WWE 2K25: Netflix Edition has arrived, but it didn’t make the most graceful entrance.
It plays well and serves as proof that a mobile WWE 2K game can succeed, but beyond that, it is a snooze-fest.
Gameplay
It doesn’t surprise me that 2K Games gave us a new way to play WWE2K, but what does surprise me is how simple this game really is.
It’s a classic arcade-style wrestling sim.
It feels like they wanted to bring the simple arcade style to mobile with a small roster that fans can spend a few hours exploring and learning.
Though it is enjoyable, my enjoyment cannot last long when many simple in-game actions cannot be performed.
For example, the player isn’t able to break up combos, while the AI can break up your combos.
The AI can interact with the steel steps and announcer's table, but the player can’t.
It’s always fun and exciting to put someone through the announcer's table, but the fact that I have to let the AI do it, when most often than not they won’t attempt it, feels weird.
To add on top of that, after performing a move, the table doesn’t even ”break”; it’s still there, but you just walk through it.
The matches themselves can either last a few minutes or an hour, which is fine since that's closer to how most matches in real life happen.
For tag matches, it is still the simple layout, with the addition of a tag button, but I learned that I couldn’t do tag team moves or finishers.
This left me to just tag wrestlers in and out without any way to break the dullness of the simple tags.
Onto the roster.
ROSTER
There are 45 different wrestlers in this game, 30 male wrestlers and 15 female wrestlers.
The roster itself is good, but the fact that they were able to leave off names like Sheamus, The Miz, Ilja Dragonov, Penta, etc and have zero NXT superstar representation is crazy to me.
Just to put that in perspective, the first SmackDown vs Raw game had 42 roster members.
It is honestly crazy to me that WWE or 2K didn’t want to add any NXT stars here, especially on the women's side, as we are missing some top-tier names like Sol Ruca, Jacy Jane, Kelani Jordan, Jordyenne Grace and some main roster stars like Roxanne Perez, Raquel Rodriguez, Stephanie Vaquer, Giulia, Asuka and Kairi Sane.
Another thing that is lacking is the tag team division; the only tag teams we have are the Usos, the New Day and the Bloodline.
We have two mixed tag teams in the Terror Twins ( Rhea Ripley and Damien Priest) and Judgement Day (Dominik Mysterio and Liv Morgan).
Speaking of Judgement Day, you’re going to tell me that they excluded members of one of the most popular factions in WWE out of this game, but use them in promotional material?
Seriously, Finn Balor and JD Mcdoughnah were used in multiple ads to promote the game, but don’t show up on the roster.
Again, it’s not like the roster is horrible; I just wish they were able to increase the roster size, as 2K hasn’t had trouble in the past of adding a lot of playable characters to a mobile game.
In comparison, 2K Games has released NBA2K26 MyTeam on mobile.
They took the MyTeam game mode and made it its own standalone game that’s cross-platform to the current NBA2K game.
MyTeam has a huge roster of players with probably hundreds, if not thousands, of NBA players available, and it’s ever-increasing since they add new cards, practically daily.
So it shocks me that they were limited to only 45 wrestlers, and I’m not asking for 400; I just think that maybe even having at least a hundred wrestlers available would’ve been great.
Lacking in Content
This game is lacking in so many areas that it’s not just the roster itself that's lacking.
The match types are lacking; we only have one vs one, one vs one “Weapons Allowed”, tag team and Tag team “Weapons Allowed”.
We are missing some key match types, like triple threat, fatal four-way, or Tornado Tag.
They could’ve added some gimmick matches like TLC as well, something to break up the normalcy of just the traditional matches.
These are basic match types, but they do so much to break up the normal one vs one that most people play.
On top of the lack of match types, there is also a lack of game modes; you have the play now, online and career modes.
ONLINE
Online is virtually nonexistent.
I have played a total of two online matches, and for those two matches, the connection of online play was great, which doesn’t surprise me, but what does surprise me is that no one plays online.
In comparison to the console version, there is a vast online play community where people create five-star matches, but for mobile, they have nothing, so I don’t expect anyone else to be playing this mode anytime soon.
Career Mode
As for the career mode, you get to play as anyone on the Raw or SmackDown roster and build up their overall as you play through.
You are tasked to win enough matches to earn a title shot to either the Intercontinental and World Heavyweight Championships on Raw or the US and WWE Championships on SmackDown, and for the women, you are tasked to win the Women's World Championship.
This game mode is simple; think of it as choosing a single character and going through a bunch of matches on universe mode.
This game mode is fun, unpredictable and downright a blast, well for a few hours that is.
Eventually, you get a win streak large enough for you to challenge for the top prizes in WWE, but the problem is, you would never notice it.
Another thing that is lacking is championship animations.
Wrestlers get their normal entrance, which is just a cutscene ripped from the console/PC version of WWE2K, with no titles, even if they are a “Champion”.
There is also no indication which wrestler on your roster is a champion.
On top of that, when you win the championship, there is no celebration animation, just the normal win animation that the wrestler has.
It’s downright unsatisfying to win a championship, because you would never notice; the game won’t tell or show it to you.
I wish we got to do a MyCareer in the same vein, create a character and with each match, it’ll move you closer to the WWE Championship.
That would’ve been fun.
It isn’t 2K without a glitch.
What isn’t fun is the fact that after spending an entire month of December patching the game, I still find glitches.
Like the opening screen freezing and being stuck there.
That takes a few restarts to fix, or just one, depending on the day.
Another glitch is in the career mode, after a few matches as certain wrestlers.
This happened when I played as Iyo Sky.
If you exit career mode and go back in to play a match, you will be greeted with the match loading screen being Cody Rhodes versus The Rock.
After watching both entrances, you will be greeted with the view of the SmackDown ring apron.
This sucks since I can’t do career modes for some wrestlers like Iyo Sky and Jacob Fatu.
Conclusion
This proves that WWE’s partnership with Netflix can be fruitful in more ways than just streaming, and it proves that 2K can bring a WWE game to mobile in the same vein as the console releases.
The problem is that the game is just proof; it’s just evidence that shows it can work.
This game tells me that all 2K needed was to show that they can make a game and use it as evidence to advance their relationship with not just WWE, but Netflix as well.
It feels like this game was never intended to be good; it just needed to exist.
This game had so much potential to be great, but it unfortunately falls flat after a few months and just feels boring.
Though with any 2K sports game, fans can always say, “there’s always next year," if 2K and Netflix decide to make another.