With Yukes leaving the WWE 2K wrestling franchise after two decades to go it alone on their own wrestling title, WWE competitor AEW looking to release its own licensed title and 2K itself doing a grand job of mucking up the WWE 2K franchise with WWE 2K20, some new blood on the wrestling video game would certainly be welcome.
Unearthed by wrestling video game specialist channel Smacktalks, North American developer Virtual Basement, who most notably helped Studio Wildcard develop and release Ark: Survival Evolved, is currently working on an untitled wrestling title of their own.
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Pitched as a hybrid of the WWF No Mercy and WWE Smackdown Here Comes The Pain titles with a dash of their own innovation, Virtual Basement would look set to offer something of a decent alternative to the WWE 2K heavy status quo.
Obviously with the WWE and AEW rosters being exclusive to those respective companies, Virtual Basement has had to build its roster of nearly 60 wrestlers from the indie scene and other organisations such as Impact Wrestling and Ring Of Honor.
Still early in development, Virtual Basement has managed to sign 29 male wrestlers and a single female wrestler – with the latter looking to expand greatly as development goes on. The following wrestlers that have signed contracts to appear in Virtual Basement’s untitled wrestling title include:
- Anthony Greene
- Bear Country
- Brian Cage
- Brian Pillman Jr.
- Bull James
- Caprice Coleman
- Fallah Bahh
- Gabby Ortiz
- Jonathan Gresham
- Kenny King
- Kongo Kong
- Leo St. Giovanni
- Matt Sydal
- Matt Taven
- O’Shay Edwards
- Shaheem Ali
- Shawn Donovan
While the project is so early on that no actual in-game models exist, Smacktalks did come into possession of some character model previews belonging to wrestlers Shaheem Ali and O’Shay Edwards which you can see below:
What’s quite impressive about these character models is that they’ve all been rendered by hand, rather than scanning techniques the 2K has typically elected to use for its WWE 2K franchise.
Finally, Smacktalks also confirms that Virtual Basement is using Unreal Engine 4 to develop the game and with the title so early on in development, it seems like a lock for a release on PS5.
You can catch the full video below:
Source: Smacktalks