Reports suggest WWE 2K21 is cancelled and replaced by new title

It has definitely been nothing but bad news for 2K Games’ WWE 2K20. From a disastrous launch to crashing as we entered the year 2020, the flagship video game product of the wrestling world has endured some tough times. Not to mention the poor fans who thought things would improve with new developers Visual Concepts at the helm. When it rains, it pours, and reports have emerged that WWE 2K21 has been canceled. As such, the series will apparently skip a year.

Chaos behind the scenes

As reported by GamesIndustry.biz, Justin Leeper has shared some big changes that will come to the series as a whole. Leeper has written for previous WWE games’ Road To WrestleMania modes.

“I have heard from reliable sources and I truly believe that WWE 2K21 has been cancelled,” he stated. “There will be no game this year.”

Leeper noted that this year’s Wrestlemania, which took place without any fan presence, was not used to announce or tease the new game. Constant issues and mistakes have apparently led to a lack of confidence for the next entry. This would make the decision to scrap WWE 2K21 a straightforward one. He also suggested that taking a year off will benefit the series as a whole. The whole COVID-19/coronavirus situation does not help either, with production and distribution affected.

As for the source of the game’s many problems, it may have been the changing of the guard behind the scenes. 2K parted ways with longtime partner Yuke’s for this new title. Visual Concepts, the new developers, may have needed more time to become familiar with developing WWE games.

A glimmer of hope

Leeper did allude to something else coming out this year, as a “palate cleanser” of sorts.

“I have heard also that there is another WWE game this year, that 2K is publishing a different kind of WWE game from a different kind of developer that’s not Visual Concepts,” Leeper added. “I could say more on that, but I won’t because I’ve already probably pissed off a lot of people at 2K.”

The last stinger is that the next title, or WWE 2K22, will remain on current generation consoles and “probably PC.”

In our WWE 2K20 review, we called it “a smorgasbord of problems that would lead anyone to conclude that WWE 2K20 should not have been released in this state.”