Greg Played WWE 2K25! - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Summary

Kinda Funny Gamescast: Greg Played WWE 2K25! – Episode Summary

Podcast Information:

• Title: Greg Played WWE 2K25! - Kinda Funny Gamescast
• Hosts: Tim Gettys, Greg “GameOverGreggy” Miller, Blessing Adeoye, Andy Cortez
• Release Date: February 5, 2025

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1. Introduction and Context

The episode kicks off with a brief mention of the hosts and their excitement for discussing the latest installment in the WWE 2K series. Tim Gettys sets the stage by introducing Greg Miller's recent experience attending the Royal Rumble event in Indianapolis to play and review WWE 2K25.

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2. Greg Miller’s Experience at the Royal Rumble

Greg shares his firsthand experience attending the Royal Rumble event, providing listeners with an insider’s view of the atmosphere and logistics involved.

• Seat Allocation and Environment:

  • Greg Miller [04:09]: “We come in the media entrance, we do all this stuff. We get wristbanded. We go all the way up to Lucasfield here or Lucas Oil Field, right to the press box and walk in there and there's the buffet of food laid out.”

  Greg explains that despite being in the press box, the experience lacked the typical spectator energy due to the soundproof glass and limited interaction with the live crowd.

• Match Highlights:

  • Greg Miller [06:45]: “When Punk dumps Seth and Roman, I'm like, all right, Punk wins. And then when Logan Paul dumps Punk, I scream, no. I'm like, oh, Logan Paul's gonna win.”

  He recounts pivotal moments from the Rumble, emphasizing unexpected outcomes like Jay versus John Cena, which elicited strong reactions from the crowd and himself.

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3. Overview of WWE 2K25 Features

Greg delves into the new features and mechanics introduced in WWE 2K25, balancing enthusiasm with critical insights.

• Gameplay Mechanics:

  • Greg Miller [10:07]: “I have a lot of questions about this and that... this is very much a nuts and bolts WWE 2K25 preview.”

  He highlights the game's "bare bones" approach during his initial playthrough, focusing on core wrestling mechanics without delving into additional content like "the island."

• Interactive Elements:

  • Greg Miller [13:23]: “There’s one question everyone has asked me today. Now, even though I’ve been back for multiple days... is how's the island.”

  He expresses curiosity about the highly-anticipated "Island of Relevancy," an interactive online WWE-themed world, though details remain sparse.

• Chain Wrestling and Submission Systems:

  • Greg Miller [15:52]: “The submission system is going back to what it’s been like in the past... rather than just tap buttons and have that thing go back and forth between it.”

  Greg appreciates the return of more nuanced submission mechanics, allowing for strategic engagement rather than simple button-mashing.

• Camera Modes and Enhancements:

  • Greg Miller [19:09]: “They’ve added third person mode and spectator mode... you can do whatever you want.”

  New camera options enhance the viewing experience, allowing players to customize perspectives during matches.

• Backstage Brawl and WWE Archives:

  • Greg Miller [22:17]: “They’ve gone further with backstage brawl... more interesting, they added two new areas—the NXT parking lot and WWE archives.”

  These additions introduce varied environments and Easter eggs, enriching the single-player experience with references to past WWE eras.

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4. Bloodline Showcase

The hosts discuss the "Bloodline Showcase," a mode focusing on pivotal matches and storylines within the WWE universe.

• Enhanced Presentation:

  • Greg Miller [27:36]: “Paul Heyman delivering... telling you why this match matters... planting the seeds that would become the bloodline.”

  The showcase emphasizes narrative depth, with Paul Heyman providing context and enhancing the storytelling aspect of the matches.

• Match Replayability:

  • Greg Miller [29:14]: “Optional objectives have a timer... if you do it, you get a reward for a cosmetic, like a new skin or whatever.”

  Introducing optional objectives adds layers to the gameplay, rewarding players for engaging more deeply with matches.

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5. Super Chats and Community Feedback

The episode incorporates listener feedback through Super Chats, addressing common questions and shared experiences.

• Chain Wrestling Confusion:

  • Alex J. Sandoval [33:26]: “Did the chain wrestling feel less confusing?”
  • Greg Miller [33:37]: “I only got once and I was fucking lost... I was super confused by it.”

  Greg admits initial confusion with the chain wrestling mechanic, highlighting the learning curve for new players.

• Roster Observations:

  • BJ Bernardo [33:37]: “Did you see anyone interesting on the roster?”
  • Greg Miller [34:09]: “No, these were all the people you'd expect... Punk’s gonna be in this preview.”

  The discussion touches on roster expectations, with Greg noting the inclusion of popular wrestlers like CM Punk.

• Comparisons to Fighting Games:

  • *Joe F."

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I’ll proceed to complete the summary ensuring comprehensive coverage.

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6. Relevancy Island: The New Interactive World

A significant portion of the discussion centers around the innovative "Island of Relevancy," a new feature aiming to blend traditional WWE gameplay with an expansive online environment.

• Concept and Features:

  • Greg Miller [42:13]: “WWE 2K25 also features an ambitious addition for players... the island, an interactive online WWE themed world... earn a position in the bloodline or interact and compete with other players.”

  The island offers a hybrid experience where players can engage in quests, live events, and customization within a shared online space, analogous to the "Neighborhood" in NBA 2K.

• Monetization Concerns:

  • Greg Miller [50:02]: “Think of doing a layup in a different style... think of a suplex in a certain style... they’re monetizing, but technically it’s free.”

  The hosts express concerns over potential microtransactions, drawing parallels to NBA 2K's "MyPlayer" and ultimate team modes, where progression can be accelerated through purchases.

• Community and Creator Support:

  • Greg Miller [54:23]: “We have to have a line in the sand... If they steal animations from Create a Superstar and hide them here... we’re not doing this.”

  Emphasizing the importance of authentically representing wrestling without overly relying on monetization, Greg advocates for community-created content to enrich the game.

• Gameplay Mechanics:

  • Blessing Adeoye [35:15]: “In terms of gameplay, like… UFC games had similar submission systems... but wrestling games are their own genre.”

  Blessing draws comparisons to other fighting games, noting that while similarities exist, WWE 2K25 maintains its unique identity by focusing on storytelling and character expression.

• Development Insights:

  • An interview excerpt from WCCF Tech reveals developer Lionel Jinx discussing the island's design philosophy, aiming to balance user-driven content with structured progression, though specific details remain limited.

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7. Final Impressions and Closing Thoughts

As the episode draws to a close, the hosts reflect on their anticipations and reservations regarding WWE 2K25.

• Anticipation vs. Skepticism:

  • Roger [38:43]: “I found myself disappointed with all this a little bit... but it's part of your rise.”

  Roger voices a blend of excitement and apprehension, concerned that new features might overshadow beloved traditional modes.

• Creativity and Future Potential:

  • Mike [60:03]: “They’re selling the same character but just in different outfits... how cool is that?”

  Mike explores the creative possibilities the island could offer, from unique match setups to community-driven events, while also lamenting potential heavy monetization.

• Community Engagement:

  • The hosts encourage listeners to share their excitement and concerns about the island, fostering a community dialogue around the game's future developments.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Greg Miller [04:09]: “We come in the media entrance... there's the buffet of food laid out.”
• Greg Miller [06:45]: “When Punk dumps Seth and Roman... Logan Paul's gonna win.”
• Greg Miller [10:07]: “This is very much a nuts and bolts WWE 2K25 preview.”
• Greg Miller [15:52]: “The submission system is going back to what it’s been like in the past.”
• Greg Miller [19:09]: “They’ve added third person mode and spectator mode... you can do whatever you want.”
• Greg Miller [27:36]: “Paul Heyman delivering... planting the seeds that would become the bloodline.”
• Greg Miller [42:13]: “The island, an interactive online WWE themed world... earn a position in the bloodline or interact and compete with other players.”
• Greg Miller [50:02]: “Think of doing a layup in a different style... think of a suplex in a certain style... they’re monetizing, but technically it’s free.”
• Greg Miller [54:23]: “We have to have a line in the sand... we’re not doing this.”

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Conclusion

In this episode of the Kinda Funny Gamescast, Greg Miller provides an in-depth exploration of WWE 2K25, from his immersive experience at the Royal Rumble to dissecting the game's new features and the ambitious introduction of the "Island of Relevancy." While celebrating the enhancements in gameplay mechanics and storytelling through showcases like the Bloodline, the hosts also voice legitimate concerns over monetization and the integration of new modes potentially diluting traditional experiences. The discussion underscores the delicate balance developers must maintain between innovation and preserving the essence that fans cherish.

Listeners are left with a nuanced understanding of what to expect from WWE 2K25, eagerly anticipating how the "island" will evolve and whether it will enhance or hinder the beloved aspects of WWE gaming.

Transcript

[Greg Miller]

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[Tim Gettys]

What'S up? And welcome back to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Wednesday, February 5, 2025. Of course. I'm your host, Tim Gettys. I'm joined today by Blessing. Adio. Yeah. Junior.

[Blessing Adioye]

Good day, Tim.

[Tim Gettys]

Roger Piccor Voices in my head they.

[Blessing Adioye]

Talk to me they understand they talk to me, yeah.

[Mike]

There's gonna be one more from the.

[Tim Gettys]

Big daddy himself, Greg Miller.

[Greg Miller]

Hello, Timothy, how are you?

[Tim Gettys]

I'm very excited to talk to you today about WWE 2K25. You went all the way to Indianapolis.

[Greg Miller]

That's right. That's right.

[Tim Gettys]

To play this game.

[Greg Miller]

Went to New York for South of Midnight. Indianapolis for wwe.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. And then there was one more right previous.

[Greg Miller]

I'm reviewing about, reviewing about.

[Tim Gettys]

Okay, cool. A lot of fun, exciting Greg Miller games.

[Greg Miller]

You want Greg Miller? You got Greg Miller, everybody. You don't want him too bad. There's other channels.

[Tim Gettys]

Exactly. But if you like him, we got him all the time here. Because this is Kind of Funny Games cast. Each and every weekday we get together to talk about the biggest reviews, previews and topics in video games live on YouTube, Twitch and podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, please support us with the Kind of Funny membership on Patreon or YouTube or Spotify or Apple Podcasts. So many options to get the show's ad free. Watch us record them live and you get a daily exclusive show. For a chance to be part of the show, submit your thoughts and opinions as YouTube super chats as we go. So if you have any questions about Greg's time or experience with WWE 2K25, please write those in. I know I got a lot of questions. I don't understand this island and I need to know about the island. A little housekeeping for you. You already got the resurrection of rooster teeth. Discussion on Kind of Funny Games Daily. Congratulations to Bernie and Ashley Burns for reacquiring their baby. Very cool.

