It’s called Payback, and exists as two small circles on your character’s HUD: one yellow, one red. Yet its best new in-ring element cleverly feels both gamey and authentic. It certainly isn’t No Mercy, whose time has long passed but is nonetheless used as a stick to hammer 2K with. It’s slightly faster than last year, but still familiar, offering a pleasing sense of heft to its slams and suplexes, and placing the focus on emulating ‘real’ wrestling rather than being a pure win-at-all-costs brawler. In the ring, 2K19 focusses on shoring up strengths of previous years, such as giving each wrestler a unique feel in both attributes and moveset, and eliminating the weaknesses. Transformed from the ground up with a linear narrative and fully voiced cast – part real, part fictional – M圜areer is sports gaming’s biggest surprise of 2018. Nonsensical AI choices, convoluted progression mechanics and tedious week-to-week match cards made for a directionless trudge year after year, forcing Visual Concepts to take a rethink ahead of 2K19. Since the WWE license switch from THQ to 2K in 2013, all attempts at a create-a-character story mode have tanked. Secondly, a collection of tangible improvements inside and outside the ring make you forget roster shortcomings, for the most part. For one, lifelike fan-made versions of Ciampa and Cross are already available via the excellent Community Creations servers.

Postpone the apocalypse, because 2K19 emphatically overcomes the loss of these grapplers in two ways. Ciampa’s appeared especially curious given that he’s the reigning NXT Champion, and best heel in WWE. As a stickler for authenticity, I’d been vocal about these omissions in GR's WWE 2K19 DLC guide.

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