WWE 2K Developers Starting New Rival Wrestling Game

Yuke's, the developer for WWE 2K games, announced they have assembled a new internal team aimed to engineer a new wrestling game. The game will not be associated with WWE and its characters. The Japanese studio implemented this new team as a means to spark creativity within their employees.

Video Game Chronicle reported that Yuke's Senior Vice President and Producer Hiromi Furuta feels the company has been unable to attain the quality of games that they know are capable of constructing. This lack of quality stems from two major factors: Yuke's current business relationship with WWE 2K publisher 2K Sports and the lack of major competition within the wrestling game market.

Feeling underwhelmed with the quality of their WWE games, Yuke's is generating the new wrestling game to create internal competition in hopes of reigniting the once stellar development of its product.

"Of course, we will retain the WWE team, but we are also aware that our creators are beginning to lose sight of their passion and confidence and becoming focused only on completing assigned tasks," Furuta said. "That's not the direction Yuke's wants to go in. So, in order to compensate, we're going to start a new wrestling project."

Furuta mentioned that the relationship between Yuke's and 2K Sports is still healthy and have maintained a long past of working together for the WWE 2K games. Yuke's still maintains and continues to work with 2K Sports for its WWE 2K series.

"Players are expecting something new every time we release a game and we feel like we haven't achieved what we've really wanted to do," Furuta said. "For example, in many cases we're still using old assets and we're not able to do some things in the way that we want to".

Furuta added Yuke's might "find a way to do things in the way that we want, in terms of our existing relationship with our publisher".

Aside from 2K Sports, the wrestling game market is scarce. As many have seen with WWE itself, a lack of competition can lead to a decline in popularity. Furuta discussed the benefits of having some kind of competition.

"I think having no competitor isn't healthy at all," Furuta said. "When we had competitors in the wrestling space, we were determined not to lose and that was a great motivator for creating something great."

It appears Yuke's new game will feature new elements not yet exposed in the wrestling game field. According to VGC, the new game might incorporate "very realistic" features or fantasy characteristics.

"We're not chasing money or trends," Furuta said. "We'll go in whatever direction we feel is most interesting, combined with the passion of whoever leads the project. As long as whoever leads the project has enough passion, then I'm sure will achieve our goals."