[Roger]

What was your reaction this morning?

[Tim Gettys]

Disbelief.

[Greg Miller]

And then Just excitement.

[Tim Gettys]

And then immediately I go into Tim business mode. Like, what does this actually mean? You know? Luckily they had a minute podcast that explains it all very clearly. And I'm like, okay, cool. It's all good news. So exciting stuff all around. Thank you to our Patreon producers, Delaney Twining, Carl Jacobs, Make a Buster and Karen Lindner. If you are a Patreon supporter or a kind of funny member, you can also get today's Greg Way, which is Greg talking about how cool it is that Bernie got RT back today. We're brought to you by Aura Frames, but we'll tell you about that later. For now, let's get into it. The topic of the show.

[Greg Miller]

Greg, hi.

[Tim Gettys]

You were at. You were at the Rumble.

[Greg Miller]

I was.

[Tim Gettys]

Before we talk about the video game and all that stuff, I haven't talked to you about your experience at the Rumble.

[Greg Miller]

Sure, yeah. Hell yeah. Let's talk about the Rumble. Yeah. What do you want to know?

[Tim Gettys]

Were you in a box? Like, was it a good view? Like, was it cool? Did you get to feel the energy of the yeets?

[Greg Miller]

Let's talk about that aspect of the room. There is a whole Greg way up about this. So. But I, I can do the condensed version. The condensed version is Kevin, if you want to go to. On the document I gave you. If you go to the very bottom. Jack previewing the game with us. I was a late addition to the Royal Rumble, right? Jack and Poe, of course. Po, my best friend from forever. You know that. Jack, his son, who you all know from Content here at kind of funny. They were already going to go as a father son trip. So when I found out, hey, I'm doing this thing, I hit up 2k and I was like, hey, can I bring Jack to play the game with me? He loves wrestling. We have this thing where we go back and forth. It'll be constant. Don't. They're like, yeah, sure. Because I click one over Kev and you see Jack playing the game at his station or whatever. Click one more over here, Kev, and you see us up in the press box.

[Tim Gettys]

Hell yeah, dude.

[Greg Miller]

Because even though Jack and Poe had tickets, you know, we're there with 2K. So they were like, all right, we're put you wherever we're going to put you. I'm like, all right, sounds great. So they put, we don't know where we're going. We don't have real tickets. We come in the media entrance, we do all this stuff. We get wristbanded. We go all, all, all the Way up Lucasfield here or Lucas Oil Field, right to the press box and walk in there and there's the buffet of food laid out. There's the multi tier. We immediately go to the glass. If you want to go one back, Kevin, to the glass and get our seats. And there's this immediacy of. This is very nice. This isn't the Royal Rumble.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

What are we doing here? You know what I mean? Of like, this is like this. It was all the press. So like there were people from the press being like a lot of people up here today. I didn't say anything. I'm like, yeah, we're all video game jabronis. They just are up here. You know what I mean? Because they're writing and they're doing their actual thing. But we're up there. It was like you couldn't. It's glassed in, it's soundproof for the most part, right? So like you don't feel the energy, you don't have the stuff. And like, great view, amazing view. Obviously you can see the entire ramp. The thing, screens everywhere, right? But like when Stephanie came out to give her thing, you had to like really crane in to hear through the glass or whatever. And like, so we're like, what? What's the play? What's the plan? I'm like, here's the play. Let's do the Women's Rumble out here. We know that's first. We will do that from this perspective. See how it is. Make sure we're feeling the right vibes here. In like a fourth of the way through. They turned down the speakers so you could hear Michael Cole and everybody. But it's still now I'm just watching wrestling from a glass in box. And so pose like, what is. We're going like, what's the move? And I'm like, here's what we know we've done. I've done this a lot. I know what's up down there. Hard cam side. Those are the comp tickets. I see. That row is pretty empty. That row is pretty empty. My math says that would be like 144 in terms of sections. We go down there. We know, Mike. We just walk. I know, Mike. I know. Not that anyone's ever going to ask you in these questions, right? So that's what we did. We did the Women's Rumble. We went all the way down, walked out, walked to 144, walk down. And then I was just Greg Miller, mayor of section 144. Because I walked in and like, We've all been there. Somebody enters late. You're like, what is going on? And then this. It was, like, in between matches, so people got off to go the bathroom. So I immediately went to the row I'd been eyeing. Walked in, there's a dad and his son there. I'm like, hey, how are you? I'm Greg. We were up in the press box, and, like, it sucks up there. No one's chanting. You can't hear anything. I know these are comp tickets, usually square, like, overload of information. And the guy's like, yeah, no, no, no. Like, I think these two are taken, but those three are open. And then, like, two rows up, some guy had heard the whole, like, everybody's listening on the conversation. Like, oh, no, come here, man. There's all these. It was just a party down there in section 144. And so we were there to be it, feel it, scream it, do the whole thing.

[Tim Gettys]

I mean, how was the J winning moment?

[Greg Miller]

Insane, right? Because, like, you talk about. Like, we haven't talked about the wrestling aspect of it even, really. Right. But, like, when Punk dumps Seth and Roman, I'm like, all right, Punk wins. And then they. When Logan Paul dumps Punk, I scream, no. I'm like, oh, Logan Paul's gonna win. You know what I mean? And so then to get down to Jay and John, you're like, fuck. Okay. Like, and it's like watching the arithmetic of the match go. You're like, all right, so Jay's gonna win this, right? Like, this is a weird thing for Cena to beat. Like, what? And so then when he did it and the place went crazy, I mean.

[Tim Gettys]

I. Dude, I feel like us watching it here, we didn't. I don't think any of us had a thought in hell that Jay was gonna win.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Until he won.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Like, we were like, oh, they're giving it to John. That is a weird call right now. And then Jay. There was a second of, like, wait, that just happened.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. I think you feel that in the arena, too. And even in John's reaction, right. Scene hits the floor and does the. And everyone is, like, waiting for, is there going to be a MacGuffin? Is there going to be a restart or whatever? And then. And Jay. And they're. Okay. Okay. Like, what's crazy about it is I have gone to a lot of wrestling in my life, obviously, walking around on Friday getting ready for Smackdown, because I did Smackdown as well. But, like, just walking around Indianapolis and Friday and of course, into Saturday, I have Never ever, ever seen so many matching shirts. Everyone is yeeted out. Everyone was in a yeet shirt. And like I've been, I've lived Austin316 and DX and like I, you know, I'm not saying like I haven't seen popular, but like, in terms of moving fucking merch. Jay, USO is untouched. So like, you know, his entrance, let alone then the celebration of it, like, it was, it was crazy out there. Yeah, it was incredible.

[Tim Gettys]

But you weren't there for the Rumble, correct? You were there to play a game.

[Greg Miller]

To do some work.

[Tim Gettys]

Do some work.

[Greg Miller]

That's right.

[Tim Gettys]

So you got to play 2k25.

[Greg Miller]

I sure did.

[Tim Gettys]

What do you have to say about it? Top level, what should we prepare for?

[Greg Miller]

Seriously, top level here? There's one question everyone has asked me today. Now, even though I've been back for multiple days, but like today. Oh, it's WWE day, right? Cool. Did you play the island? What's the island like? How's the island? Is the island. And I'm like, they didn't show us the island. They did not show us the island. I think IGN's preview, I went and listened to it today. Does a really good job of being like, you have a lot of questions about this and that. We didn't do any of that. Like, this is very much a nuts and bolts WWE 2K25 preview, which I'm not against, but is in a year where you are like, hey, this new thing you've never heard of and we don't really know what we're doing with it yet. I'm paraphrasing. I'm sure 2k knows what they're doing. We're not showing that we're not there. We're going to talk about that later. We're going to talk about that later. So this strictly was what I got to play. I would say very bare bones deal, right? We were. I had said earlier, like when 2K was inviting us out, I was like, oh, well, you know, we won't do interviews. And then when I was like, wait, Jack's going to be. Jack could interview people. Like, oh, like we're all booked up pretty much, so it'd be too hard. I'm like, oh, don't worry about it, or whatever. And they were doing busted open there. Dave LeGracka was there. I nerded out, but I never got a chance to say hey to him. You know, O'Shea Jackson Jr. Was there. He was doing his podcast upstairs. Got to say hey to him. I said, Good podcast.

[Tim Gettys]

Awesome.

[Greg Miller]

But it was this thing of, like, once we, like, I played a lot of WWE 2K25, and then I was like, okay, I've played.

[Tim Gettys]

I don't know if you know, what happened, weird things on the screen. Just want to make sure, you know.

[Blessing Adioye]

I hit Control plus plus, and it made all the windows giant.

[Greg Miller]

Okay. So, you know, I was there. And so it was like when it got to a point of just like, well, I'm going to. I'm not doing interviews. I'm going to leave. I've played enough of these because it was like that thing. It was, I think, good of like, hey, get in here and play the matches and immediately start seeing the little new things. But this is a preview, this first part, because I want to talk about the island in the second part.

[Tim Gettys]

Our hopes and dreams, Greg.

