WWE 2K26 makes a fantastic entrance, literally, thanks to theatrical and tactical evolutions that have me pumped to play more

Like most annual sports games, it'd be incredibly easy to label WWE 2K26 as formulaic. It'd be incredibly lazy, too. There are elements of the new brawler that bear a whiff of cut 'n paste: CM Punk's Showcase, the two-parts card-collecting to one-part controversy MyFaction mode, another year of The Island despite most fans panning its debut. Dig deeper, though, and you unearth originality, ambition and hope. After a morning-long hands-on, WWE 2K26's best bits appear to be the details that won't make headlines.

Take wrestler entrances. For most sports games, gameplay is everything. In the choreographed and scripted world of wrestling, that isn't quite true. Of course we want in ring back-and-forth, with weighty collisions, near-falls and crazy finishes, but WWE games are unique in that the show is almost as important as any match: realistic arenas, taunts, likenesses, themes and so on. To that end, Visual Concepts has overhauled the pre-match build up in ways that hook you in before a single punch has been thrown.

Last year saw the addition of user-defined camera angles, and this adds your own taunts and fireworks. It's all seamless, too. Tap the D-pad left up once, twice, or thrice and your grappler breaks out of their motion to perform a face taunt; one to three downward taps do the same, but for heel animations – such as turning to the crowd with a 'boo-hoo' eye rub. Left taps of the pad trigger stage pyro, while right taps unleash fireworks from the turnbuckles. It's truly impressive to see Goldberg break out from the entrance motion every fan knows off by heart to rouse the crowd, without a single animation mis-step. Throw in four- and five-person entrance editing and the community is going to have so much fun with this.

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It's a similar story once you're in the ring. Here, the D-pad is used to define your first action of the match – rushing your opponent, posing for the crowd, offering a handshake (which you can turn into a nefarious cheap shot), triggering a punch-off or chain wrestling exchange, and so on. When I've had pre-release time with past WWE games, I've mostly skipped entrances and cut-scenes in order to get straight to the action. For WWE 2K26, I interacted with the build-up to every single match. It's immersive, and all driven by you. Great news indeed.

Time to play the game

As for that gameplay, I'll reserve full judgment for my upcoming WWE 2K26 review, but there are myriad encouraging signs – most of them subtle, again. The AI can now be programmed to perform sequences of moves, so John Cena or Randy Orton no longer try to pin you after signatures, instead prepping to finish you off with an FU or RKO. Run out of stamina and you can no longer reverse: a clever tweak which adds strategy but also slows matches down, given most players' tendency to spam the sprint button. The new 'Bully' Payback, scaring the referee to count faster, is a great heel addition too.

The surprises continue outside of the ring. Ahead of release, fans obsess about two things: those entrances, and the overall roster. To that end, newcomers this year include NXT hopefuls Hank Walker, Tank Ledger, Tavion Heights, Izzi Dame, Myles Borne, Karmen Petrovic and Wren Sinclair. Alongside them, neatly, are Yoshiki Inamura and Jazmyn Nyx – granted series debuts despite departing WWE last winter. Jump into our WWE 2K26 Ringside Pass guide and you'll note further additions, from AAA: Mr Iguana (yes!), El Hijo Del Vikingo, Psycho Crown, and Lady Flammer.

Alas, there's no new theme tune for Smackdown cult favourite Kit Wilson. However, there is good news elsewhere on the music front, with licensed songs from the game's soundtrack now available for entrances. Want your CAW – or any real-life wrestler – to head to the ring accompanied by Andrew WK anthem Party Hard? It's finally possible. Linkin Park's Two Faced and The Black Curtain by Gatecreeper are other natural choices. They'll be needed: WWE 2K26 sees the number of created superstar slots doubled to 200. Again, for the hardcore fan, this is a colossal upgrade.

For balance, I should note some content removals. Most superstars released in real life since WWE 2K25 are gone, so bid farewell to Braun Strowman, Isla Dawn, Karrion Kross, and Scarlett. (Ridge Holland, curiously, is back – and with a fresh new look, too.) Celebrity DLC additions KSI, Shaquille O'Neal, Tyrese Haliburton, and Jalen Brunson are also out, alongside some legends – it's farewell to Jake 'The Snake' Roberts and The Headshinkers. Bizarrely, some entrance tools have been lost too: the 'general purpose' colors for wrestler backdrops have dropped from five to two. Hopefully this is a pre-release oversight and they'll be reinstated for launch. If anything, 200 'CAWs' will need more color options, rather than less.

MyFaction in action

For all the tweaks made, MyFaction is the mode likely to define WWE 2K26's success. Last year it quickly switched from an encouraging launch window to nickel and dime-ing fans for packs and Persona cards, which I'll address further in that imminent review.

For now, the big change to note is Quick Swap matches. You still go in with a four-wrestler squad, but bouts are one-on-one, with grapplers switched out by tapping RT and LB. You must eliminate all four opponents to win. Comedic commentary elements bring novelty, but it's tough to see why fans would play this over traditional tag matches. Indeed, MyFaction's history makes me nervous as to how it will be deployed. But an open mind is required for now.

In the meantime, it's those tiny improvements that have us looking forward to the WWE 2K26 release date: Solo Sikoa's MFT crew having options to go into matches with or without facepaint, or Michael Cole delivering WrestleMania specific commentary lines for El Grande Americano, centering around his being the alter-ego of Chad Gable. Which enables us to finish on one more positive: along with Gable's masked doppelgänger, Ludwig Kaiser's El Grande Americano is here too. It's yet another small-yet-cool detail in a wrestling sim that looks to be overflowing with small-yet-cool details.

Check out our new games list for what's coming up next!