A former writer of the WWE games expresses his regrets in bashing theWWE 2Kseries publicly. This was voiced by Justin Leeper, who was heavily involved during theSmackdown vs. Rawseries (before its rebrand toWWEandWWE 2K) as a writer, director, stunt coordinator, and other positions when he was working with Yuke’s. His most notable roles in these games would be forSmackdown vs. Raw’s Road to Wrestlemania Story Modesin the 2009-2011 entries, withWWE 12being the last iteration of this mode and Leeper having no involvement in its development. However, one of the most critical things he had voiced regarding WWE-branded games was the release ofWWE 2K20.A few years ago, during the release of theWWE 2K20, Leeper released a series of videos that detailed his perspective on Yuke’s being dropped in favor of Visual Concepts for theWWE 2Kseries of games. These videos got a lot of traction, especially whenWWE 2K20released to an overwhelmingly negative reception, between game-breaking bugs, poor PR management, and many more issues, making it one of the worst reviewed games of 2019. These videos from Leeper were publicly critical of theWWE 2Kseries, which have since been made private. These were something that the former writer had expressed regret in releasing.RELATED:WWE 2K23 Creation Suite Bringing Back Advanced Custom EntrancesThis tweet from Leeper was made in response to an interview that was released earlier this month, where it covered theregrets from a formerHalf-Lifewriterwho shared a story summary for the fabledEpisode 3. Marc Laidlaw, the writer of the summary, expressed how he was “deranged” for releasing it and causing issues for his colleagues in the industry and how it wasn’t reflective of the actual plot for the nextHalf-Life. Similarly, Leeper noted that his videos aboutWWE 2K20were a case of him burning bridges with the franchise.
Leeper stated that whilehis perspective onWWE 2K20was honest and that he had met many people in the industry, the story shouldn’t have been coming from him, but the other employees who were involved in the game’s development. He also states that instead of burning the bridges he built when he worked with the WWE games, he should have tried to help improve 2K from within instead. He also asks other members of the entertainment industry to learn from his mistakes.
The result ofWWE 2K20’s critical bomb did end up resulting in the next entry skipping a 2021 entry and instead jumping to2K22, with the upcomingWWE 2K23looking to drop next week. Moreover, Leeper is still active with the WWE games fan community, along with still being a full-time actor, such as being the motion capture artist for Deadman in Kojima Productions’Death Stranding.
WWE 2K23releases March 17 on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