[Greg Miller]

But the first part of this preview is going to be so incredibly nerdy, and it's going to be so about just the little things. So, Kevin, can you show my first link there where I wrote, if this doesn't excite you, this preview isn't for you? And I said, kevin, please show. Like, this is a tweet I put up out there. And it's like one of the first things that jumped out at me when I'm playing, right? Is like, oh, cool. I can. I can screw up the LED barricades. I can smash them in and break the barricade. And then, of course, this is documented, but now you can climb on the barricade and jump off of there, right? And of course, like, the balancing act there for Jay uso. And then just coming down with the double ax handle. Not an impressive maneuver, but, hey, I'm on the barricade. I'm doing the damn thing. And then here, even more deformation. Deformation, right? I'm smacking into the thing. Like, that's the level of detail I want to talk about in WWE 2K25, right? Of what we got to play. Because that really is what this is. As I've gone on record talking about 2k25 multiple times, right? I am of the firm belief that WWE 2K24 is the best wrestling game of all time. And I know I would have fought myself years ago. What about no Mercy? What? I mean, what about WrestleMania 2000 for some people? What about Smackdown? Here comes the pain. I think there's a lot of nostalgia glasses on there, right? And when you sit down and play 2k24 is slash was doing what those games did. The amount of fun we had at the launch of 2K24 of I'm Playing and reviewing and Raj pops down like, let's play a match. We can play a match and then, okay, let's do a giant stream. We'll all do ladder matches. And it's. It is that idea of simple to understand, difficult to master. You can get in there and you can be crazy and you can do millions of reverses and you can take on Roman Reigns on Legendary and yada yada yada, but you can also just jump in with your friends and play. And I'm talking about the core experience. If you want to go beyond that. Beyond. When I, you know, immediately got my Steam deck and allegedly got no mercy on it, right? I was like, let's get back into this career mode. I was like, oh, wow, this is not. This is not exactly what I remember it. Me and you can jump to, you know, my first job out of college having the big tube TV so my ex at the time or my girlfriend at the time could watch stuff on it. And then I had my little TV so I could play Here comes the pain and do you know, the careers and the GMs and yada yada yada. Like that stuff was all great and there was a lot of options there. But I think like this is trying to be WWE and doing it so well. And so I more than anything, coming into 2k25 in this nerdy ass preview they gave us of letting us go and play for a long time. Am happy that it's more of 2k24. Like, you know, I feel like for a while there, especially in the THQ days, every time we would come out with a new wrestling game, they were trying to recreate the wheel. They were like throwing stuff out that worked just to come. Then we would get excited three years later when they brought it back. And it's kind of one of those of like you have it. Why keep fucking with it? Back to my hit blessing show of why WWE 2K should be a live service, I think is that incremental changes like this are great and I think could be implemented and keep you engaged all year long. But that's a different thing. Yes, it's a roster update. 300 superstars, you know, more than ever.

[Tim Gettys]

300?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, that's what they've said in their press Release. More than 300 superstars in this game.

[Tim Gettys]

What. What ish was in 24?

[Greg Miller]

I don't remember off top of my.

[Tim Gettys]

Head because I would say like it would feel like 50.

[Greg Miller]

You're getting that you're getting different versions of people.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, that's.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, yeah. They're making a big deal about it. And think about next year when they have access to tna. Come on now. Come on now, son. We got some good stuff going. Very, very limited in terms of who you could play here, what it was, but it was the idea of get in there, get on sticks, see how it feels and see the changes. And so, yeah, like I said there for me, one of the big nerdy things that pops out is a barricade stuff, right? Because that's the level of immersion you're getting. Right. And what they want from this game and again, catching up to it, right? You have it where when you play at a pay per view, guess what? Prime bottles on the center of the. The. The mat, right?

[Tim Gettys]

We were waiting for that.

[Greg Miller]

The prime hydration station is there.

[Tim Gettys]

Okay.

[Greg Miller]

You can't throw people into it. You can beat them with the bottle. Yes. I mean, it's like. Yes. It's like one of those. Like, I want. All I ever want is wrestling to look like wrestling when I play it. And like, there's a big part of that. And I think it'll be interesting to eventually talk about the island. Right. A tease for that. I'd done a call where 2k ahead of time had gone through, like after they put up the press release information, a real quick Q and A very top level. And one of the designers on the island, when somebody asked them, like, so what, what are we talking about? They said, you know, the way the 2K games in the past have brought wrestling to video games. The island is going to bring video games to wrestling. I want to focus on the first part of that, of wrestling to video games. Right? Where it is like, I do want the Prime. I hate. I don't like the prime logo. I don't like prime, but I do want it to represent the. Feel like the product I'm watching. So I like that it's in the center of the ring. I like that the hydration stations there. You know, it'll be fun to put whatever logo you want in the center now and kind of funny sponsors whatever thing we're doing out there on our. Not really, but you know what I mean?

[Roger]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

So that works for me. And I like that idea of it or whatever. The other like, big. The big thing that everyone's talking about today because it is like, you know, preview day and launch day and, you know, embargo. That's what I'm talking about is the return of inner gender matches. This Is something people have been wanting for a long time. It used to be in the series. Long, long time ago. Now it is back again. It's. It's not everywhere you'd expect it to be. Right. So there's no interfac. There's no intergender in my faction or gm. But everywhere else there is. There's also no blood in intergender match. However, women's matches do have blood this year, so that which it didn't last year. Men's of course have blood as well. It comes default off, you turn it off.

[Blessing Adioye]

Men's don't have blood.

[Greg Miller]

One in, one out. We can only put so much blood in this game and it's like next year. It's a big bullet point at his back kind of thing. Right.

[Tim Gettys]

Blood is back, everybody.

[Greg Miller]

Kevin, if you want to toss up for the inner gender ones, actually go back to the one that I had there. The. If this doesn't excite you for this preview, you can scroll one tweet down from that. And I have Nia Jax beating the shit out of Jimmy Uso, which is Jack's footage. Jack did this. Jack is playing as Nia Jax wailing on Jimmy Uso. And then give it. Eventually you'll get to a finisher here and stuff. Right.

[Roger]

Your preview, was it select superstars?

[Greg Miller]

It was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We did not have access to ridiculous by any stretch of the imagination. This was incredibly limited in who you had. I think it was like you had Nya, you had Rhea, you had Valkyrie, you had Jimmy, you had Jay, you had the fucking Samoan werewolf. Jacob Fatu.

[Mike]

Let's go.

[Tim Gettys]

Come on.

[Greg Miller]

Jacob Fatou. And there. She's gonna drop it on Jimmy.

[Roger]

Hell yeah.

[Greg Miller]

You know what I mean? Like, come on. Ah. You know what I mean?

[Blessing Adioye]

Jax would kill Jimmy Uso. He might not walk out the ring in real life.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. So inner genders here, that's a big thing. You know the match. I. I went out there and ran. I think I did. Of course. Just like everybody else. I had to do Ria Dom and I had to let. I had to just let her destroy Dirty Dominic. Mysterious. Did. Felt good. She looks great. I mean, that's the thing you'd expect from these games. Right? I think the character models do look really good. I thought the. The contrast, maybe it was just. I'm playing on. I think Xbox Dev Kit looked really great in terms of like sharp, really rich colors like that. A lot for it. There's a little stuff that I found interesting. One of the things they're talking. Another big talking point for them is the return of chain wrestling. If you're unfamiliar with this, you don't remember it from previous games. In previous games, what it would be is that you would come out if you both went for the grapple. It would go into a mini game similar to what you saw there for an I and Jimmy throwing punches which got added last year. This is submissions Kev, but thank you. Chain wrestling is. You both have your stick up there as a sweet spot and you try to fill it. Like the sweet spot will change. When you find each other's sweet spot. It fills in. You can jump around between collar and elbow headlock, get into specific places very much like trading blows, which they added last year, which I rarely ever see in my games. I saw this in one match. You can go in, you can turn it all the way off. You can turn it up to happen, I think every time if you want and stuff like that. So it's there. It's a start of the match thing. It's one of their tossing in. I was never the biggest chain grappling fan. So it's there. It looks like people are happy with it. Beyond it beyond Kevin, you want to toss the other one up. The submission system is going back to what it's been like in the past as well. Rather than just tap buttons and have that thing go back and forth between it. This is one where you can imagine if you're playing Devon Dudley and you have the blue bar. Raj, if you're afa, you have the red bar. Maybe the opposite way around, but you both are spinning your bars trying to, if you're the attacker, cover the other person's bar to fill it in to make them tap out. Or if you're the, you know, person in the submission hole, try to get away from your attacker again, turn it on, turn it off, go back to the old system if you want. This was a welcome return for me. I think it speaks to what I think the out of the box game should be where it isn't about like how fast can you tap a button? Here's a. I like that I'm getting a little bit pie in the sky. But. But here's like a mini game like Mario Party, right where it's like it shakes it up. You're doing something. You're both. There's a little bit more like, oh.

[Tim Gettys]

Fuck, how do I skill base stuff.

[Greg Miller]

Eventually, obviously you'll do it a thousand times and you'll understand how to cheese the system.

[Roger]

But still smashing the button is still there, or is that just.

[Greg Miller]

You can go back. Yeah. If you turned it off.

[Roger]

But by default, this is.

[Greg Miller]

Yes, this is out of the box. At least from what I understand. I think they're making such a big deal. You don't. You don't get those fast fingers.

[Roger]

I don't got those fast fingers, Kevin.

[Greg Miller]

I'm going to jump down to entrance camera. This is an interesting one that I didn't expect or heard about. So obviously, when people are entering the arena, Tim, usually we watch their entrances play out. This year they're adding in third person mode and spectator mode. So if you can click turn it down a little bit. It's so loud out here. We're using. It's macho tea off of this. What?

[Blessing Adioye]

I don't know.

[Roger]

Just looks so goofy.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Well, he eventually spins the camera and does other stuff with it. But it's the idea that now you're in control of the camera.

[Blessing Adioye]

Oh, that's cool.

[Greg Miller]

So you can do whatever you want. It's set up so it's like. Yeah, maybe Dom isn't the best example. I've seen the Jacob Fatou entrance, when he gets over the ring stairs in the post, then they can spin around and do it or whatever.

[Tim Gettys]

I mean, this is rad.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. It's another option for you. Right. It's the same idea, too, of. I couldn't find in my footage or online yet somebody having spectator footage, I think, actually. And we're. Kevin, you can tell me if we're wrong. I think our box is covering it because when you get the entrances in the lower left, there's a little. He has it clipped off. There is a control thing letting you know how to change it. But spectator mode. Oh, there it is. Yeah. Spectator mode kicks you all the way up to the cheap seats. So you get like you're in the arena sitting down, looking at it.

[Tim Gettys]

So cool.

[Greg Miller]

I didn't get in. I personally didn't think to go into it, but they're. They're. One of their press release beats is, of course, that you can do different camera angles when you're playing the match, too. But I didn't tweak that. I did notice on Jack's footage, he had moved it to. Rather than be on hard cam side, he went to behind the announcers for all his royal rumbles. So you can see the entrance way there. And I think last year they added that too. But it's never been one that I've tweaked. But it reminds me, obviously, of the old N64 and Smackdown games how they used to be. What else did I like that was new here? Oh, you know, one of my big complaints, because I'm a big dork was last year, of course, they introduced ring announcers. Of course, Samantha and the other guy whose name I can ever remember sitting there. Right. But it felt like it was a very late edition. Right. Almost a reaction to how they filmed content. And so we were always behind the announcer's back, so you never saw their mouth. And I was always like, this is a weird presentation. They fixed that this year. This year, when they have the announcer and they're doing the championship setup, they're on them. Lip sync, not great. You know what I mean? Lip sync, not great. But again, do I need that? Do I mean, I would love that. But again, that's not a nine month development cycle, I'm sure.

