2K Sports will launch its first entry in the newly christened WWE 2K series, WWE 2K14, on Oct. 29, 2013, parent company Take-Two Interactive announced today. According to Take-Two, the game will be released on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
THQ launched the most recent and final entry in its WWE franchise, WWE ’13, last October. The publisher filed for bankruptcy in December, but the rights to the WWE license were not up for bidding in THQ’s bankruptcy auctions. Instead, after negotiations between THQ, WWE franchise developer Yuke’s, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and Take-Two, THQ’s existing agreements with Yuke’s and WWE were nullified so those companies could sign new deals with Take-Two for the WWE franchise to continue under the publisher’s 2K Sports label.
Take-Two announced in mid-February that it had signed an exclusive five-year contract with WWE to produce wrestling video games that will be developed by Yuke’s; at the time, Take-Two said its first game would be called WWE ’14, continuing THQ’s naming scheme, but that changed today. Take-Two also hired THQ’s existing WWE production staff to manage development of the WWE 2K franchise. The old THQ Fight Team, as the producers were known, now works under Visual Concepts, the Take-Two studio that develops the NBA 2K and MLB 2K franchises.
