"WWE 2K17," this year's edition of WWE's long-running wrestling sim is almost upon us, and that means it's already time for the season of roster reveals.
IGN broke the news and announced that the following will be in "WWE 2K17": Aiden English, Booker T, WCW, ECW, and WWE legend the late Brian Pillman, Brie Bella, Chris Jericho, Diego and Fernando (who are now back to being called as Primo and Epico, the Shining Stars; it remains to be seen whether 2K can change this before release), former Wyatt Family member Erick Rowan, Heath Slater, the Usos, Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart, Konnor, American Wrestling Association legend Larry Zybszko, Nikki Bella, R-Truth, Simon Gotch, Ultimate Warrior and Viktor.
Here's the thing with this slate of "WWE 2K17" reveals, however: because guys like Brock Lesnar and John Cena and other top stars are already known to be going into the game, it's hard to make fans both casual and hardcore care about the midcarders, aka the not-so-big superstars in the WWE. There are some interesting names in there, such as Booker T, Brian Pillman, and Larry Zybszko (who wouldn't be one of my first choices for a current-gen wrestling game unless it was about legends), but fans are clamoring for new names they haven't played yet. (We know AJ Styles will be in the game, but you'd think he'd be one of the first to be revealed to draw people in.)
Current and former "WWE NXT" stars Apollo Creed, Nia Jax, and Shinsuke Nakamura will be making their first "WWE 2K" appearances in the NXT Edition of "WWE 2K17," but assuming they won't be bundled at all in the regular edition of the game, it's hard to get excited for those who just want to pick that version up. Hopefully they can be playable by all at some point.
On an unrelated note, character models as a whole look a lot better on next-gen versions of "WWE 2K17," which is a huge leap from what they looked like in "WWE 2K16." Last year's models looked like they were ported over from the Playstation 2 generation of WWE games, perhaps as a result of 2K including as many people on the roster as possible. A better overall look might mean that number might be trimmed down, but if it means the game looks better, that's fine with us.
It also looks like fighting in the crowd will return to "WWE 2K17." That part of hardcore matches hadn't been in the series since "WWE SmackDown vs. RAW 2011."
We'll have more updates about the "WWE 2K17" roster for you as they get revealed in the coming weeks!