World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and publisher 2K have finalized a five-year licensing agreement for 2K Sports to produce a set of annual WWE 2K wrestling games, according to ESPN.
The first entry in the series, WWE 2K14, is on track to release this fall, according to the report. WWE '13 developer Yuke's will stay on as the primary developer for 2K14, working with 2K Sports developer Visual Concepts.
"With Yukes, we have a lot of history, and we've been very happy with what Yukes has done in the past," said WWE vice president of consumer products Casey Collins. "What we're going to do moving forward is meld Yukes with the team at Visual Concepts, so we can have the best of both worlds. Having Yukes' experience and then getting the Visual Concepts guys on board with them, we think this is going to be a dynamic duo."
Though there was no word on what platforms the new series would make it's debut, Collins said WWE had next-gen platforms in mind when they decided to work with 2K: "As we look at the next-gen systems coming out, we want to make sure we align our property with who we thought would be a leader going forward on these next-gen systems."
The deal comes months after the four companies connected to the deal-2K parent company Take-Two, WWE, Yuke's, and THQ-filed to transfer the rights for the game's development in bankruptcy court last week. THQ, longtime publisher of the WWE franchise, was dissolved earlier this year after it's assets were sold repay its creditors. Though THQ had sold off all of the propriatary under its control, the rights to the WWE license returned to the league. Meanwhile, the right's to Yuke's game, what had been WWE '14 and is now WWE 2K14, was still technically THQ's property.