For more on WWE 2K16, check out our full WWE 2K16 review. Or, for more of the best Playstation 4 games for a 7 year old, why not try our Family Game Finder
What is WWE 2K16?
WWE 2K16 is an officially licensed wrestling game that lets you duke it out in the ring with your favourite superstars and divas. With a roster of over 120 characters to choose from, spanning several decades of stars, from Bret Hart and the Macho Man Randy Savage through to John Cena, Randy Orton and Sheamus, there's a great selection of stars to get to grips with here - and if you have a favourite, they're probably in here.
How do you play WWE 2K16?
Letting you take part in matches every bit as spectacular as their TV equivalents, WWE 2K16 has a wide variety of modes for you to sink your teeth into.
For those looking for a single player attraction, the 2K Showcase mode lets you play through a career retrospective of Stone Cold Steve Austin, one of the biggest WWE stars of all time, from his inception in WCW through the dark ECW days, and onto superstardom in the WWE. With dozens of memorable matches to play through, most of which are supported by their own fancy TV style video package (and bonus objectives to complete that unlock extra wrestlers, arenas and outfits), there's a lot of fun to be had here. For local multiplayer fun, up to four players can grab a controller and join in the action on a single console, letting you have full family tag matches without risking a scratch.
How easy is WWE 2K16 to pick up and play?
In terms of accessibility, WWE 2K16 is fairly straightforward, with one button letting you strike your opponent, another letting you grapple, and a third letting you Irish whip them. Various moves are performed by holding the analogue stick in a certain direction at the same time as pressing one of the buttons, so it's fairly easy to pick up and play.
Continuing a recent trend, WWE 2K16 does lean towards the simulation end of the spectrum, with more of an emphasis on being realistic, rather than being an arcadey spam-your-finishing-moves-everywhere fun fest. Luckily, there are a few options you can tweak to make the game a little bit less realistic (you can turn off the fatigue system and reversals limit, for starters) while if you really find yourself struggling, you can even tweak the game balancing option, to turn the rate at which the computer player reverses moves, and increase the damage your moves do. A pro-tip for parents to keep in mind!
While the WWE itself is currently a PG rated product, a lot of the matches and videos that feature in WWE 2K16 are taken from the "attitude" era - when the show was a lot more lewd and crude than it is now. With a story line that revolves around Stone Cold Steve Austin, whose trademark gesture was to stick his middle finger up at his opponents, there's a fair few such gestures in here - but beyond that, there's little in the way of true mature content. Most bad language is filtered out, though there is still the occasional utterance of "ass", "b*tch" and the odd "b**tard" that slips through. While the game does feature blood, it's disabled in the options by default. Any blood that's shown in recap videos (which feature real-life footage) is always displayed in grey-scale, to reduce the gore, and while you can hit your opponents with all manner of foreign objects, including ladders, tables and chairs, there's little in the way of realistic impacts to speak of. Beyond some riskier stunts, there isn't really anything you wouldn't see on the TV show.
Age Ratings
Format Reviewed: Playstation 4
