In an interview with ESPN, representatives from WWE and 2K Sports touched upon the future of the WWE videogame franchise and revealed the next game’s (slightly) new name: WWE 2K14.

“We’ve looked at the WWE franchise with respect for a long time,” vice president of 2K Sports marketing Jason Argent told ESPN. “There are a lot of similarities that we see, from the size of the franchise to the demographics of the franchise, and they fit in very well with what we’ve done with NBA in terms of development and marketing. We thought we could add tremendous value right off the bat and down the road. We’re super excited to get an agreement in place.”

In the wake of THQ’s bankruptcy, Take-Two Interactive gained the rights to published WWE games. Now that they’ve gained court approval, they’ve been able to officially announce WWE 2K14, slated for release this fall.

“With [original developer] Yukes, we have a lot of history, and we’ve been very happy with what Yukes has done in the past,” said Casey Collins, WWE’s executive vice president of consumer products. “What we’re going to do moving forward is meld Yukes with the team at Visual Concepts, so we can have the best of both worlds. Having Yukes’ experience and then getting the Visual Concepts guys on board with them, we think this is going to be a dynamic duo.

“The THQ Fight Team is also being brought over, and they’ll report directly to Visual Concepts. Their experience in the marketing, their experience in the development, their experience with our franchise for years … we thought that it was very valuable to keep that continuity.”

Source: ESPN