In my review of WWE 2K18 on the other platforms, I had a mostly positive experience with the still-solid wrestling gameplay but criticized it for not addressing the modes and features that needed the most work after WWE 2K17, and for the especially underwhelming MyCareer and Universe Modes. I gave it a 7.0, for Good. Unfortunately, the Switch version of WWE 2K18 is an inconsistent, buggy mess, and even if the wrestling was as strong as Mark Henry, it still wouldn’t save what is one of the worst ports in the Switch’s library.
It’s to be expected that a Switch port of WWE 2K18 would have a pretty dramatic graphical downgrade, and sure enough, wrestlers look much less detailed, there’s not as much animation in the crowd, and various lighting and other visual effects are turned off. It’s noticeable at first, especially coming from the other versions, but I got used to it quickly. The big problem with WWE 2K18 on the Switch is that even with the graphical downgrade, it still performs terribly.Whenever there are more than two characters in a match, the frame rate slows to a nearly unplayable crawl. And the more characters you add, the worse the slowdown gets. That makes match types like Elimination Chamber, Hell in a Cell, and Ladder Matches an absolute chore to get through. Eight-man matches have been totally removed, for obvious reasons.The slowdown even ruins entrances. Every wrestler’s entrance is affected by characters moving at about half speed while their music plays normally, leading to these awkward moments where actions are completely out of sync, making the sequences take twice as long as they’re supposed to.
An overall lack of polish permeates every single aspect.
On top of the performance problems, you can add on audio crackling when the crowd gets loud and even more bugs than ever before. Every single multi-man match that I’ve done I’ve had at least one wrestler continuously run into either the turnbuckle or the apron for extended periods of time, and Michael Cole or Corey Graves on commentary will start talking about a wrestler, then abruptly stop before finishing the thought. There’s just an overall lack of polish that permeates every single aspect.“
The very faint and dim light at the end of the dark tunnel that is WWE 2K18 is that at least 1-on-1 matches are fine, for the most part – though backstage brawls take you to slowdown city if you ever go into split screen by entering a room or hallway that your opponent isn’t in. And there are a few smaller arenas where the slowdown isn’t as substantial, allowing you to at least play triple threat or fatal four-way matches.