[Roger]

Yeah. When you do the championship belt thing and they're in the ring, do they do like the thing like in the challenger?

[Greg Miller]

I want to say they did where it popped up for champion. I didn't see a challenger, I think, but it was one of those, you know, I didn't do.

[Roger]

They do the thing with like the camera moves from this.

[Greg Miller]

It's on it. But I can't. I don't want to confirm or deny that. And I didn't have that. Thank you very much. That. That's. That's what I need with that type of. Yeah, of course. Yeah. I think I want to get a little things before I get into a little bit of bigger stuff. Right. They add. They've gone further with backstage brawl. Obviously those have always been there. You know, I always. Lame as shit, let's be honest. Right. Like, you just beat each other up till somebody's knocked out. It's always like, this is a weird thing. But like, they added more and I think to make it more interesting, they added two new areas. The NXT parking lot. So you're outside. There's cars and stuff like that. Weapons on the ground.

[Roger]

Cool.

[Greg Miller]

Whatever. The cooler one that I'm seeing a lot of jazz about too online today is WWE archives. So it's you fighting in like the WWE warehouse where they keep everything. Oh. So like the ECW stuff's over there and they have the smackdown fist up there and a giant sick references. And there's footballs and mics on the ground and stuff like that. So it's like an Easter eggy thing. I think there's a Lita cut out, if I remember correctly. Like, there's all the stuff you can interact with, you know, get the scalability of climbing up to fight up there, to throw people down to frog splash down on them and stuff like that. I still have always thought a backstage brawl match is stupid, that it should just be a eventually. And Michael Cole is. Oh, we're cutting away. I don't know if somebody rushes out to. Rather than it be a. You're knocked out from a frog splash. That was one of the ones I thought you're on macho tees or somebody else's footage today. Maybe igns. It's like, why. Why not make it like wwe, where when clearly somebody's won, people rush out and stop them and push them apart or whatever.

[Roger]

Or the dream would be one day we can figure out the one shot or right where we can. Oh, we can go to the back. Yeah. I feel like that has to be more.

[Greg Miller]

I feel like that's got to be coming. Yeah, right. Yeah. And, you know, backstage. We'll start backstage. I would really be interested to see how they're going to tweak that going forward. I already talked about this. I talked about that. But, Kevin, while we're here, just. I have this one. I love Jacob Fatou. Throw up, Jacob Fatu. This is Smack Talks. I want to think here. This is where it goes to.

[Roger]

Yeah, that's.

[Greg Miller]

Scroll down, scroll down. There's going to be a video of Jacob Fatu. We'll sell you when to click on it. A lot of creators out there with a lot of different stuff. No, keep going, keep going. No, keep going. Just a Twitter video here of Jacob Fatu. That's the shield entrance. There we go.

[Tim Gettys]

That one there.

[Greg Miller]

Right there. No, one up. Kevin, one up there. Click on that guy. Thank you very much and thank you, Smack Talks, for having this footage again. Nothing. There's nothing here that's special other than I just love Jacob. Come on, Jacob Fatu now. So him coming out to fight the Rock here, he could be a bit beefier, I feel. I feel like he's a bigger boy than this, but still just nice to see him in.

[Tim Gettys]

So exciting.

[Greg Miller]

His thing, getting his due or whatever, being the Samoan werewolf, like everything else. Kevin, if you want to go one more down, you can click on Jay's entrance from ign. Hopefully that clicks onto the IGN Twitter page. It needs to be way to go to way wetter. That's what I'm saying. But here's. Of course, Jay, USO and Yeet were in the game last year, but I feel like there's more pop and circumstance to it here.

[Tim Gettys]

My one issue that I've seen so far is I just wish that the. For this entrance in particular, that the crowd work was just a little better because we. We need better syncing on the eating. You know, when it gets in the.

[Greg Miller]

Center of the ring is not bad.

[Tim Gettys]

I don't know. Yeah, it's just like, it. It's really distracting because it doesn't like when you look at it in real life. There's always a ton of people off rhythm, but, like.

[Greg Miller]

Never keep it going real bad.

[Blessing Adioye]

It's painful every single time. Nobody's on.

[Greg Miller]

I'm so the Michael Cole of it. You know what I mean? I'm trying. I'm just having a good time. I'm just moving my arms up at there. Kev, you want to fast forward when he gets up on the ring post. That would give us a better look at the audience and stuff.

[Roger]

That's super offbeat. Yeah, but I love it.

[Greg Miller]

I think it's when he. But again, that's like real WWE right here. Right? Like, that's what. Like that's exactly what it looks like. Way worse for me personally, as somebody who has such low. Has such a low opinion of the audience in any wrestling game, I'm still impressed they made it work, period. I'm still impressed they made it work, period. At all. So go get them, guys. And then the other. So this is, you know, we can run through. We can play all this stuff. We can do a few of the matches. Like I was saying, the other one was showcase, of course. Showcase. We're big fans of around here, right, Timothy?

[Tim Gettys]

We are, Greg. But I don't want to hear about that right right now. Okay? Right now I want to hear about why now.

[Blessing Adioye]

I want to.

[Tim Gettys]

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[Greg Miller]

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[Tim Gettys]

All right, Greg, now you can talk to me about the Bloodline showcase.

[Greg Miller]

Thank you. Of course, you know their showcase, what they're pushing this time around is create change relive. So you know you get showcase matches if you're unaware. But I imagine if you're this deep into a WWE thing, you know, you know, in the past we've had Rey Mysterio, right? It's relive the best moments from his career. Last year was four already years of wrestling WrestleMania. So it was go live. All these crazy WrestleMania moment stuff. We like them because they're great moments. They're cool video packages. Right. And face is always blurred, which sucks. But there's been a bunch of criticism of them for a myriad of different reasons that 2K is trying to address this year. In some ways I will satisfy everyone. Of course not. But maybe not I'm interested. So a lot of people have had complaints about where I think they call it Slingshot, where you're playing the match and then it goes from the gameplay into the footage and then hangs on the footage too long and then comes back and it's actually kind of like jarring in terms of, well, you come there with the ref's faces blurred, you're having this great moment, blah, blah, inside of the match. Now that doesn't happen. Instead they will take control away from you to have Roman spear somebody or do whatever. But it's still in game in engine. They've recreated it there. So rather than you have to watch the video that is jarring, then come back to it, it's there, which I'm appreciative of. Right. The other thing they've added now is, you know, I'VE never been the biggest showcase guy. I like the intros, but then playing the matches, I get kind of bored with the checklist stuff. Oftentimes I get a little bit annoyed. Right. I'm trying to get you into a very specific scenario still that way it seemed like there was fewer in terms of like, hey, we're giving you nine things to do. And one of the things they've added this year are optional objectives that have account a timer on them.

[Roger]

Cool.

[Greg Miller]

So it is okay, you have 35 seconds to whip into the ropes and do this thing. Blah, blah, blah. If you don't do it, it's no big deal. The match rolls on. But if you do it, do you then get, you know, a reward for a cosmetic, you know, a new skin or whatever? So that was a nice little addition.

[Tim Gettys]

Looking at this here. So it's bloodline showcase, you're saying. But like all the notes you have don't seem to be bloodline focused.

[Greg Miller]

Well, it's bloodline focused in the way of like, you know, hey, here we go. In terms of like the bloodline edition and where we're jumping in. And they've only. The only three matches we have, right, are Nia Jax versus Valkyrie, Seth Rollins versus Roman Reigns and the Wild Samoans versus the Dudley Boys, right? You can see reliving Nia Jax versus Valkyria from Queen of the Ring 24, Seth Rollins verse. Roman Reigns has changed, right? Uh, this is Royal Rumble 22. Iconic thing, right, of Roman choking Seth. Seth grabs the rope and Roman's so mad he won't break the hold, so he gets disqualified, right? This is what if he did break the hold and then you keep fighting and then, uh, Wild Simone's versus Dudley Boys, right? We're off to the races there of it. So it's like it's bloodline of what they're doing or whatever. But the real kicker to it and what's amazing about it right from these three is Paul Heyman. Paul Heyman coming out and just fucking destroying again. Like since there's no video in the match anymore, you get a lot of the video in the video package before. And so it's Paul Heyman delivering and telling you why this match matters, telling you who Offa and Sika were, the Wild Samoans, right? And what they're them planting the seeds that would become the bloodline, the family tree and all this jazz, right? The run through of that. And then of course at the very end being like, so like, you know, since this is creating like, what if they went up against Extreme Dudley boys, right? And you have a tables match with them. Very cool setup to do this, right? But like, I love Paul Heyman. I'm a Paul Heyman guy. Everybody knows that. I think he's just delivers so well. I did the wild Samoans, Dudley Boy 1, like I said, starts very as you'd expect. Here's why. Offensive rule. Here's the thing. He's just delivering and you get all the footage and it's great. And it's great. I feel like there was less blurred faces, so maybe they worked around it a little bit more. There are blurred faces, which I hate. Anyways, then he went. There was the Seth Roman reigns one, right? And this one was amazing. Like fucking amazing of Paul, like is he's delivering all down camera. But for this one, he breaks. He's like, I'm not going to do it. He's like, I'm not going to do the shtick. I'm not going to. I'm not going to do. I'm not going to talk about your tribe. My tribal chief. And like. And it's like, then he goes on this rant to the side camera about like Seth and like Roman and the shield and how we got here and what that did to Roman reign, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like. And so then he gets the very. He's just. And he's just fucking promo. It's just Paul just promoing. You know what I mean? Just going, going, going. And he's like, you know, the next time I'm so, so I'm not going to do your shtick. I'm not going to do this little setup because the next time Seth Rollins steps in the ring with your tribal chief, it'll be the last time Seth Rollins steps in a ring and he does that. It's not a spoiler. It's not. It's not a prediction, it's a spoiler. It's like, oh, it's like so fucking hyped to then go into the match and, you know, bounce off the rings, build up my three finishers, do the Superman punch, do the spear, take him out, win the match, get out of there and stuff. So it's like, I think the showcases live and die on their presentation. And so with Paul giving those presentations, I think it's going to be so good.

[Tim Gettys]

I mean, jump in there, little cheat code, cheat code.

