A week after Resident Evil Requiem, the new machine version continues to roll. Next up: WWE 2K26, which is currently in Early Access via its Attitude Era and Monday Night War (Deluxe and Special) Editions. Already, the game is slated to be one of the highest rated titles since Smackdown vs. The Raw era.
That hasn't stopped the game from being criticized though, and one thing that has proven to be an early thorn in the side of players is how WWE 2K26 handles DLC.
Street Fighter 6 has a DLC problem
Terry Bogard is sick, but Capcom's DLC strategy isn't doing it for me.
As background, in previous WWE titles DLC took the form of a Season Pass, something that is not too unusual for fighting games. Pay an upfront fee, and over the course of a year, more characters will join the roster.
But things are changing, starting with this year's version. Instead, the DLC takes the form of multiple season passes, dubbed the Ringside Pass. They don't expire, so if you're late for the boat, you'll always have access to them. But they require an obscene amount of grinding to unlock each character that would normally have been DLC.
If $150 doesn't get you all the DLC, 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 levels to go through, and XP is earned by playing the game.
That said, if you go up and down the ir/WWEGames subreddit, you'll find no shortage of people finding out that the gate for the first Ringside session is a lot more than they bargained for.
“For the daily work, we have work, housekeeping and other things we do in our daily life,” one player wrote. “A game should be fun, not a suffering like this. A message to all players, stop supporting gaming companies that do this kind of training.”
Being able to go through WWE 2K26's entire Showcase mode and still be stuck in the lower tiers doesn't sit well either.
“I did all of the Showcase, some My Rise, a few matchups, and a good amount of Universe, and I'm at Tier 10. This is going to suck,” another user wrote.
Of course, there are those who have already managed to beat the first Ringside Pass, and that only took 240 matches. It's also with them messing with the sliders in the game, something 2K will no doubt patch up down the line.
Yes, this is supposed to play out over several weeks. Still, having to play 240 matches for the first pass and rinse and repeat five more times to unlock everything feels a little cruel.
Again, and we can't stress this enough, all of 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 be offline next week.
