2K Games has decided to give its yearly wrestling series a break following the lackluster performance of WWE 2K20, and in place of WWE 2K21 will be releasing an arcade-style spin-off called WWE 2K Battlegrounds. In its original announcement from April 27 2K Games said, "We've also heard your requests to keep the WWE 2K19 servers running; they will remain active for the time being." However, an in-game message appeared to contradict that sentiment this week.
Players took to the Internet after an alert appeared in WWE 2K19 saying the game's servers would be shut down on May 31, 2020 — likely when they were originally meant to be deactivated. The official WWE Games Twitter account posted a response to this on Monday letting fans know they should "disregard" the message, as WWE 2K19 servers "will remain open for the foreseeable future."
To many fans of the wrestling game franchise, this extension of server activity is probably a huge sigh of relief even if it has a currently vague end-point. While WWE 2K20 did a few things better than WWE 2K19, critics and audiences widely agreed that the more recent title was a buggy mess. As both are available on current consoles and PC, the ability to keep playing whichever one a person prefers is a nice gesture given the series' lull.
This is an especially good thing for those fans who reacted negatively to the WWE 2K Battlegrounds announcement. The title is being developed by Saber Interactive rather than the core series' developers Visual Concepts, and establishes a more cartoonish, over-the-top style of gameplay with aura power moves and feeding wrestlers to crocodiles that do not appeal to some players.
However one thing WWE 2K Battlegrounds will have over its predecessors, likely in-part due to its more basic graphical style and gameplay loop, is platform accessibility. Recently the ESRB released its 'T' rating for the game that revealed Battlegrounds will be coming to Switch and Stadia in fall 2020 on top of the usual contenders: PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
That said, fans who are not interested in the new spin-off title can at least be confident in the fact that WWE 2K19 servers will be open for the foreseeable future — likely until whatever the true follow-up game will be is revealed. At this point only time will tell whether WWE 2K Battlegrounds will join the ranks of the greatest WWE video games, or the worst of the bunch.
WWE 2K19 is out now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One
Source: 2K Games