[Greg Miller]

But that's what I want. I want to be hyped for these. ESPN 30 for 30, whatever you want to call these things, right? As you're getting super cool.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, I'm excited for that.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. And like, honestly, that I would say that's the big stuff I covered. I wrestled a lot, I did it. But you. We all played a lot of stuff. I guess the one thing I left out that I thought I was new to, new here was now, early on in the match, obviously, depending on, I think, your momentum and your health, right. When you try to kick out or whatever, there's a new section of the bar. If you're using the bar, I'm sure if in the tapping, there's a one there. But like, I was using the bar, you. There's one to tap it out into reversing the pin into a pin. So I kind of getting those, like, chains of pins together. I like that a lot. And that's. But again, that's me. I like all this nerdy little wrestling because again, I think 2k 24.2k in general, since obviously the bad time has, like, done such a great job of being like, all right, cool, we've got something here. Like, let's add to it every time.

[Tim Gettys]

We got a couple super chats I want to get to here. Alex J. Sandoval says WWE learned they put Greg's loud ass in a box so we wouldn't have to hear his voice during the broadcast.

[Greg Miller]

Didn't work.

[Tim Gettys]

Love you, Greg.

[Greg Miller]

Didn't work this time.

[Tim Gettys]

And then BJ Bernardo says, did the chain wrestling feel less confusing? And did you see anyone interesting on the roster?

[Greg Miller]

Chain wrestling? I only got once and I was fucking lost. I was like, what the fuck do you want me. So I was super confused by it. No, I did not feel like that. I didn't. I. You know, I'm at a preview event, the thing popped up and it was like, okay, whatever. I'm sure four chains in. I'll do it when I get my review code to actually work with it. But in terms of a first glance blush, I did not know what was going on. But I also feel like, even though it's way similar, we all had that with the exchanging of blows in the beginning. First time, too was like, wait, do I tap X? Oh, hold. Fuck. I fucked it up. Okay. What?

[Tim Gettys]

And then you see any one interesting on the roster?

[Greg Miller]

I mean, no, these were all the people you'd expect, right? At this point, it was more like, who was there? It's like, oh, man, no, Punk. Like, we know Punk's gonna be in the game. Put Punk in this preview. But I'm sure they're, you know, Spacing out all their beats for what they can do.

[Tim Gettys]

And then also at the Royal Rumble, how was the Joe Hendry entrance?

[Greg Miller]

Oh, amazing. God, are you kidding me? You know what I mean? And it was like hilarious of like where pose like, who's this guy? And me and Jack are like, you.

[Mike]

Don'T know Joe Henry.

[Greg Miller]

What do you mean you don't know Joe Henry? Trying to explain his crazy, you know, the year of Joe Hendry of like, if not more than that. Yeah, that was a great entrance there for Joe Hendry. Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

And then Joe Farorelli says, silly question, but if I've never played any of these and I have a growing curiosity, what's a good comparison for how they play in terms of fighting games?

[Greg Miller]

Oh, interesting. Bless, that's more your territory than mine.

[Blessing Adioye]

I don't know there's much that plays like wrestling. It's funny because the comparison I've been giving for the last few months is Dragon Ball. Just in terms of the kind of game that it is, not in terms of the way it controls. But I think even hearing you describe like the showcase and stuff, I'm like, man, a lot of that sounds like what I'd like out of a Dragon Ball, like story mode.

[Roger]

That's so true. Yeah, I just thought about that. Yeah.

[Blessing Adioye]

Yeah. But in terms of gameplay, like that's the weird thing is I guess like maybe the UFC games in a weird way, like when you're, when you're talking about the like the submission stuff.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adioye]

That brought me back to like one of the UFC games in like the last generation had the exact same kind of submission system.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adioye]

And so like when you get into the intricate systems like that, I could see maybe the comparison there. But really like wrestling games are wrestling games and so like it is kind of its own genre that. Because WWE is. WWE has that whole thing cornered. Right. Like the last time it was a wrestling game that wasn't as what Vendetta. We're talking about like non WWE wrestling games. And so they're kind of their own thing.

[Tim Gettys]

But Rumble Roses, remember that?

[Blessing Adioye]

I don't know what Rumble Roses.

[Greg Miller]

I remember roses.

[Tim Gettys]

It was just like a bunch of. Just a bunch of girls.

[Greg Miller]

Kids would be into it. Steam kids would be into it right now.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, for sure.

[Greg Miller]

That's a good way to put it. Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

I would say that the wrestling, it's way more simulation than arcadey. You know, I feel like that's the thing is like most fighting games are by definition arcadey type gameplay. And this is. It's way More slow paced and kind of like hold based, I would say. Even. Even in terms of button pressing and stuff, I feel like it's really kind of transitioning from like, section to section as opposed to, like combos and beating people down.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, I mean, it's simulating WWE television. Right. So that's why I think it plays and looks the way it does. And to that point, yeah, you know what you're doing, right. You're weak grapple, left stick move or whatever is going to be different throughout the match because you're going to wear down your opponent, which will then make it different on what's going on in that because you're building to signature finish. Having the wrestling go home moment.

[Blessing Adioye]

Yeah, I think it's as much of a fighting game as it is of a hey, let me just express myself through playing through these matches kind of thing, right. Like, I am going for the finisher. Like, I am like, you know, putting this guy on the turnbuckle and then like superplexing them off and doing all this stuff. All this stuff. Because it is like me living my dream of being a wrestler.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adioye]

And again, in the same way of like the Dragon Ball Z games. Right. Like, I hop in there and I am. All right, how do I get. How do I simulate my dream match between Goku and Vegeta? It's basically the same thing, but like, it's Jay USO and Jacob Fatu. Right. Like, and to the point of, I think when you talk again to the fighting game conversation of it, like your moveset for WWE really is, well, like a light strike, I think, heavy strike. And then like you have like a light grapple and a heavy grapple. And like, again with the Dragon Ball comparison, a lot of those are just simulating cutscenes in wrestling. It is quicker because you're not going. You're not fudgeing, you know, knocking somebody to the moon and knocking them back and doing all this shit.

[Greg Miller]

Right.

[Blessing Adioye]

It really is you grappling. I was going to say suplex. Yeah, yeah, you'll get there. But like doing a suplex or doing a. Like what a body slam or whatever the move is, it is kind of that same frame of thinking of, go in, do your move. Your move is going to take longer than a Tekken move because you're doing a grapple. But it's the same kind of ideas of light attacks, heavy attacks, parries essentially, because you will do like, you know, grapple reversals, or I think you have strike parries in there as well with some More complex systems built in. But I don't know, Like, I. I think if you see on screen what's going on and you're like, oh, that looks fun. It is as fun as it looks, in my opinion.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Roger]

I found myself disappointed with all this a little bit. Not necessarily because, like, all the little stuff is great, right? Like, the inner gender stuff is great. Like, all the throwing the. Into the LCD screen, like, and it breaking, like, all the little stuff is fun. But as. Because I came into WWE 2K as like, a fresh new fan last year, Right? Like, I was just into it.

[Greg Miller]

That's part of your rise.

[Roger]

Exactly.

[Greg Miller]

Becoming a fan.

[Roger]

Exactly. Right? So it was. That was a fun time to be in it and playing it. But then now I'm so into it that I'm like, oh, they're adding the prime hydration station. That's already gone.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. You know what I mean?

[Roger]

Like, where's. I remember last year being such an issue of, like, I want to play the fucking WrestleMania 40 arena. And that took like three months for them to put that in there. Right? So it's like, I think you spoiled me with that whole blessing show you did where I'm just like, I could see the world where we just update this a little bit.

[Greg Miller]

I mean, think about it this way, right? Where it's like, your Raw arena isn't going to be the Netflix Raw Arena. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you're not.

[Blessing Adioye]

You're me in 2007 playing smackdown versus raw. 2007, where I'm like, man, where is Jeff Hardy on the roster? Like, why can't I pick Jeff Hardy? 2007.

[Roger]

It just. Yeah, it just kind of makes me a little sad, like, saying all this. I mean, I'm gonna have sports games.

[Blessing Adioye]

Yeah, that's right.

[Roger]

But, like, this moves so fast. Like, to me, this is not WWE 2K 25. This is 24. Like, this is the stuff that we missed last year. The fact that we're finally gonna get the final boss, right?

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, exactly.

[Roger]

Like, Punk is not dlc. He's gonna be part of the game. Like, I just. I just keep on wanting, like, okay, well, I'll wait till next year, I guess, for all the stuff that I care about right now. Right. I'm not gonna get here.

[Greg Miller]

I will do give a huge shout out to the creator, the WWE creation community, who does go absurd every year with this stuff of, like, they are gonna make those people and have a CM Punk that rivals the dlc, but they'll have it the day one where you can go get it. And same thing with the Raw Arena. You're gonna have that ready to go. And I know I'm not making excuse, like. And also, video games are hard doing. You know, following a product that has no off season is hard. I get all of this. I'm not trying to make excuses, but it's like, I'm very much of the. They should. I don't understand why they don't have a video game person at WWE who is saying, we need to do this. There's so much money in those hills to be able to have a live service that does this, that gets.

[Roger]

And they haven't talked about DLC at all. Right. Because Sleepy brings up a great point, like, can't wait to play as Penta. It's like, when is that going to be a launch? Like, fuck, no. There's no way.

[Greg Miller]

Again, again, on the phone call where I was in, somebody brought that up in terms of that. And they would. They did the deep side. Like, we know you haven't even seen the people on this roster, but we hear you because there was somebody asked about TNA or. Yeah, yeah, Tina. And they were like, well, you know, like, it's that thing of like, they can't help what's happening on this thing. You know what I mean? Where they go, yeah, I imagine Pence's dlc, but they have not announced any DLC specifics other than they're doing dlc.

[Blessing Adioye]

The devil's advocate on the business side, I'll give, is that the next year, WWE is marketing for 26. Like, oh, man. Oh, you know, you missed Penta. Guess what? Next year we're gonna have Penta in the game.

[Mike]

Yeah, right.

[Blessing Adioye]

Like, as you're living through the rest. The rest of the wrestling year, they're going to be those things where I'm like, oh, man, I can't wait for them to add that. I can't wait for them to add this. And then the next game is going to have all that stuff, but it will be missing whatever new wrestler is out in 2026.

