WWE 2K25 Review (PS5) – Born to Reign(s)
Well here we are again. WWE 2K25 follows last years really rather great iteration with another singular focus on the wrestler who is ‘so hot right now’, this time the mighty Roman Reigns. I wish I knew who this person was, I’d probably have more to say. Ergo, I’m coming in blind and, much like last year, I’m going to focus primarily on just how goddamn good this package is for WWE fans, because I can’t imagine they could have asked for more.
WWE is certainly back in the zeitgeist after John Cena went bad or something, I’m not sure what happened but my wrestling loving friends went out of their minds like Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire had just stepped through a portal. As I brought up last year, my WWE era was when it was WWF, before the pandas got mad, and many many years since then I’m amazed and actually rather happy it still remains as popular as ever as a form of entertainment.
And that’s why my curiosity is always peaked around this time of year when 2K drops their yearly iteration of digitised sports entertainment. I want to see what’s going on even if I don’t really have a vested interest in the sport as a whole anymore. The video games keep me up to date and that’s absolutely fine. And it’s credit to developer Visual Concepts that the quality of these games remain high. In a sea of yearly iterations of sports games it’s probably fairly simple to rest on laurels and kick out an FC25 and just watch the money pile up, but there’s a cracking game here once again that is deserving of the success it’ll so clearly achieve.
WWE 2K25 primary focus this year is The Bloodline, a focus on the first family of WWE, with Roman Reigns at the helm. The Showcase mode once again is front and centre, allowing fans to play through ‘real life’ events and recreating classic matches and moments with a fun twist, allowing you to alter the timeline and change the outcome of these games.
If there was one area of WWE 2K24 that I wasn’t all that happy with was the live-action cut scenes that played between each of your Wrestlemania fights, which would then turn into gameplay fairly seamlessly. It was cool to see those moments again but they were long and unskippable. This time around it’s flipped on its head, with timed objectives to keep the momentum up, though if you want the rewards you’re going to have to keep moving through them without losing and redoing entire matches. Prolonged fights can be frustrating for this reason, as you’re unable to really fight back whilst the timer counts down. You’ve got to be on the front foot from the very beginning if you want any real shot at victory in these modes.
The biggest push for WWE 2K25 this year has been for their brand new mode, The Island, alongside its plethora of classic game modes that should fulfill any longtime fans desires. The Island is a 50-player online hub world where you’ve been invited by Roman Reigns himself to test yourself and earn a place in WWE by competing against other players, hitting objectives and impressing The Bloodline. It’s all very nice visually, and from the outset has plenty to be getting on with if you want to take the fight to the rest of the world. Unfortunately, even from that initial trailer I could smell the microtransactions all over this mode and I was proven right. If you’re not willing to spend a little VC currency, you won’t get an awful lot of out of this mode bar some rewards and a bitchin’ makeup collection.
VC can be earned by finishing objectives and taking part in matches which can then be spent at the various shops on The Island. And annoyingly, everything is rather pricey.
When you’re only earning around 150-200 VC per match depending on your success rate, a 10,000 VC priced jacket isn’t going to light the fire of ambition in players. The grind is unfortunately very real, which of course you can halt if you decide to spend some real dollar on VC. Players are being pulled through the nose here by 2K and we know it’s not anything new from the company, but it seems particularly egregious when the primary demographic for WWE is young kids that just wanna pretend to fight John Cena at Smackdown.
And that’s about the average price for everything on The Island. If you’re fortunate enough to own anything other than the Standard Edition of the game you can use the included currency to beef up your wardrobe but failing that, you’re going ot be playing a ton of matches for very little reward. The entire game mode is centered around this, and I found it a little gross the deeper I got into it. There’s simply no reason for it other than to rinse fans of cash, for a game that minimum costs £70 already. It’s getting to the point with 2K that whilst expected, they’re pushing to see how far they can go, and you could argue at this point they’ve already pushed it way off what any discernible human would ever put up with.
And it doesn’t stop there with the VC spending. Players can literally pay money to level up their custom players stats, enabling a sickening play-to-win system that, in 2025 should have been utterly obliterated by the industry. Yet, here we are once again. The VC sent to us with the game allowed me to level my custom character to nearly max level, ensuring I could beat the hell out of anyone who dared to stand before me in the ring. It felt hollow and worthless, and really defeats the point of moving up the ranks to get to the highest height of WWE. But hey, if you want to pay to cheat then I can’t stop you can I?
Thankfully, you don’t have to play The Island at all, and I recommend you don’t. The joy of WWE games is the sheer amount you can be getting on with without having to pay extra and it’s no different this time around. There’s a metric-ton of modes that are simply very fun to play, and to know you’re not getting rinsed of all your pocket money for the privilege somehow makes them far more appealing. Of course they won’t learn anything and WWE 2K26 will likely have an even more vile microtransaction system that they think they can get away with because it’s shiny and appealing to the youngest of demographics.
Gross money grabbing aside, WWE 2K25 is absolutely worth your initial investment of just purchasing the game. As mentioned, there’s just SO much to do, and you’ll lose hours of your life customising players, rings, seats, lighting, openings, walk-ins, corners, mats, stadiums, characters and so much more. I can only speak to how long I spent making my own arena build specifically for WWE goodness, allowing the massive roster of available characters to Royal Rumble it to their heart’s content in a playground I created with my own imagination. I can’t imagine there’s a superfan out there who has never wanted to make their own events in their own arena with their own walk-in music and light show. Throw some fireworks and pyro in, too. Why not? This game is yours, make it so.
And it’s difficult to argue just how high quality everything is. From the menus to the overall presentation, everything is easy to navigate, understand and enjoy from the outset. The MyGM mode returns and is deeper and better than ever, the aforementioned Showcase mode is a fans absolute dream and if you’re old and cantankerous like me, you’re going to spend a whole lot of time in the WWE Archives, where you can check out classic WWE merch and moments, full of fanboy WWE nostalgia hit so hard you’ll be convinced you’ve been clotheslined by Yokozuna.
It’s difficult to be mad at WWE 2K25 where damn never everything outside of its terrible microtransaction mechanics is so damn well polished. Last years iteration still remains king for me (but it was made to bait long lapsed fans back in, I’m sure of it), but there’s just simply so much here to get stuck into outside of the straight-up fleecing of your wallet.
Maybe 2K, Reign(s) it in, next time.
WWE 2K25 is available now on PS5 (review platform), PS4, Xbox Series S|X, Xbox One and PC
Developer: Visual Concepts
Publisher: 2K
Disclaimer: In order to complete this review, we were provided with a promotional copy of the game. For our full review policy, please go here.
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