WWE 2K25

My kids have no idea who half these wrestlers are, but they still wander over and watch when I load up a Royal Rumble in Universe Mode. Thirty created wrestlers beating each other with a folding chair reads as pure spectacle even without any storyline context. The MyGM management mode is deeper than it has any right to be, and Community Creations lets you build custom characters that end up more memorable than the licensed roster. Fair warning: WWE 2K25's online servers are scheduled to sunset at the end of 2026, which matters if Universe Mode's online features or Community Creations sharing is the reason you're buying it. Offline, none of that changes. It's still the biggest wrestling sandbox on Xbox.

WWE 2K25 is the game you put on when six people are in your living room and half of them do not care about games. Everyone knows wrestling. The controls for a basic match are learnable in two minutes, and watching someone execute a finisher on a friend is a social moment regardless of whether anyone has touched a fighting game before. It missed the top 10 because the online competitive side is less compelling than Chivalry or Mortal Kombat, and the depth for serious players is unevenly distributed. As a couch multiplayer option for a broad group, though, it is one of the best straightforward downloads in the catalog.

WWE 2K25 is the oddball sports pick, but it stays in because its long-term modes are legitimately sticky. Universe Mode and the creation suite let you run WWE like a sandbox season, and you can lose hours setting up rivalries and tweaking rosters. In-ring, timing counters and managing momentum can feel great in a competitive match with agreed settings. Still, it ranks lower because it’s not a pure sport sim, and balance gets messy fast. Created content, custom movesets, and online rule tweaks can turn “skill match” into “what even happened?”