WWE Undefeated is the latest free-to-play mobile game from professional wrestling juggernaut WWE and developer nWay. Through a combination of traditional fighting games and card-based combat, players fight online with highly stylized superstars in pursuit of better cards and wrestlers. It's a serviceable experience to kill some time for wrestling fans, but doesn't do enough to stand out from similar titles to make any lasting impression.

WWE Undefeated joins the likes of WWE ChampionsWWE MayhemWWE SuperCard, and WWE Universe in a never-ending stream of free-to-play mobile games, with many overlapping game mechanics common for free-to-play games on the platform. The latest app needs something special to stand out amongst the crowd, and immediately some of the most ubiquitious mechanics from other games crop up instead. Wrestlers are earned in a gacha system. Drops can be earned on a timer, which can be sped up with a premium currency purchased through micro-transactions. The wrestlers are portrayed through highly stylized cartoonish graphics, similar to this year's disappointing console game. It's all instantly familiar, which is a shame considering the innovations that do come to gameplay.

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A phone's lack of a gamepad means fighting games will always struggle to match their console counterparts, but WWE Undefeated side-steps this issue by introducing another trendy game mechanic: card-based battling. Three cards representing wrestling moves are available to be chosen at any time. An energy bar fills up if the players doesn't use any moves; the higher the energy bar, the more devastating attacks become. Some moves work in tandem; The Rock needs to knock people down to the mat before he can bust out the People's Elbow, and a clothesline is much more effective after an Irish whip sends the opponent charging towards their doom. Other cards will block and parry attacks. It's more manageable and engaging than the tapping and dragging used in WWE Mayhem and by far the most distinguishable trait of this release.

WWE Undefeated Screenshot

While it is a unique combination, that individuality does not mean it rises above its peers in terms of entertainment. There's not a lot of depth to the strategy, and the scarcity of defensive cards mean a lot of the moves land, and in turn, a lot of time is spent watching the animated supermoves. The over-the-top wrestling arcade action has become overdone without any real recent success as far as WWE games are concerned, and The New Day appearing as DLC characters in Gears 5 only makes WWE Undefeated feel more like it's missing something from its formula when compared to the other games superstars are appearing in.

As always for a free-to-play mobile game, there's a heavy reliance on microtransactions in WWE Undefeated, and this model has been done hundreds if not thousands of times before, so it should be nothing new to consumers. Unfortunately, that's largely what WWE Undefeated is - a slight variation of the formula that still has players grinding out the chance to get the moves and wrestlers they want. With rival promotion AEW soon bringing their own games to the ring, it feels like now is the time for WWE to start paying closer attention to what consumers want. WWE Undefeated is a solid free-to-play fighting game with an interesting gimmick, but it's not going to solve any of the long-term problems with the promotion's licensed games anytime soon.

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WWE Undefeated is out now for iOS and Android.