Pro wrestling fans have been up in arms this weekend after 2K Games confirmed that the four performers at the forefront of the WWE’s ‘Divas Revolution’ will not be included in WWE 2K16 – not even as DLC.
Sasha Banks, Bayley, Charlotte and Becky Lynch – dubbed the ‘Four Horsewomen’ of wrestling in reference to the legendary stable led by Charlotte’s father, Ric Flair – have been impressing fans with their accomplished in-ring performances over the past year since breaking through in the business via the WWE’s NXT developmental territory.
However, despite the fact that Sasha for one confirmed that her likeness had been scanned for the upcoming game as far back as February, the four were conspicuous by their absence when 2K Games revealed the final roster for WWE 2K16 last week. Now, in the face of growing fan discontent, the developer has been forced into making a statement to confirm the quartet won’t make it into the title at all; not even as future DLC:
[…] It was clear that some in the community are frustrated by the lack of the newer Divas added to the main WWE roster recently.
We pushed as hard as we could to include Sasha Banks, Charlotte, Becky Lynch, and Bayley in WWE 2k16, but it simply did not work out for various reasons. While we are not divulging full details on WWE 2K16’s post-launch plans just yet, we can confirm that the Four Horsewomen will not be available as DLC.
We are proud to have and built the largest WWE roster to date featuring the most Divas ever. The WWE 2K16 disc includes all of the Divas on the main roster at the time we locked it in (13 playable in total).
We all agree the Divas Revolution is great for business and look forward to celebrating the Divas even more in future WWE 2K titles.
Naturally, WWE fans have not taken the news well at all, and the official announcement on Twitter was met with hundreds of disappointed messages. Many took issue with the fact that despite promising over 120 ‘unique’ playable characters in this year’s roster, 2K have reserved many spots for older versions of the same wrestler (Stephanie McMahon, for example, has two character models; The Undertaker and Sting each have three):
@WWEgames 2k clearly is out of touch with wwe gaming community, over 30+ characters that are unnecessary & could be recreated in game.
— Stephen Trenholm (@StephenTrenholm) September 19, 2015
@WWEgames this is a total Epic Fail. Not-Wrestler as Eva Marie and Cameron and the retired Layla are in. The 4 Hoursewomen no. Very well 2K!
— Triad (@TriadGuido) September 18, 2015
WWE 2L16 is scheduled to release on October 27 across current and last-gen consoles.