WWE 2K appears to have used an animated silhouette of Tessa Blanchard in WWE 2K Battlegrounds, and the photographer who took the shot isn't happy.
WWE has released (at least) one video game per year since the turn of the century. Following the release of WWE 2K20, it seemed as if 2020 would be the first year during which that would not happen. The game was slated by reviewers and its players to the point that WWE 2K announced that there would be no WWE 2K21. Instead, it would release WWE 2K Battlegrounds.
Battlegrounds is an arcade-style wrestling game. Much more animated, and it's assumed that the regular series of WWE 2K games will return in 2021. Battlegrounds was released today (September 18, 2020) so the world will soon know whether 2K has repaired any of the damage it did to the franchise last year.
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While one of the first stories about the game to break has nothing to do with whether it is good or not, it doesn't paint the game in a great light. newLEGACYinc was streaming gameplay from Battlegrounds when someone from Heel By Nature watching on noticed something. That former Impact World Champion Tessa Blanchard is in the game. Not as a playable character, but it would appear that her likeness has been used on a loading screen.
The animated silhouette appears during the loading screen before a Royal Rumble match and can be seen above. It might look like a generic female wrestler to a lot of players, but it seems pretty clear that it is taken from a pretty famous photo of Blanchard during her time at Impact. The screenshot and the original photo can be seen side by side in the tweet above.
While Blanchard herself is yet to respond to the image showing up, the photographer who took the shot isn't happy about it. Basil Mahmud has quoted the tweet above and tagged WWE Games, asking why his photo has been used without permission. Truly bizarre, and unlike its TV shows, WWE can't just edit around this. It will require a patch to remove it from the game.
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