The champ is here — well, he’s on the cover, at least. Last night, 2K Games announced that John Cena will grace the cover of the company’s next wrestling game, WWE 2K15.
The announcement became official on last night’s episode of "WWE RAW," with the video game company putting out a press release soon afterwards. Cena is easily the most popular, and polarizing, superstar in WWE, so having him as the star athlete on the company’s flagship video game title is a no-brainer.
“It is truly an honor and privilege to serve as the WWE 2K15 cover Superstar,” said Cena in a press release. “2K has a tremendous history of sports simulation games and cover athletes, including Michael Jordan, Kevin Durant, LeBron James and of course, Dwayne ‘The Rock®’ Johnson. I look forward to carrying the flag for WWE 2K15 and introducing the incredible next-generation of WWE gaming to the WWE Universe.”
2K Games took over the WWE series from THQ with last year’s WWE 2K14, but because that game was already in production when the sale took place, the studio didn’t have enough time to put its own stamp on it. That will likely change with this year’s installment.
“With his outstanding record of accomplishments in WWE and beyond, the iconic John Cena is the perfect WWE Superstar to represent the WWE 2K franchise as we launch the first-ever WWE video game on next-generation consoles,” said Chris Snyder, Vice President of Marketing at 2K, in the same press release. “Along with monumental gameplay, graphical and presentation improvements, we are confident that Cena will drive WWE 2K15 to cement its spot in history as the greatest WWE video game released to date.”
Despite being WWE’s marquee attraction, Cena hasn’t graced a video game cover since WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2011 all the way back in 2010. Obviously you can’t have your champion sitting on the sidelines while everyone else gets the spotlight, right? WWE 2K15 is being developed by both Yukes and Visual Concepts, which is owned by 2K Games. Unfortunately no footage or screenshots from the game have been made available yet.
WWE 2K15 will hit shelves in North America on Oct. 28 for Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3. It will be made available internationally on Oct. 31.
