WWE 2K16 - Interview
We sat down with Bryce Yang, 2K Brand director, at gamescom 2015 and had a chat with him about this years wrestling instalment WWE2K16.
We’ve seen tonnes of new content for WWE2K16 - What’s your favourite?
There’s so many great changes this year. The core wrestling in the game is so much better, it’s so much smoother. There’s been a lot of polish and a lot of new things added on top of last year. Last year we had a new engine and had started from scratch for the new consoles, so it’s a case of building on top of that. The ability to convey emotions in the characters this year is a huge thing.
Does it help, the longer you work with an engine?
Yeah, definitely, the team had to start from scratch. Every year you’re improving it and tuning just like the last 15 years. That part’s a huge change. The roster this year is so much bigger, we had feedback about the roster from 2K15, so they heard the feedback and wanted to over deliver. Last year you had 67 different models in the game, this year you’ve got 120 unique characters.
What do you mean when you say unique?
The thing that makes WWE wrestling games so challenging to make is that each guy has unique characteristics, personalities, how they look, their moves. Half of everything in wrestling is out of the ring, if you look at the Finn Bálor entrance, you have the way he walks or crawls out, the lighting, the LEDs, the ramp, the video, the timing, the colour. There’s so much that goes into every one of those characters, and we’ve 120 of them. It’s not just three versions of one guy.
With an annualized franchise are there things that perhaps you wanted to add in last year but had to wait until this year, or things you wanted this year that you had to put on hold?
Yeah, you always have to prioritize, there’s so many things that the team wants to do and you just have to prioritize what’s more important. So last year, for example there were some creation features that were not in 2K15 because we were building the game from scratch, but this year, they’re all coming back. Whether its the ability to create Superstars (which you always have), Divas, arenas, titles, and create-a-show, so its adding all the content on top of last year. There’s always things that they’d like to do and sometimes you just can’t. Game developers are like artists, until it's perfect it’s hard, there’s things every year where they are like ‘damn I wish I could change that’.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is in this year’s edition as The Terminator. How does he not just destroy everyone?
The great thing about him is that you are combining so many worlds and universes; Wrestling fans, Terminator fans, video game fans, Arnold fans, everything is put in a blender and put into the ring. It’s been a very fun project, you’ve 2 versions of the T-800, it’s almost like in Wrestling like a bad guy/good guy face, 1984 he’s the bad guy and later on he’s the good guy protecting John Connor.
Have you got any other action stars lined up, much like Mortal Kombat have done?
Arnold is the first, and feedback has been great so far, but when we were figuring it out for this year, we went through a lot of lists for a lot of different things and this one just made sense.
And how long did it take?
It was a process, it took a few months. He’s been great as part of the project. he took the time to have his face scanned just like everybody else so that he looks great, he did a commercial shoot for the game, posting on socials. There’s very few personalities in the world that are so universally loved.
If you could pick one person, from any medium and throw them into WWE2K16, who would you pick?
Haha, well, if you were to ask me who my favourite personalities are I’d say two. Bill Clinton and, not just because he’s in the game but Arnold Schwarzenegger. If you were to go into my house and look on my shelf you’d see three books, Steve Jobs, Bill Clinton and Arnold Schwarzenegger. They are my favourite personalities.
A lot of DLC last year will we have more this year?
Yeah, DLC is such a big part of this series and the industry as a whole. Last year was packs of character and content in the context of storyline, and wrestling fans love storyline, so definitely a lot to come.
Will Arnold be available as standalone later down the line? He’s currently pre-order only.
Yeah, he’s a pre-order launch exclusive, but if you look around and see similar offers around the industry you can probably find the answer pretty easily.
Last year you had a monster special edition, any plans for something like that this year?
Yeah, that depends on what territory you live in. For the essential collector's edition, we’re not doing one on a global scale but different territories have some cool items that they’re all working on. There’s some variants on territory but the UK specifically there’s a couple in the works.
Bryce, thanks a lot
WWE 2K16 comes out on 30th October in North America and 27th October in Europe.
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