"When it comes to wrestling games, it is difficult sometimes not to be alarmist or a bit heavy-handed when it comes to talking about them. Maybe that just comes with the territory as the genre at one time was chock-full of quality titles (involving a lot of importing, mind you) to only having very few options to choose from." | Explosion.com
I do wonder if WWE 14 will show up in 2013. If so we might see Yuke's developing it, but WWE 15 could be entirely different and without Yukes. It should be interesting to see what happens.
Yukes is in a really precarious position right now and losing this license will probably sink them.
What's funny is Yukes have made some wrestling games outside of the WWE license within the past ten years and they've really been pretty good games, not great, but better than a lot of the WWE offerings.
I really do wonder if most of the restrictions come from WWE and not what the developer wants to bring to the table.
So that means that Yukes will probably have to stay on or license out their engine to 2K until 2K can get their own engine up and running in about 2 or 3 years. I know for a fact that Yukes were already working on the next gen engine and that it was built from the ground up so that's a great foundation for them to start at 2K if they buy that engine out and the assets that go with it and employ the key team members from WWE games at THQ to help design and keep things running smoothly.
My biggest concern is that there may be no true wrestling fans at 2K enough to make a great game. I am wishing for the best though.
Probably not very happy with THQ...
Enough said
EA MMA was arguably way ahead of the UFC games that THQ/Yukes did. EA does a good job of finding people passionate about the topic to put together their games. I knew a few people on the EA MMA team and they are diehard MMA fans and it showed in the final product.
Just saying
It was largely panned because most MMA fans are entirely ignorant to the non-UFC world, much like wrestling fans only know WWE. It quite simply did not have a license to sell the game to the masses.
I can think of tons of people who are actually big MMA fans who adored EA MMA.
Custom Championships
GM Mode
Working for the stats of your CAW(Can't stand they let everybody max their stats in the end just with creation)
More access to backstage areas & ringside
Less limitation of movesets when fighting backstage
Weapon finisher selection(Could choose what finisher you wanted with chairs in Smackdown! Here Comes The Pain. Only had a few options but neat none the less.)
I'd also hope they do keep the customization options that are there like Create An Arena & Create A Finisher. While the newest entries of the WWE series haven't been exactly great a lot of the create stuff has been a nice addition and something people wanted for some time.