A week after Resident Evil Requiem, the new machine release keeps on rolling. Up next: WWE 2K26, which is currently in Early Access via its Attitude Era and Monday Night War (Deluxe and Special) Editions. Already, the game is primed to be one of the highest-rated titles since the Smackdown vs. Raw era.
That, however, has not stopped the game from being criticized, and one thing that’s proving to be an early thorn in the side of gamers is how WWE 2K26 is handling DLC.
Street Fighter 6 Has A DLC Problem
Terry Bogard is sick, but Capcom’s DLC strategy isn’t doing it for me.
For background, in past WWE titles, the DLC took the form of a Season Pass, something not too uncommon for fighting games. Pay an upfront fee, and over the course of a year, multiple characters will join the roster.
However, things are changing, beginning with this year’s version. Instead, the DLC takes the form of multiple Season Passes, dubbed Ringside Passes. They don’t expire, so if you’re late to the boat, then you’ll always have access to them. But they do require an obscene amount of grinding in order to unlock every character that normally would’ve been DLC.
If $150 Doesn’t Get You All The DLC, Then What’s The Point?
Right now, Ringside Pass 1 is available, and the following characters are available: El Hijo del Vikingo, Flammer, Mr. Iguana and Psycho Clown. There are 40 tiers to go through, and XP is earned by playing the game.
That said, if you go up and down the r/WWEGames subreddit, you’ll find no shortage of people finding out that the grind for the first Ringside Pass is far more than they bargained for.
“For a daily grind, we have work, housekeeping and other things we do in our daily life,” one gamer wrote. “A game should be fun, not a suffering like this. A message to all players, stop supporting game companies that do this kind of practice.”
That you could go through WWE 2K26’s entire Showcase mode and still be stuck in the lower tiers is also similarly not sitting well.
“I did the whole Showcase, some My Rise, a few play matches, and a good amount of Universe, and I’m at Tier 10. This is gonna suck,” another user wrote.
Of course, there are those who’ve already managed to beat the first Ringside Pass, and it only took 240 matches. That’s also with them fudging with the in-game sliders, something that 2K will undoubtedly patch up down the line.
Yes, this is meant to be played out over the course of several weeks. Still, that you’d need to play 240 matches for the first pass and rinse and repeat five more times to unlock everything feels a bit egregious.
Again, and we can’t stress this enough, all this happens after you buy the most expensive edition of the game. Ouch.
If Players Could See Highguard’s Failure Coming, Why Couldn’t Anyone Else?
Wildlight Entertainment has confirmed that Highguard will being offline next week.