[Roger]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

And this is always so fascinating about a game like wwe and maybe just fascinating about this game specifically, but it is the idea that everyone comes at this a different way. Like, before we were going live, somebody in the Twitch chat, I forgot your name, I apologize. Was like, oh, man, I really wish they'd send somebody hardcore like me to a preview event like this. I'm like, what the fuck you mean? And it's like, I play my universe and I have this Many hundreds of hours. Like, all right, yeah, that is a different thing where I, like, I never touch my universe. I tried, I've tried it every time. Never do it, you know, I mean, I'm doing expeditions, exhibition matches, I'm doing my rise, but even then, burning out on that, I'm playing with my friends and I do 60 to 80 hours at launch of all this stuff, right? And then I move on where it's like, I, I, I. There's definitely different angles for it and it's what walks us having into this conversation this year, like, what is my island? How I, I love.

[Tim Gettys]

What is it, Greg, We've been talking about this goddamn island. But for reals, for reals, like, what is the island of relevancy?

[Greg Miller]

We're gonna need snow. Mike. Mike in here. I'm sure at some point from the press release that came, I pulled two paragraphs. All right. WWE 2K25 also features an ambitious addition to the franchise for players on PlayStation 5 and Series X and X. The island, an interactive online WWE themed world that provides an immersive experience, allowing players the option of focusing on a single player experience with the ultimate goal of earning a position in the bloodline or interacting and competing with other players they encounter. The Island. This is a separate graph later on. The island, an interactive world made up of a series of areas built around different WWE themes. The island offers players the opportunity to explore and challenge other players while vying for. While vying to earn a WWE contract, impressing the original tribal chief, Roman Reigns by completing quests, taking on challenges, competing in live events, earning unlockables and upgrading and customizing my Superstars throughout multiple storyline chapters. The island allows players to step outside of the ropes and quote, unquote, rule beyond the ring.

[Tim Gettys]

I am so intrigued. But like, this is horrible, right?

[Blessing Adioye]

I mean, Mike, how's NBA 2K the neighborhood or whatever?

[Mike]

The neighborhood, the city now?

[Roger]

It's exciting.

[Mike]

Yeah, we, we stepped out from the mayor to the neighborhood. It's bigger now. I don't know. The press release that Greg reads you is all exciting. You're like, oh man, like this sounds crazy and exciting. So yeah, there's a piece of me that's. I mean, I love NBA 2K, my player. Right? I loved living out that dream in the neighborhood. I liked running around and going and play two on two, jumping into the pro am, what it brings to the game. But of course it's the microtransactions that I think everyone gets caught up and worried about. So yeah, that's why I'm kind of here to burst your bubble a little bit and bring back some reality of like what could be. But I'm excited to see what they could do here in a positive way.

[Roger]

So I'm just confused, like baseline, like what is my name? What are you doing in this?

[Greg Miller]

It sounds like my thought in Tell Me Where I'm Wrong Mike, but based on those two paragraphs, which is all we publicly know unless there's something I missed, feel free to super chat in a link or whatever. It sounds like we're creating a character. We're bringing the character this island and then I assume we are wrestling matches both against AI and against people to earn unlockables in this and that and try to do storyline to get, get, get the contract from Roman Reigns, I would assume.

[Mike]

I like this.

[Greg Miller]

You're as you go, you're earning attribute points. You are, you know, building on your character. You are becoming more powerful. You're doing these different things as you play this mode designed to get you into a PvE PvP experience.

[Roger]

Okay.

[Greg Miller]

And I assume, Kevin, can you pull.

[Tim Gettys]

Up some footage of the NBA 2K city please?

[Mike]

Yeah, I was going to send them somebody. Kevin, if you could look up NBA 2K the city.

[Roger]

Because when I just heard the relevancy island, I thought it was going to be like I think it's Mortal Kombat Annihilation or Deception or whatever. That was the only one I played where you play through and you get to the top and you beat Roman Reigns. Like that's what I thought it was going to be like. It was just like you're beating all these other. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

[Mike]

Being all the battle royale down to the top.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, yeah.

[Roger]

Well, no, but, yeah, well, not but yeah.

[Greg Miller]

So we're looking at it right here, Mike.

[Mike]

So now you're starting to look at what could be.

[Tim Gettys]

Right?

[Mike]

So this is your city. This is areas that you create your player and start running around the neighborhood. There are different buildings that have different offerings from the traditional park that you'll see. You'll have Pro Am, you'll have training ground. So it's different ways to play with your my player in this large shared universe. Right? We talk about trying to capture your audience, get them to hang out in different ways for longer periods of time. And no better way than creating a fun little like hub world that you've always dreamed of running around together.

[Tim Gettys]

So I'm a little concerned that we're watching this and the question I had is like, how does it look to walk around the city and that's not being answered.

[Mike]

It never looks good if you can get real gameplay, Kevin, maybe someone else's. It is always stuttery. Somebody will unlock a skateboard or a new like, RC mini car like Greg's son, and they'll zoom by you, but they'll also, like, do this, you know, and so it never quite looks right. But it is cool to see everybody look different.

[Blessing Adioye]

This is the NBA though, you know, wwe, they got this looks like a yacht.

[Mike]

No T shirts all the time. You know, it will be a different vibe, right? And so this is what it looks like.

[Tim Gettys]

Wait for this. It's gonna be horrible.

[Blessing Adioye]

It's gonna be trash. Oh, I can't.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, my God. Hoverboards don't work.

[Roger]

This looks like Infinite Wealth. And I mean that derogatory. Like, imagine this.

[Blessing Adioye]

Imagine this one is Roman Reigns on the skateboard.

[Greg Miller]

The occ. You're gonna be on the skateboard. It's gonna be your ass. Whatever tie and prime shirt you got for free for entering.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, my God.

[Mike]

We'll start with the concerns before we get to the positives, because I think there is some positives to definitely shine a light on to try to sway you in like the excitement side of things.

[Roger]

But like, huge.

[Mike]

Oh, yeah, bro. The city's massive. Now here's what I like Grand Theft Auto massive.

[Greg Miller]

I as we look at this, what year of the city slash this, this cycle are we on? Like, is it the third year, fourth year, fifth year?

[Mike]

Yeah, we're like the fourth year.

[Greg Miller]

So imagine how much smaller the island was. The island's their first time doing this. I don't expect the island to be humongous and have all this stuff. And while we're in it. So, yeah, just top level. I'm so curious about this because as long as it doesn't affect my other modes of wwe, the ones I care, what do I. What does it matter? But I do expect it to be hot trash. Like, I do expect it not to work well or be great. And I think it's going to be weird as fuck because like I was saying earlier, right, of like the same way the series brought wrestling to video games, we want to bring video games to wrestling. So what. What are the mini games we're doing in this video? Am I?

[Roger]

What?

[Greg Miller]

What?

[Roger]

I don't understand. Like, I, like, maybe I'm dumb. Like, what does that mean?

[Greg Miller]

Let me. Here's what I got for you. All right. Again, a bunch of video games wrestling. A bunch of contents up, right? Yeah. And this is from Nathan Birch over at WCCF Tech.

[Roger]

All right.

[Greg Miller]

Nathan over there has an interview with Lionel Jinx, right. From the development team. And he's asking a few questions. Right. I'm gonna jump into a paragraph I haven't fully read. And then I want to get to three questions I did read about the island. All right. With the introduction of. This is obviously WCCF Tech. With the introduction of the island hub and things that you don't necessarily see on WWE TV, like intergender wrestling, it seems like 2K25 is moving in the direction of letting fans live out the pro wrestling fantasies rather than being more straightforward sim. What's the thinking behind that? Lionel comes in and says, we always try to listen to our users and we've noticed what people are doing online after our game comes out. Kind of breaking the game in unexpected ways. By doing things like allowing inner gender matches, we can see it's something that people want. Right. We also know it's a totally different element of the game as far as matchups and replayability. And also you talked about the island, which allows us to scratch that itch of fantasy. We're already grounded. Simulation and representation of what you see on programming. I was surprised because we asked wwe and then they go on. Let me get to the section here where I actually get more questions in. Back to WCCF Tech, you said the WWE 2K25's island hub will have a storyline, but the Myri Story mode is also returning. If you're booting up WWE 2K25 for the first time, why choose one story over the other? Lionel says, like we've talked about, it's the difference between WWE program versus fantasy. Where my rise is based in the WWE world. What's happening right now, dot dot dot, the island allows us to kind of just lean into more fantasy. Okay, back to WCCF Tech. I know you may not be able to get deep into the island right now, but broadly speaking, what kind of activities can fan expect to engage in there? Lionel? Just traditional quests that you would expect from a mode like that. So literally this 2k stuff, right? And then WCC effect.

[Mike]

Bad answer.

[Roger]

Doing stuff that.

[Greg Miller]

The NBA 2K games have been doing these kind of of hubs like the city for a while now, and there have been complaints about how heavily they're monetized, how much of a grind is built into them. What's your approach to monetizing the island, Lionel? We're obviously looking at other games in this space and how they handle it and trying to learn some of those lessons. So I think we've hit a good sweet spot, similar to what we did with my faction and Persona cards, where it's like, yeah, you can pay money to do these things, but also you can kind of grind to do things and do things in a way that sometimes might be harder but probably will be fun too.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, you'll learn it. You'll learn it real quick.

[Greg Miller]

Mike can talk all the ways they fucked up 2k, NBA or NBA 2k, right? For my faction, like, I love my faction, I play my faction, and I don't buy packs. I don't give them real money. Right. When they do have these Persona cards where it is the. I'll buy the pack and unlock that card, and that would unlock another outfit in the game for every mode or whatever, which I'm like, oh, that's a neat thing. Because I don't care about having every Dominic Mysterio skin or everything. But, like, I can understand where people would be like, that sucks. I'd rather just buy it. I get all that. I get all that. I get all that. But I don't think it's egregious in my faction as a WWE player. But again, I play wwe, my faction, my way, and don't worry about it. Mike, back to you. Because it's egregious in NBA. Yeah.

[Mike]

Oh, yeah. It's real bad in NBA. It's not the best, but of course, remember, just like any PR answer, you can earn all of this. So if you want to grind, if you want to put in the time, you can earn all this. You don't have to spend any sort of money. And there are people out there that will tell you, no, I've. I've grinded. I've earned this. Right? And then there are people like me who's like, I'm not looking to put in a second job. I just want to jump in, have fun with my friends, and I need to be able to play at a certain level that makes it fun. Right. Playing an NBA 2K, for example, right. If you are 60, when you just jump into the neighborhood and Blessing is already 85 or Roger's 90, you are not playing at the same level as them, and it is not a fun experience.

