WWE 2K25 review: WWE has never looked this good

With thunderous lights, a propulsive soundtrack, constant commentary, and fluid animations, Rhea flips her opponent into the Riptide before slamming them into the ground.

WWE has never looked this good.

In the ring, WWE 2K25 plays like a dream, letting players pull off elbow drops, reversals, and more named moves than ever.

The fighting system, thoroughly tutorialised, is fluid enough to get an easy grasp on, but deep enough to feel the differences when you jump between members of its 300-plus roster of wrestlers.

Each wrestler has one of several ‘classes’, giving you an overview of their specialties, which is useful, as you play as many of them over the game’s seven main modes.

This year’s main story mode, ‘MyRise Mutiny’, follows two of your own created wrestlers through a bespoke storyline. You’re pitted against a ‘mutiny’ (like in the name!) of stars from WWE’s talent development brand (NXT) and must recruit a who’s-who of wrestlers to take down these young upstarts. It’s a goofy but fun time, giving you a tonne of unique stories based on your choices, and is short enough to return for more cracks at other storylines.

Later playthroughs add even more variety to your star’s journey, which can, in classic WWE fashion, involve plot elements as strange as witchcraft and even time travel!

The character creator is a beast, with boatloads of fashion, move set and animation choices. And the ability to take two stars into MyRise, one each for the men’s and women’s divisions, gives you plenty of excuses to dip into the many options, and shows off the new intergender matches.

Offstage, the visual feast fades a little. Conversations in MyRise can be stilted - so they’re clearly voice acted by professional wrestlers - and faces tend to look blocky. This is especially obvious when loading screens show real-life images of the wrestlers. In another story mode, MyIsland, those stills act as visual novel-like talking heads.

MyIsland, and its card-collecting cousin MyFaction, hide the game’s more questionable elements: theme parks of virtual currency and card packs. But with the wealth of game on offer in the other modes they’re very easy to ignore.

MyGM and Universe modes let you sculpt the perfect show lineups, while Showcase uses a mix of live action intros and archival footage to let you play through highlights of WWE’s current big-ticket faction, ‘The Bloodline’ (The Rock’s extended family).

And your classic play mode lets you jump right into a match, with parameters limited only by your imagination and ability to navigate the game’s many, many menus.

Between its ethos of player choice and the ridiculous number of hours that have been spent capturing each wrestler and their animations, WWE 2K25 is a treat. Play this one how you want - we’re off to send Cactus Jack through a folding table…