WWE 2K21 isn't happening.
WWE confirmed the news Thursday on an investor call, when asked if the 2K game would be in the budget for this year, saying that the game wasn't on the slate.
The original report emerged over a week ago when Smackdown vs. Raw writer Justin Leeper reported the news.
Former WWE SmackDown vs. Raw video game series writer Justin Leeper posted a video on YouTube claiming he's heard from reliable sources that WWE 2K21 has been canceled. Leeper continued, 2K is publishing a different kind of WWE game from a different developer that's not Visual Concepts. Leeper went on to say that WWE 2K22 won't be released on next generation consoles.
Leeper previously reported that the budget for WWE 2K21 would be slashed and developers had quit after the release of WWE 2K20, which underperformed in sales and was heavily criticized by fans due to glitches. Yuke's and 2K split months before the game was set to release, which reportedly contributed to the problems in WWE 2K20.
WWE 2K20 received considerable backlash after the game did not live up to the standards of many, and outright wouldn't function for many others.
WWE Games sent out the following tweet on Thursday night:
We will be sharing details on the future of the WWE 2K franchise as well as some exciting news on Monday at 7:00 a.m. PT.
— #WWE2K20 (@WWEgames) April 24, 2020
2020 will be the first year since 1997 that WWE hasn't had a home console video game release.
Fightful will have an exclusive story in the coming weeks about Virtual Basement's new 3D wrestling game creation, which is now the primary next-gen effort in production
