2K has announced an arcade-style WWE game and addressed concern about the fate of the simulation series.

WWE 2K Battlegrounds is a brawler by World War Z and NBA 2K Playgrounds developer Saber Interactive, and it's out autumn 2020. It features stylised depictions of famous wrestlers, with outlandish moves and environments. Expect more on the game soon. Until then, here's the trailer:

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Meanwhile, 2K has addressed concern about the future of its sim series after it emerged WWE 2K21 was cancelled following the disastrous release of WWE 2K20.

In an open letter to fans, 2K pointed to the five title updates it had released for WWE 2K20 since launch, and promised servers for WWE 2K19 "will remain active for the time being".

As for the next sim game, 2K said it won't release a new game this year "to ensure the development team at Visual Concepts can create a great game that will entertain grizzled WWE 2K veterans, as well as newcomers who want to climb through the ropes and step into the ring for the very first time".

WWE 2K20 was the first game in the series primarily developed by Visual Concepts, the US studio responsible for the NBA games. Prior to this entry, the WWE games were co-developed by Visual Concepts and Japanese studio Yuke's.

To turn WWE 2K around, the company has hired Patrick Gilmore as executive producer. Gilmore was most recently boss of Amazon Games, which is about to release an MMO called New World.

"We hope you find this news as exciting as we do. We are confident it will lead to better games in the future," 2K said.