[Tim Gettys]

Corey Pichu says, I typically spend about 200 on day one of NBA 2K to start Jesus at an 85 overall.

[Mike]

Yeah, it is about every year. Yeah, I brought up the microtransactions on my phone, but you will need a probably about 200 VC to get you up to standard level, which is minimum $50, but you're looking more at the range of like 50 to $100. There's some big question marks that I have for this wrestling one, of course, getting your player up to whatever rating that is going to allow. They won't let you go up to 99. You have to earn that. But you can buy VC to get some justice. You will probably spend. I bet you if we're going off of 2K standards, you will spend anywhere between 50 to 100 day one to jump in to get your player. You absolutely will. There will be a. See, here's what we're going to talk about. I think they're going to do it differently. I don't think they're going to hate you with that hard and stuff. Because it's year one. We want to kind of get you to bite onto the hook.

[Greg Miller]

I gave him 20 bucks, but like.

[Mike]

Yeah, I don't think they're going to start you off NBA 2K standards after 10 years of doing this. But I think you will be jumping in. There's some worries, right? You talk about your character that you create. Now when you look at NBA 2K, you also have all of the clothing that you'll wear along inside the island, right. That is in match clothing. That is outside of the match clothing. So this is all VC that you can of course earn or pay for straight up right there. And then then on top of that, you also have animations in 2K. They sell all of your animations in VC.

[Greg Miller]

What does that mean?

[Mike]

Of course. Think of like doing a layup in a different style. So that means you would do a suplex in a certain style. You put a headlock style.

[Roger]

Yeah.

[Mike]

These are all things because you want your player to be you. Right. You can earn them and do that or you can buy them. And so they are monetizing, but technically it's free. But like they are monetizing down to like the way you walk, the way that you strut. They're gonna probably do the way that you throw someone off the top of the ropes. They will try to get after.

[Greg Miller]

I want to just because that's right. I'm Greg Miller. So many of you followed me my entire 18 year career and you've known I've reviewed wrestling games that entire time and how much I love wrestling games before I ever got in here. We gotta draw a line in the fucking sand, everybody. All right? We gotta look at these. Goddamn NBA say we will not do this. If they steal animations from Create a Superstar and hide them here. And I gotta. We're not doing this. Everybody don't give them the money amount.

[Roger]

Of belts they're gonna put in this. It's gonna be crazy.

[Tim Gettys]

Dude.

[Roger]

It's gonna.

[Greg Miller]

Right now when you, you know, there's of course three different editions of the game, right? Standard dead man bloodline. It is what it is, right. They. They got. There's. They have the breakdown as you have to have it right. To make sure this all makes sense. And for whatever, one of the things you get would be the Wyatt six pack, right. They have the island cosmetics there listed as Uncle Howdy mask, Nikki Cross mask. The Deadman edition would give you in the island the Undertaker 95 mask. The bloodline edition would give you family above all hoodie, OTC shirt. Yeet, yeet. Tank top, Hell yeah. Yeet sunglasses. So all listed as cosmetics. No move, no nothing. No whatever. So we'll see.

[Mike]

Well, yeah, you buy all the animations to that, but like, how cool is that? I wonder what they're going to start you out as. Because we always make the joke in NBA 2K. They start you out in a full brown outfit and they say that you're working for ups. So that's like always the fun joke. So it'll be interesting to see like when you make this character and you arrive at the island, what is the generic outfit that you will be wearing? It's going to be so fun.

[Greg Miller]

I always obscene. Like you were at an event and you got bonked on the head and you woke up in the Island.

[Mike]

That is a good point.

[Tim Gettys]

Like I wonder how much lore and story there's going to be to this island. Like the idea that they're taking the island of Relevancy, a turn of phrase and turning it into a literal place excites me to no end. Like this. How so bad? And I can't wait to see like if it's fun bad.

[Roger]

I've never, I've never felt so deflated. Right. Because I truly thought that this was just a little single player fun little thing that was going on here. And then Mike's coming over here with the mic.

[Blessing Adioye]

Yeah.

[Roger]

Tell me like, oh, no.

[Mike]

Two options. You either go into my player and you commit to the city or you go into Ultimate Team. There's people who play play now and enjoy that. But like there are two lanes in these 2K games and you either go with I'm gonna buy card packs or I'm gonna spend money on my player and I'm gonna go do that.

[Greg Miller]

We have to have a line of the sand. This can't replace the fucking goddamn career mode. I want my normal career mode. Don't take away career mode.

[Mike]

Okay, that's what's happened here, right? They've morphed the two of them together, and you've lost that traditional story, which is what you're thinking of. With my rise, it's just become my player, which is shared with the city. That's why you see people running around with Jake from State Farm and B. Fab over there giving you a mission. Not the wrestler. BFAB. There's another BFAB in W2K.

[Roger]

Really?

[Mike]

They were giving you mission. Like, what's going on?

[Tim Gettys]

Sponsored missions.

[Mike]

Oh, yeah. Jake from State Farm wants you to run around the city and drop.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, you know.

[Roger]

You know, Logan Paul's gonna give you some prime.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, not a chance. They won't pay him enough to do that. And so, Kevin, I'm dropping into assets.

[Blessing Adioye]

Jake from State Farm is basically like, what sub? If you've seen Community, there's like, a character named Subway who's basically like, the brand personified. That's Jake from State Farm, where he just shows up at NBA games and he's hanging out with Drake.

[Greg Miller]

Can we get some volume on this one? Thank you, Kev. Love you. Hey, neighbor. Jake from State Farm.

[Blessing Adioye]

Oh, you hang out here, bro?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. Hey, right next to the court scene.

[Mike]

That's what it looks like. This is what we play every year.

[Greg Miller]

Speaking of being a good neighbor, like to welcome you to the city.

[Mike]

Very excited to have. It's the city, baby.

[Tim Gettys]

I am such a bad person. Because I can't wait.

[Mike]

I'm there every year, baby.

[Blessing Adioye]

This is like. Like when they sold the horse armor in sky in the.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adioye]

Back in the day, like, this was. This is basically like the nightmare. Everybody was afraid.

[Roger]

Yeah, exactly.

[Blessing Adioye]

And we're.

[Roger]

We're so mad.

[Mike]

The best part is, like, of course you want to be you. So, like, I would love him to call me, like, Mike or, like, Sick Nasty or any. Anything else. No, because we've morphed the career. Now you have to go off of their name. So that's been freak for frequency. They've now. They've just given up making up names for him, so they just call him mp, My player. So they just say, mp, mp. What up, mp? And you're like, no, just let me be my name.

[Roger]

So is there a boss in this situation? Because, like, they're doing the thing where Roman Reigns is, like, the boss of this area.

[Greg Miller]

You got to Impress them WWE contract.

[Mike]

So here's the fun part. Let's talk about some of the fun stuff that could happen. Because the catch is, is like you gotta remember that my player is exciting because you get to create your own player and play as them. Right? But going to the city has always been exciting because you get to play that kind of street ball nature that you don't get and play now or playing traditional game modes. Right. So we loved going out to the city to play 2 on 2, 3v3 basketball. How will they equate that to wrestling that's normally in a ring? I don't know. I bet you maybe it's a beach brawl and you're beating each other up on the beach with. You know. And then on top of that, I think what the cooler part is is, you know, I came from the NBA 2K community where there was community pro am tournaments where they started to organize and make their own 2k teams that would then compete on a nightly basis. I know I've seen on Tick Tock there are people that have a big fan base for WWE that will then create inside of this where it is my island. Every Tuesday night you can come out and compete in Greg's big wrestling event or whatever it is. I'll get a better that every single week they will show up and they will probably put on their own little mini hour show of different wrestlers coming in. They'll probably cut promos live on the mic and do that. Like there are cool things that you can create inside of this as the player to make this experience. I know it is all overwhelming and it sucks and trust me, it is not fun to play when you're doing that. But when you actually play, it is fun in a good time. It's just a lot of baggage what.

[Roger]

You'Re pitching there, at least a little bit. I see the future of it, right? Like I can see a world where they, hey, you start from the indies, right? And they have a lot of. WWE has a lot of connections now with indies or other promotions, right? I could see that world, right? But like I don't understand this with an island and with Roman Reigns and like I think it's going to be.

[Greg Miller]

Something as goofy as you got bopped on the head. The boogeyman put a spell and you went through a portal and you ended up here. Like it's going to be something. Again they're talking about it being fantasy and again they are saying at least this year you still have my rise. Like you still have the.

[Roger]

You're the missing branch of the bloodline. You don't even like.

[Tim Gettys]

You're like, you're the bastard child revealed.

[Roger]

Secret son.

[Tim Gettys]

God. Yeah, hold on. Real talk. Do we think Jake from State Farm is going to be on the island?

[Mike]

No, no, no. Jake took a lot of hate for that one.

[Tim Gettys]

Did he really?

[Mike]

Jake and stay farther. Took a lot of hate for that one.

[Greg Miller]

She's not like, that's a. They actually do a lot of NBA sponsors.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

You're gonna get. It's gonna be the cricket wireless guy. Those guys are gonna be there snapping into Slim Jims and like, it's gonna be on brand for that.

[Mike]

Yeah, it'll be cool to see. Like what? Like, of course, we always talk about like the Jordan brand, Nike, Puma, Reebok. Like, what will be the clothing brands in this shop? Yeah, it's just w. Generic shop. Like, they have to add more to entice me and Roger to give them $10 to then spend on something. Right.

[Greg Miller]

I was gonna say, what could they put in there to get you spending $10?

[Roger]

I'm not spending no $10 to this.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, a light hit you on the head. You woke up on the islands.

[Mike]

Just know that they have their best people on this job right now. They will figure out the code.

[Roger]

I will try this out. The way you're speaking about this is like kind of a Roger coated thing. Right? Where it's awful, but it's also kind of great. So, like I with it. So I'm gonna try it out.

[Blessing Adioye]

But I think you're gonna fall in love with it because I don't think in year one they're not. It's not gonna be the dystopian NBA 2K experience that Mike is talking about here.

[Greg Miller]

Right.

[Blessing Adioye]

Like, my faction in WWE doesn't feel overly monetized in the way that when I hear about ultimate team in NBA 2K or or in FIFA, like that shit sounds like a nightmare. We're not there yet. I think 10 years from now we will have Jason.

[Mike]

They're selling the same character but just in different outfits. They're getting there.

[Blessing Adioye]

That is true.

