It has been a great week for us WWE games fans. Many details on the upcoming WWE 2K17 came out of the two major 2K community events: Cologne's Gamescom and the 2K Press event in New York City. Here's a massive WWE 2K17 news round-up we put together for you, recapping all the new information we found out.
Fighting In The Crowd and Backstage Brawls
- Crowd Fighting and the Backstage Areas are connected, so that means that you can seamlessly transition from the arena to backstage and viceversa.
- You can enter the crowd area at anytime by pressing L1 near the barricade, you do not need to first break the barricade with an OMG moment.
- You can walk to the stage, climb up the stage and dive off the stage.
- You can only go Backstage in 1 on 1 matches, and obviously only in matches where there is no DQ or Count Out.
- Contrary to what previously rumored, WWEGames confirmed on Twitter that Female Superstars will also be able to backstage brawl and fight in the crowd.
- The Backstage is made of: a long hallway running north / south, with rooms on the side: there is a Locker Room, the Authority office and the Gorilla Position.
- There also is the Interview Area in the back with Renee Young and a Superstar, and they run away as you get closer to them.
- For now there is no Parking Lot or cars, but they might be added next year.
- As an alternative to slamming an opponent into a location, you can also press L1 to open doors and move from area to area.
- There are a few new Skills/Abilities pertaining to Backstage Brawls and several specific OMG Moments.
- If you're using Triple H in a Backstage Brawl, you will encounter someone else coming out of the Authority Office.
- A split screen feature has been implemented in 1 on 1 matches when players are far away from each other. It triggers not only in Backstage Areas but also in the Arena.
New Moves & Animations
- Springboard Finishers / Signatures from the Apron Ring have been added to the game as a new Position.
- For example, AJ Styles has the Phenomenal Forearm as one of his two finishers
- AJ Styles' Signatures are the Calf Crusher and the Pele Kick, which has been re-animated as well.
- AJ Styles' Spiral Tap is also in the game as a Top Rope Move
- Another new move in the game is Seth Rollins' Superplex+Falcon Arrow Combo
- Brock Lesnar's F5 has been re-animated.
- There are tons of brand new awesome animations and moves for the Ladder Match all around, making the match type feel completely fresh and more realistic.
Ringside Finishers
- Superstars now have two Ringside Signatures and Finishers, in order to give players alternative moves if their signature/finisher required to be in a specific position in the ring.
- For example, Nakamura has different variations of the Kinshasa, while Del Rio’s Corner Enziguri is replaced with a second Armbar.
New Taunt System
Taunts have been revamped and they now have a bigger gameplay purpose. There are two types of Taunts:
- Crowd Taunt: if you execute a Taunt facing the direction of the Crowd, you get a Momentum Boost.
- Opponent Taunt: if you execute a Taunt looking towards your opponent, you get a temporary Damage Boost instead.
Taunts from the Top Rope and from the Apron have been reintroduced, and you can now also taunt in the Corner.
Breakout Improvements
- Entrance Breakouts have been expanded also to Post-Match: You can now attack your opponent even after the match has ended, interrupting the victory celebration and delivering a post-match beatdown.
- If you attack a Champion during a breakout, the Championship Belt doesn’t disappear like in WWE 2K16, but you can now use it as an object to hit the opponent.
- While in WWE 2K16, Breakouts could only be triggered by the player, now also the A.I. will occasionally breakout and attack the player during his entrance.
Roll Out in multi-man matches
- As we know, a new improvement in WWE 2K17 multi-man matches is the Roll-Out System.
- When a character is on the receiving end of a big move or takes a big bump, he will roll out of the ring to recover from the damage.
- The amount of time it takes for the character to recover depends on how much damaged he is and the level of his stamina bar.
- When in this position, the choice of when to get up is yours: you can either wait until you’re fully recovered, and that will give you a boost when you return to the ring; or you have the option to “break out” and get back in the action early, for example that might be your only choice to interrupt a pin attempt, but that will give you a “penalty” on your stamina/momentum, leaving you open to be attacked again.
Ladder Match Mini-game
- In order to grab the briefcase/championship and win the Ladder Match, there is a new Lock Pick minigame where you have to get the cursor inside a moving opening inside a circle. When you hit the spot you fill up the meter until you end up taking the briefcase down.
- The meter remains filled up regardless of who tries to complete the minigame, so for example you could let somebody else do all the “dirty work”, then knock him down the ladder at the last minute and steal the victory.
MyCareer
- In WWE 2K17, you will be able to choose to start MyCareer Mode directly on the Main Roster, if you don't want to go through NXT first.
- As revealed before, there is a new Promo System: now what you say in interviews actually matters and alters how the story unfolds.
- You can be attacked during your promo / interview.
- There are new abilities related to the Promo feature:
- Brawl: "Attack the opponent during a promo and transition into Brawl".
Stare Down: "Temporarily reduce the amount of points the opponent can earn during the next node. This can be used one time per promo. The opponent’s score for the next node will be reduced to 85%".
- Brawl: "Attack the opponent during a promo and transition into Brawl".
- What we can extrapolate from the above is that you’ll be able to have back-and-forth arguments with rival wrestlers, where some kind of scoring system defines who’s winning.
Roster Additions & Details
- Sheamus, Alberto Del Rio, Kevin Owens, Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns have been officially confirmed for the WWE 2K17 Roster. Renee Young is confirmed as NPC.
- During an interview, Bryce Yang has also confirmed the American Alpha for the game Roster (Chad Gable & Jason Jordan).
- The 4 Superstars available in the Gamescom Demo have the following Overalls: Seth Rollins - 93, Dean Ambrose - 90, AJ Styles - 89, Kevin Owens - 86.
Other miscellaneous information
- The Menu and interface is completely new and revamped compared to previous years.
- The Character Select Screen and Match-up Screens no longer feature real-life pictures, but now use the actual in-game character models of the Superstars. This will help Created Superstars in not feeling out of place compared to the in-game Roster.
- This also affects the in-match HUD for the better: the small image of the wrestler’s face has now been replaced with the figure which shows off limb, body and head damage - a longstanding element of the series, but one that only flashed up briefly in the latest games.
- There is now Commentary during Loading Match-up Screens, with the announcers discussing the upcoming match while it loads.
- OMG Moments are now performed with R1+triangle instead of just triangle, to avoid confusion with performing Finishers.
- The Referee has new animations, and when he gets knocked out he stays down longer compared to the past few editions of the game.
- A late PC version of the game has been confirmed.
More information on the WWE 2K17 game modes and Roster will be revealed in the next weeks, so stay tuned on SDH and keep an eye on our Twitter account for live updates!
Sources and credits: TheSmackDownHotel.com, 2K Forums, TubbyEmu, FranzZockt, GamesRadar.com
