It’s been no secret that the launch of WWE 2K20 was a rocky one, and that’s putting it nicely. And now things appear to be going from bad to worse for the franchise.
According to a former writer on the Smackdown vs. Raw — which became WWE 2K — series, at least 10 developers have left the franchises’ development studio Visual Concepts.
Justin Leeper stated in a posted video that he’s “heard about double digit numbers of people on the team who quit.”
He continued: “They haven’t quit for other stuff. They just quit because it’s like, “Man, I don’t want this stink on me anymore. I don’t care what I’m doing. I’m leaving. I’m taking my stuff and going.””
But that wasn’t everything as Leeper made note that the future of the WWE 2K series is in question, especially when it comes to WWE 2K21.
“2K20 is selling poorly. It’s doing poorly all around, and that means that the budget is going to be cut. It means that 2K21 is going to have to be made with much less money. Which means less money to fix things, less money to innovate, and now there’s about 10 less people on the team. So as you can tell, the outlook for 2K21 isn’t very good either.”
To add more to this, a source close to the game’s development told SGO that as of now, WWE 2K21 will be moving forward as planned. They added that no one on the current team has been told anything about cuts or a cancellation of next year’s release which is currently in development.
“We are in a place of status quo,” the source said. “People have left, but we aren’t aware of them not being replaced. If something is going to happen [to us or the game], it hasn’t been announced here yet.”
Sports Gamers Online has reached out to 2K for comment on the report. Should a response be received, the story will be updated accordingly.
WWE 2K20 released in a nearly unplayable state that resulted in refunds having to be given to players under the claims of “false pretenses”. Since then, the game has seen a few updates to address the issues plaguing the game. However, that didn’t seem to solve most of the problems that fans have been experiencing.
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