Lynell Jinks & Mark Little discuss WWE 2K20 & reveal a hilarious Undertaker story (Exclusive)

WWE has had a very special association with 2K Sports, having released several games under the said banner. Sportskeeda was privileged to be invited for a special preview, where we were granted an opportunity to play WWE 2K20 a week before the worldwide release on October 22, 2019.

While a detailed review of the game and the salient features will come your way soon, I also had a chance to catch up with Mark Little, the Executive Producer and Lynell Jinks, the Creative Director at Visual Concepts, the men involved in the design and development of the game. They shed much light on the game that's coming our way very soon indeed.

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What was the whole rationale behind picking Roman Reigns and Becky Lynch as the stars on the cover of the new game?

Jinks: Becky's 'The Man' and then, you have 'The Big Dog'. For us, it was time. You're seeing with Becky Lynch, with where we're at as a society and also with where WWE is at, you have women main-eventing WrestleMania and (competing in) Hell in a Cell.

And then with Roman and his comeback story of him beating cancer, it kinda wrote itself right? For us to be part of that history and to be part of that story felt like the right thing to do.

Lynell Jinks

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How much involvement do the Superstars have in the creation of their characters?

Jinks: Once we wrap up this year's game, we go on the road and we get photo references and we're scanning people, all the way until WrestleMania. We let them know- 'Hey, we have a photo shoot coming up with you guys.' Some guys try to hold off for as long as possible, thinking they're going to change up their look a little bit.

And then some guys are like- 'I'm good. I'm probably going to keep this for a while' and then change it up a little bit. Maybe, like last Friday when Bayley cut her hair. So it's always tricky. The guys care about their ratings, as well. We heard a lot of it this week. (Laughs) Some were very upset about their ratings in the game.

I dig it. I find it amusing, and it keeps us on our toes as well. The fact that they're paying attention and do care about what their likeness is like in a video game and also what their ratings are like in a video game is great for us.

Mark Little

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So, can you tell us about some of the more fun interactions that you may have had with WWE Superstars?

Jinks: Oh yeah (laughs). I would say one of my best moments was WrestleMania 31 where we were scanning The Undertaker. And he walks into the room and he sees the guy who handles all the scanning and stuff, and they're good friends.

I wasn't expecting him to talk or anything. I was scared and he comes up to me and he's like - 'Hey, this is our Creative Director Lynell. He works on the game.'

The Undertaker's like (Jinks mimics a deep baritone) 'How's it going?' And I'm like, 'Oh my God, The Undertaker spoke to me!' And he shook my hand.

We asked him to make these different facial expressions and one of them was a smile. He's like- 'The Undertaker does not smile'. I was like 'Okay, we just need this expression.' He said again- 'The Undertaker does not smile.' So yeah, that was a good one.

So yeah, again, that was like a childhood dream come true for me.

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So, why did you choose to include Chyna in the SmackDown 20th Anniverary edition of the game?

Little: So, I think that Chyna is included in the SmackDown 20th Anniversary edition of the game, which is the Collector's Edition of the game.

Obviously when we're doing that, we're trying to pull together other elements from SmackDown's history that are important. And so, as we started to pull together Hogan, The Rock and Mankind, when the opportunity came up (and it hasn't always been there, believe it or not) to get Chyna into the game, we jumped on it.

We wanted to put her as a part of the offering just because she's such an iconic part of that history and I really think that people are going to dig it.

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