[Mike]

They are finding their rhythm here right now. And you're seeing that live and in person. Of like FIFA and NBA have the excuse of there's thousands of players. It's easy to do that wrestling. There's not as big of a pool. So it's like, okay, now I got to sell Tim five different ways. And it's like, oh, man. Like, now we're getting into some scummy territory here.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, man, this is fun stuff. I can't wait. Craig, when do you think, when does this game. So it comes out March 14th in March 7th.

[Greg Miller]

Early, right?

[Tim Gettys]

That's so close.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. They've got a new cycle going. Man, I love the new cycle, personally.

[Roger]

I just want it after WrestleMania. I just want the WrestleMania in this. I just can't. It's because.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, I see what you're doing.

[Roger]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

See, I honestly, I feel that and I understand that, but I, I love it right now in the build up to. It's part of the road to WrestleMania. You're like where every storylines are part of it.

[Roger]

You know what I mean? Like, that's the issue with it.

[Greg Miller]

But that's I, I again, this is strictly a personal thing. I'm just like, yeah, well, I'm watching those on tv.

[Roger]

I want to play the thing.

[Greg Miller]

I'm doing my rise to see what Xavier woods sent me to the wrong arena and I'm pissed at him. You know what I mean?

[Roger]

New Day's new intro's not gonna be there. Right?

[Blessing Adioye]

You know what I mean?

[Roger]

Like, it's just like all these things.

[Blessing Adioye]

That I've watched game though, you know?

[Roger]

Yeah, yeah. Get hyped for 20 so then that all that stuff is old when they get a new new for the thing. Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

It's funny because if I was, you know, if I was an actual WWE Superstar, if I was doing things with the company and entering anything, I would have like a lock where I'm just like, oh, we ain't changing. I want to be in the game as accurately as possible. So I am not changing anything until this date. Like, like for New Day to be turned late. This late. It's like, no, that. I don't like that at all.

[Tim Gettys]

So Greg, when do you expect to that we're going to first see the island itself?

[Roger]

Oh, shit.

[Greg Miller]

I mean, this month.

[Blessing Adioye]

Launch day, right?

[Roger]

This month after launch day.

[Greg Miller]

After launch day, WWE on WWE 2K has confirmed, I guess IGN confirmed IGN has a first on the Underground underground wrestling. Have you seen these clips yet?

[Tim Gettys]

No.

[Greg Miller]

Kevin, can you click? Did I give you the IGN video preview? I don't think I did, actually. If you can go to the IGN video preview in scrub to the end, they have footage of the new underground mode, which is the ring. No ropes and people surrounding the ring, like pounding on it and stuff while you brawl inside of it or whatever. And that's the next. That, that what, Kevin? Because they gotta switch. Oh, no, no. I'm sorry, buddy. I'll link, you go to IGN's YouTube.

[Blessing Adioye]

Is that a thing that happened in real life? Is that, like, based on a real match?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, they've done a lumberjack match, but without.

[Tim Gettys]

No, no, I've never seen a match without ropes.

[Roger]

Have I seen a match without rope?

[Blessing Adioye]

Because, like, the way I imagine it, too, they're like chanting, yeah, oh, hold on.

[Greg Miller]

And then you're there. The ring is all red.

[Blessing Adioye]

There's like lava pits.

[Greg Miller]

Page, because. Yeah, right here. There you go. Perfect.

[Roger]

What? Oh, fuck is happening?

[Blessing Adioye]

Okay, this is less exciting than I imagined.

[Greg Miller]

Well, I mean, they're doing introductions right now.

[Roger]

I mean, there's just a bunch of random. It's like six random people just around the ring. Anyways, real quick, has the table.

[Blessing Adioye]

Have you been able to light a table on fire?

[Greg Miller]

Oh, for a long time? Yeah.

[Roger]

That's pretty cool.

[Greg Miller]

Anyways, I'm not. My point is that IGN says they have an exclusive on that, I think on Saturday, the next few days, something like that. So it's like, that's a beat already. So you figure island next week, the week after, they're going to finally have to get into this thing or they hide it the entire way. They're just like, we got a really cool thing.

[Tim Gettys]

There we go.

[Greg Miller]

This is it.

[Roger]

Oh, fuck. Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

This is the fantasy.

[Mike]

Oh, this is the job. That looked exactly like this idiot to me.

[Greg Miller]

Kevin, go back and give me a free frame.

[Roger]

Go back a little bit. Yeah, yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

This is sick, dude.

[Blessing Adioye]

This is actually kind of sick.

[Mike]

You're going to be running around underneath that, and that's going to be. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Roger]

You see, you see two guys. You see two generic guys right there. Yeah.

[Mike]

There's going to be different fighters.

[Greg Miller]

You got the hall of Fame over to the left there. Yeah, I.

[Blessing Adioye]

With Roman reign so heavy that, like, I might. I might have to get into this. I might beat the island.

[Roger]

Listen, we love ign, right? But, like, give us the first next time.

[Greg Miller]

Give us the first. Give us a first time. Why did you give us us today, Roger? Like, do you get. You have any clips? Like, oh, yeah, I guess I brought home two memory cards. I'll cut stuff up, put it on Twitter to then get our footage where we need to be.

[Tim Gettys]

Greg, any. Any final words on this?

[Greg Miller]

I'm excited as always. Again, I like. I like this placement of it. In the run up to Wrestlemania, we're all juice, we're all jazz. This is going to be fun. My main hope is that this island thing is there, good, bad or otherwise, and it just doesn't affect the other stuff. I'm hoping it's good. I like goofy ass shit. Like, again, like, if it's. I got hit on the head, I'm at Smackdown with my sign and a light fell and hit me and I wake up on the. I like, yeah, okay, cool. Let's go. I don't mind that I got my rise. I got. Just don't take away the things I already like and think you do well. But also, I hope the island doesn't hamper the progress of them. Like, Mike's talking about of, like the playground taking over the story mode or whatever. Like, let's not do that. Let's keep that going.

[Tim Gettys]

And to close out the episode, we have a super chat from Koba that says my business teacher at ISU claims that she's the one who got Jake into 2K. She did this?

[Mike]

Yep.

[Blessing Adioye]

That's awesome. Good for the most underrated aspect, I think of Snowback Mike, is how good you are as a microtransaction correspondent.

[Mike]

I'm telling you, I. I just hope that it's fun and dumb because I. I look forward to our stream where we run around and laugh at all of this. Right?

[Roger]

Yeah.

[Mike]

And I. I do think they have a possibility here of making it awesome. I just don't know. I'm not a big enough wrestling guy to understand how you can make wrestling in that kind of world. Right. Because you have street basketball, you have the Pro am normal circuit. I just don't know how you can do that. I think when it's like, you have to be in a ring and you have to tap. Okay, how do we do?

[Greg Miller]

I mean, I think it's. I think it's way simpler than you think it is. Like, and I. My rise does it already. The MyRise stories, if you don't play through them, are actually very interesting because it is like, oh, man, I washed out of wwe. So I'm gonna go to the uk. I'm gonna go to Mexico. And you wrestle in these new arenas and all these different things that have been unlocking for the game. So it's like in this, especially the way it looks, right, there's themed areas. If it's the hall of Fame, I'm sure in the hall of Fame there's a ring and you walk in there.

[Roger]

And you go, channel. He's waiting.

[Greg Miller]

Hey, you want some beer? You boo. There's a booing mini game.

[Mike]

I really hope they bring the Gatorade training facility. Y'all don't know about that, but you could actually train your character. Like, think GTA blast back in the day where you just smash and you do bicep curls. You can like run 40 yard dashes in there. You can do squats. I mean they'll have that prime that helps you recover.

[Greg Miller]

See, I think that's part of it, right, where it's going to be the rings to fight PvP because you. PvP and the other thing. Yeah, so it's PvP for that. You probably do PlayStation Home and get your own area to have your own thing to set up your own. Maybe, maybe that's down the line. Not this year. But I think that it's going to be.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Like what do you do in wrestling? Right? So you. All right, who can go through this obstacle course to climb this thing? Like you'd climb the ropes as fast as possible. Like who can. There's some spearing mini game, you know what I mean? Roman Impress Roman Reigns. It's kind of like this.

[Mike]

We're brainstorming it. We're building it right now.

[Greg Miller]

Two K's like, oh, great idea, great idea.

[Mike]

This is it, bro.

[Tim Gettys]

This is Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, man. This is the kind of.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah. And I mean like working out's part of being a wrestler, sadly. Right? So there's probably.

[Blessing Adioye]

Interesting to note that sadly, I'd be.

[Greg Miller]

Such a great wrestler if I'd have to work out. I miss my calling you. Look at Earthquake and Typhoon. You're like, damn, why wasn't I a wrestler in the 80s? I. Whatever I want.

[Blessing Adioye]

I could have done steroids.

[Greg Miller]

Bastion Booger.

[Blessing Adioye]

Interesting to note this isn't on PC. The island isn't on PC.

[Roger]

Wait, what?

[Blessing Adioye]

Yeah, the game is, but not the island mode.

[Greg Miller]

The island is strictly on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.

[Roger]

And I'm playing on Steam. I'm playing on PC because I want to.

[Blessing Adioye]

You're gonna miss out on the Island.

[Greg Miller]

You're missing the Island.

[Roger]

I might get two codes, you know, I might try it out on the Island. But then I also, you know, I want to mod everything. I want to get and get in there. I want to get in the kernels.

[Tim Gettys]

In them Colonels, everybody. And I need you to get in the comments. Let us know. Are you hyped for the Island? Are you going to have Roman Reigns acknowledge you?

[Greg Miller]

Think about it like you. I mean that's like so many times like, oh man, thank God I came up when I came up because obviously youtubing and podcasting and talking about video games, but if I hadn't, I'd be fucking be Earthquake. I'd be out there right now.

[Blessing Adioye]

Doing what to the earthquake blessing?

[Greg Miller]

I sent you important slack.

[Blessing Adioye]

I know. I saw it. I like it. He just sent me a slack with the Roman Reigns statue.

[Greg Miller]

That's. That's a high res.

[Roger]

That's what I'm saying.

[Blessing Adioye]

This might be my new laptop. Background.

[Tim Gettys]

Well, everybody, we're going to hang out. We're going to keep today going. We're going to get some fun streams for you all. Do you know what you're doing?

[Mike]

Yeah, we're playing the headliners.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, check that out. That's going to be a lot of fun. Everyone, until next time, though, it's been our pleasure to serve you. Goodbye.