WWE 2K20 Developers Break Down Ambitious Women's 2K Showcase

WWE 2K20 will have The Man Becky Lynch on the cover, the first time a female superstar has been featured in the coveted spot, but Visual Concepts and 2K Games aren't stopping there. They're also embracing the Women's Evolution in a big way with a focus on the Four Horsewomen in their 2K Showcase mode this year, which will follow Lynch, Charlotte Flair, Sasha Banks, and Bayley's biggest matches in NXT, SmackDown, Raw, and WrestleMania. This has been a long time coming for the studio, especially Visual Concepts Showcase Designer Dino Zuconi, and we had a chance to talk to him all about the anticipated new mode, which was quite ambitious from the start.

"I think our biggest thing was when we first were laying the groundwork out, we went really big with it, and we tried to include maybe a little too much and so we whittled it down and decided to put a better focus on the Four Horsewomen," Zuconi said. "Once we had that, it was pretty smooth sailing. Me and my team, we had put a big list of matches together, and whittled that back down. So everyone came with the NXT matches, early ones, later ones, and coming up to the main roster. You just try to make what you can make work, work.

It hurt to cut some of those initial match picks, but overall the mode came out better for it, and there are still plenty of matches for fans to enjoy and a substantial amount of cutscenes interspersed throughout the mode as well.

"I think if we had gotten everything we wanted, there was a chance this game would almost be twice as big as it is right now," Zuconi said. "But I think we made the better calls. We made the cuts where we needed to make them. I think it's more streamlined. It feels a lot better this way. Give a little bit of focus on all four of the Horsewomen. We have 15 matches. We have 55 cut scenes across those 15 matches. 17 videos. So just like last year, with Daniel Bryan, we have all four of them talking, telling the story, one before each NXT match, as well as an opening video and then a close at the end."

Fans can also look forward to a sizable amount of ring gear to unlock for all four superstars, so odds are your favorite look is probably included.

"Ten attires for Charlotte can be unlocked, and seven can be unlocked for Becky. One of them was manager attire, but still seven," Zuconi said. "Yeah, another seven for Sasha. And four for Bailey. Bailey, someone's got to come in on the low mark, I guess, but still, I feel like every match we picked for every person was a necessary match. I really think that we nailed the Four Horsewomen. It's been years in the making."

One piece of ring gear you won't see is Becky Lynch's old bright green ring gear, and when we spoke to her about it she wasn't bummed at all that it didn't make the cut. That said, it was talked about at one point.

"It was, we definitely looked at it," Zuconi said. "It was just about... The match wasn't there. We just decided to keep it easy. The first Becky Lynch outfit that we still have in that showcase, it's still something that lots... if you don't watch NXT, you've probably never seen her like that."

"We wanted to do it right this year," Zuconi said. "We wanted to make sure we made a splash, the career split for men and women and the women showcase. It was just time to give them a proper shine that they deserve and worked hard for. I think the fans have always been really excited and so it was a no-brainer to make this happen. Like I said, I've been trying to make this happen for at least two years. This is the year to pull the trigger. I think if we'd have waited any longer, we were letting opportunities slip by."

You can check out footage from the Four Horsewomen 2K Showcase in the video above, and you can check out our full impressions of the game right here. Let us know what you think and feel free to hit me up on Twitter @MattAguilarCB for all things WWE 2K20!

WWE 2K20 hits stores on October 22nd.