Universe Mode in WWE 2K25 is a mode which allows players to get sucked into a wrestling world of their own choosing and is a popular choice for many gamers. With the New Year drawing close, and with it the next cycle of annual games, fans of WWE 2K26 are looking forward to the next game and what it will include. Here are five things the community thinks would greatly benefit Universe Mode.
Diversify The Booking
The WWE 2K series is famous and beloved for its massive roster that provides gamers with a smorgasbord of entertainer options to choose from in their matches. In Universe Mode, players would love to see the game do a better job of taking advantage of having large rosters in the mode with more diverse match-making.
All too often, players carrying their universe over extended periods find that the game’s matchmaking decisions keep pushing the same core of wrestlers and feuds. While building big feuds is obviously fun and important, the overall mix of matches and wrestlers on a card changes from event to event, and doing a better job of representing this in-game would go a long way to making the mode even more fun.
Make Feuds Bigger
The general mood around requests for Universe Mode is that the game should offer more, and nowhere is that more true than in the popular desire to expand the feud system to include more complex options. Most notably, the ability to have multifactional feuds, which culminate in less common match types.
Adding in more feud options to the point you can see a budding three or four-way rivalry between factions culminating in a huge match on a Pay Per View card expands the storytelling capability of the game. For a mode that is all about telling interesting stories, this would be extremely warmly received.
Build Out The Promos
The world of wrestling has done a lot to shed its image as an exclusionary sport and expand its reach to a broader portion of the populace, but there is a reason pro wrestling promotions were referred to as soap operas for boys. While the wrestling in the ring is obviously a huge part of any wrestling promotion or event, it would never have become as popular a form of sports entertainment if it were just two people in a ring pretending to beat each other up.
The thing that makes those matches matter, and even feel real at times, is the stories underlying the matches, and those are created, built, and driven to the point of frenzy by the promos wrestlers cut when they aren’t engaged in combat. The roster size of 2K games means we can never expect truly voiced options, but players have often cited a wish for more diversity and more adherence to the wrestlers’ personas, for their promo scenes.
Make Injuries A Real Problem
Wrestling isn’t real, but it sure isn’t fake, either. While the storylines are scripted and the blows (often) pulled, wrestlers still put their bodies through tremendous amounts of strain, taking hard bumps and attempting athletic maneuvers. This means that not every “injury” in the ring comes with air quotes around it, and sometimes the stories planned by the team behind the scenes need to be drastically altered to account for them.
A common request from players has been an improvement to the injury system, with a diverse range of potential, real, non-kayfabe injuries for a more dynamic and realistic-feeling universe. Seeing how your universe plays out with big names sidelined with monitoring and updates similar to what players are used to in other sports franchises can make for a more immersive Universe experience.
Add Story-Driven Commentary
Commentary in a sports game is one of the hardest things to get right, and unfortunately, if you’re playing a game for a serious amount of time, there is eventually a tipping point where even the most expansive commentary systems will have shown their last trick. That doesn’t mean it isn’t still something that can be worked on and addressed to make for a more enjoyable experience, however, and an excellent way to do so in the Universe mode would be to add more recognition of ongoing storylines.
With every player running Universe mode, creating their own world and developing storylines, the commentators can’t be expected to give specific dialogue for every possible rivalry, but more commentary about the type of feuds and situations that might arise could go a long way. Watching a match and hearing some chatter from the commentary team about some past events in an ongoing feud between wrestlers or their factions helps to make the in-game universe feel more like a real one.
