE 2K26 sounds like it will be the new reversal system. The development team said they had watched so many people play WWE 2K25 and noticed that online games would become reversal fests given that so many people had the timing of the reversal mechanic down to a science.

This year the goal was to make the game more fun for everyone including those that didn’t have the timing of the reversal button down. The developers did mention that everyone should do the tutorial this year because the game will play differently than WWE 2K25 did.

I’m hoping that this makes online matches playable again. It just was not fun to play online against other people in WWE 2K25 due to so many people being able to reverse moves over and over. I hope the game features a reversal mechanic that makes it a key strategy in maintaining the upper hand on an opponent or mounting a comeback, but that it isn’t something that makes the game too easy for one person to maintain the upper hand for a long period of time.

The developers said that Booker T and Wade Barrett have been added on commentary to make the game more realistic. The commentary has gotten much better in WWE 2K games in recent years, but I’m hoping they find a way to make it seem almost completely natural like in the NBA 2K series.

Also discussed during the press conference was a change to interactive entrances. They’ve added animations that players can trigger during entrances for heels or faces. The developers said another addition to entrances is you can choose how to start your match. For example, you can draw energy from the crowd, go for a handshake, or go for a cheap shot to start the match amongst other options.

The developers talked about gameplay looking more dynamic so you don’t see canned animations when certain things occured in the game. For example, one of the things brought up was there are more ways to put your opponent through tables and it will look different each time as part of the effort to create more dynamic gameplay. Another change is that two people can now fight on the barricade.

One of the new game modes, Three Stages of Hell, was discussed in more depth than the others by the development team. They mentioned that almost all of the singles matches in the game will be available to be used in this game mode. Once you load into Three Stages of Hell, there will be no loading screen between matches. It will be a smooth transition from match type to match type when you are playing that mode.

The developers were asked about the challenges of improving the game when it is already strong across the board for the most part. Derek Donahue mentioned that it is hard to narrow down ideas because wrestling is infinite. Lynell Janks said another challenge they face is they only have about 9 months to work on the game each cycle. He mentioned one of the challenges is not going too far into the exploratory realm with ideas, which he believed could diminish the game if they went too far with them.

Sean Radican has been Pro Wrestling Torch for over 22 years. He has covered the independents, ROH, and NJPW in-depth over the years in addition to also watching all the major promotions in the U.S. PWTorch VIP members get access to his weekly Radican Worlwide podcast looking at a variety of news topics from the past week and then an in-depth Go-Home segment with a guest on a big topic of the week. You can contact him at pwtorchsean@gmail.com. You can follow him on X @SR_Torch and on Bluesky @SeanRadican.