WWE 2K23 is just two weeks away, and those looking to buy the deluxe/icon editions of the game will want to know what new wrestlers they’ll be getting in the game’s Season Pass. In the meantime, WWE 2K Showdown streams have been revealing new content, and this week there was a tease for the DLC.
The screen glitched out and a QR code briefly flashed on the screen. Scanning it leads to the following image:
Hidden in this image are a bunch of clues to wrestlers that will be appearing in the DLC. Some are explicitly written out, while others have more cryptic images.
Fans have trawled through this image to try and pick out every clue they can, and the community has compiled a solid list of candidates, which we’ll walk you through.
Bare in mind, these are not 100% confirmed, people may have misinterpreted some clues, or completely missed others, but this is the best guess of what’s on the way.
WWE 2K23 DLC: Main roster wrestlers
With all the returns in the latter half of 2022, there was concern over which wrestlers re-signed with WWE a little too late to make it onto the game’s roster. Thankfully, the DLC offers the development team at 2K a little more time to work on these wrestlers, and several are expected to be added. Here’s the full list of who has been teased:
- Bray Wyatt
- Luke Gallows
- Karl Anderson
- Mia Yim
Bray Wyatt is the big name that fans have been wanting to know about, so thankfully they won’t be disappointed, as symbolized by the White Rabbit on the left of the image – a reference to the cryptic teaser prior to Wyatt’s WWE return last fall.
Gallows & Anderson are known as “The OC” in WWE, and those two letters appear in the bottom-left corner of the image.
Finally, the owl on the left-hand side of the image is expected to symbolize Mia Yim, although that one is a bit less sure than the others.
WWE 2K23 DLC: Divas
Although the “Divas” era is largely seen as a dark age for women’s wrestling in WWE – where women were frustratingly treated as a sideshow instead of credible athletes – there were plenty of individual stars that fans remember fondly, such as Victoria, Michelle McCool, Eve Torres, and AJ Lee. It would be cool to see some of them honored in 2K23.
We seem to be in luck, as the Divas Championship belt is one of the most obvious clues in the image, which suggests one of the DLC packs will be dedicated to the stars of that era. We only have one name shown in the image though, and that is:
- Eve Torres
WWE 2K23 DLC: NXT wrestlers
Unsurprisingly, the NXT roster makes up the largest portion of the DLC this year. The developmental brand has undergone significant changes over the past couple of years, so there is a huge wealth of new talent to put into the WWE video games. Here’s everyone we could find clues for:
- Blair Davenport
- Nathan Frazer
- Trick Williams
- Chase U
- Wendy Choo
- Schism
- Tony D’Angelo
- The Diamond Mine
- Tiffany Straton
These wrestlers have all had prominent roles in NXT over the past year, although there are a few unexpected names. For example, The Diamond Mine is a faction that has had a rotating cast of members. On top of that, The Creed Brothers are already confirmed to be on-disk members of the WWE 2K23 roster, which leaves just Roderick Strong and Ivy Nile as potential members for this DLC.
WWE 2K23 DLC: Legends
WWE legends are always expected in these DLC packs, although with every year the legends roster expands more and more, so the team at 2K has to dig deeper into the history books to find DLC legends. Thankfully one former WWE competitor, Wade Barrett, rejoined the company as an announcer a couple of years ago, and he’s finally being put back into the video games, with 2K seemingly using his “Bad News Barrett” character to lead this DLC tease.
Here’s every legend we found clues for:
- Bad News Barrett
- Harley Race
- Luna Vachon
- Carlito
- DDP
There are a couple of surprising entries here. Harley Race is a figure who worked in the wrestling business from the 1950s all the way up to his passing in 2019, working in just about every promotion going during his heyday.
The video games typically don’t focus on anything earlier than the Hulk Hogan era in the 1990s, but that seems to have changed in 2K23, with Bruno Sammartino making the on-disk roster. Luna Vachon falls into this category too, she was one of the top women’s wrestlers of the 80s and 90s, although she did a lot of her most memorable work outside of WWE.
Carlito is a star of the 2000s that fans have been wanting for years, and it finally seems like it’s happening, alongside DDP, who has been absent from the past few games.
There may still be more names to come though, as we will hopefully get official confirmations before the game officially releases.
Written by Ryan Woodrow on behalf of GLHF.
