Before I spent my entire life writing things about video games, I spent my life writing things about professional wrestling. Wrestling was always my second love after games, but as I grew older I became obsessed with the muscly soap opera that has captivated generations by blending sport and entertainment. It’s very rare that I bother playing wrestling video games though, because with a few exceptions I find they struggle to capture what’s special about professional wrestling. After a long hiatus I’ve now dipped my toe back into the ring, and played a whole lot of WWE 2K25 on the Nintendo Switch 2.
As someone who isn’t used to this series, I must say there’s a ridiculously overwhelming selection of modes to jump into from the offset. There’s an option to tell your own wrestling story with a duo of custom characters, an option to replay the story of The Bloodline, you can play random matches, create your own custom wrestling promotion, play at managing a WWE show in GM mode, and much much more. This is a game that you could easily spend a whole year playing, and I suppose that’s very much the point.
First things first though, I had to start the way I always do in a WWE game – with a Royal Rumble. Immediately I noticed the new emphasis on chain wrestling and reversals, which makes the in-ring action a much more engaging affair whether you play with friends, AI, or random players online. If you’re a newcomer like me you’ll essentially have to learn the new unique language of WWE 2K25, but once you do you’ll be whipping foes into the corner, chucking them on tables, and hitting your favourite finishers to the roar of the crowd.
After fumbling my way to victory in a few random matches, it felt like time to jump into something more substantial. MyRise mode is the equivalent of a story campaign, and you’ll need to create a pair of custom characters (a male and female superstar) to get stuck into it. This meant I got to see the full extent of this powerful creation tool, which has all the options you need to make badass warriors or the stupidest wrestlers the world has ever seen. I obviously opted for the latter, and ran into the narrative headfirst with Dangerous Youngblood Ruth.
The actual story of MyRise is wonderfully silly, and oh so very wrestling. Like so many times across the history of Sports Entertainment there’s an invasion, and young up and coming talent are trying to highjack Raw and Smackdown to make a statement. Despite being an absolute newcomer to the company it’s your character who is given the task of saving the day, by any means necessary. With loads of narrative choices that’ll lead you into different matches and situations there’s even replayability in this mode. I was also surprised to see here how much intergender wrestling was pushed, but pleasantly surprised to say the least.
If you want something a bit more grounded in reality than the fan fiction of MyRise, playing through the history of The Bloodline in showcase mode will provide that. With historical matches dating back decades all the way to the twisting tale of Roman Reigns from the modern era, it’s a wonderful theme for this year’s mode that covers so many great periods of pro wrestling.
The Bloodline theming doesn’t stop there though, as The Island is another huge part of the game. The multiplayer hub area is full of references that will delight long term fans and newcomers alike, and is full of tons of content in the form of quests, matches, and a plethora of gear to unlock for your custom creations. At launch this was a little barebones, but those of us who didn’t jump into WWE 2K25 until the Switch 2 version were rewarded rather well.
We should probably talk about the handheld elephant in the room: the performance of Nintendo’s shiny new console. With a practically perfect 60fps across all modes, this is far and away the best time to be a Nintendo owning wrestling fan since the No Mercy days. It obviously can’t compete in terms of visual fidelity with its more powerful console counterparts, but if you want to be able to enjoy WWE action on the go then it’s time to celebrate.
What you do with this new massive grappling playground is up to you. I’ve not yet mentioned GM mode, which invites you to manage one of the WWE brands in a fully fleshed out management simulator. By drafting the best stars and starting heated rivalries you’ll be the best brand in town, and you can even compete against a friend in this mode for maximum bragging rights. I never got chance to play fantasy booker back in the PS2 era, and getting to rectify this was an absolute blast.
There’s a lot to love about the sheer amount of content in WWE 2K25, but I had some issues during my time with it too. As a new release on Switch 2 it feels incredibly dated in terms of the content you get in the base game, with Superstars who are huge parts of the current product and even champions either locked away as DLC or not even in the game.
Obviously this was always going to be an issue with a yearly instalment that came to the Switch 2 half a year late, but not getting to play as some of the most exciting members of the current roster without dropping a lot of cash on DLC feels rubbish. I think the game could do with better onboarding too, because until you’re intimately familiar with all the systems and controls the game is not fun to play at the start. Having a dedicated tutorial that felt less like going back to school would really improve this.
WWE 2K25 feels perfectly at home on the Switch 2, and has all the muscular content of its other console counterparts. The performance is as close to perfect as you could expect from the new handheld on the block, and now you can take your WWE Universe with you wherever you want. It’s a bit of a shame that the game doesn’t quite represent the current WWE product, but it did make me all the more excited for the next 2K game on the Switch 2.
