Earlier today, 2K Games revealed the cover star and release date for WWE 2K19, its latest wrestling simulation spectacular. A.J. Styles, who is currently the Smackdown champion, will be on the cover; and has also thrown down a million dollar challenge for players that think they might be able to defeat the “face that runs the place.”
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But in the midst of the announcement, something was missing. The game was confirmed for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC. However, there was no mention of the Nintendo Switch. 2K didn’t say anything about a version for that console, though there is one of two possibilities surrounding it.
Number one, the game could come out for Switch later in the year, just as WWE 2K18 did last year. That version arrived towards the end of 2018 instead of alongside the other versions.
But number two also looks very possible. 2K could very well be skipping the Nintendo Switch this year in favor of a stronger WWE 2K20 release for 2019. They didn’t confirm this just yet, but there’s a glaring piece of evidence that’s hard to overlook. And that’s in the form of WWE 2K18.
That game released on December 6 of last year, just in time for the holiday season. But it was set back by a number of technical issues, as well as glitches and other problems that kept it from being a peak performer. As a result, it suffered miserably in sales.
Metacritic currently shows a 35 rating for that version of the game about half of what the others rank. And the reviews are brutal to say the least.
In its review, Nintendo World Report noted, “WWE 2K18 is just painful to play. Almost everything about the port is poorly implemented, causing me to just feel utter sadness.”
IGN was also less than kind with the port. “WWE 2K18 for the Switch wasn’t ready to be released, plain and simple,” it said in its review. “The degree of slowdown in any match type with more than two people in the ring at the same time is simply unacceptable. Add onto that the weird audio glitches and an overall lack of polish, and the underwhelming single-player modes that impact all versions of WWE 2K18, and you have a Switch port that even the biggest of wrestling fans should stay far away from.
We’ll see what kind of plan 2K has in mind over the next few weeks, but it’ll more than likely avoid releasing a painfully bad port of the game in favor of doing something much more polished down the road. Or, hey, this could possibly hint at a new WWE project for Switch entirely. A port of WWE All Stars with an updated roster certainly wouldn’t be a bad thing.
WWE 2K19 releases on October 9 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC.
