Former WWE Game Writer on What went wrong with WWE 2K20

In an interview with Inside the Ropes, Smackdown vs RAW writer Justin Leeper spoke about what went wrong with WWE 2K20, which was universally criticized upon release. Here are the highlights:

On the lack of time: “Well, that was a really tough situation because whoever you thought was on the timeline, Yuke was no longer on the project for 2K20 and they were still on the project for 20 years. They built the car that shoots the game in stores every year and when you don’t have the driver and the mechanic there and you’re trying to put someone else in the driver’s seat, it’s still going to be difficult and especially with such weather. bite. “

On the importance of Yuke: “Yuke had flaws, but what they did was always work really hard. I was going to visit them in January, in Yokohama, and there were people sleeping under their desks at the time. It’s heartbreaking how hard they had to work, but also, they had to work hard to get that kind of production to make these kinds of games. Say what you want about the scale of the show, what’s good, what’s bad, and what you feel like a cookie cutter or whatever – making a game in 11 months is very difficult. Yuke took most of this pressure and they did well and were always kind and always humble and always nice to work with.

On Visual Concepts not being equipped to take over: “When you get rid of these people, you have to fill them in, you have to replace them with someone. Visual Concepts just wasn’t equipped to do the kind of production and make the kind of sacrifices that I think Yuke made to release these games. It’s so difficult for them to do that was taken for granted and I think when we saw that they weren’t there… and that’s their engine! They built it, that there were some rusty bolts and duct tape holding things together, they put it together and they knew it better than everyone else. So for a California company to sit down there and try to take the helm, it’s a losing prospect, but it had to do something. I don’t apologize for the game for coming out in the situation, but I do know what goes into making games, and these games in particular, and how precious Yuke was.