[5.0] "This is an intensely frustrating series. Through sheer weight of iteration, strong community support and some genuinely good ideas it should be great. Unfortunately, TEW2020 is deeply flawed, and at this point the flaws are baked in through sheer stubbornness. The issues are encapsulated in its disastrous demo launch, where, despite gushing praise from beta testers, pretty much everything was broken - which says everything about the feedback which is shaping the games. Even after a delayed launch and countless patches, it is still grossly inadequate. It simply doesn't work as a game. The AI is mindless and offers zero challenge, the finances are completely unbalanced and there is no thought required to be successful. Pick a performance-based product, sign cheap good wrestlers, run regular shows and soon enough you'll have $999 million in the bank and be the biggest company in the world. I know because I was stupid enough to do it (on default data, lest anyone suggest this was an unbalanced mod), waiting all the while for some hint of the dynamism and challenge which had been promised. The AI just sat there, never offering a hint of challenge (while also racking up a massive bank balance which they didn't spend). There isn't even much dynamism within your own company; workers have arbitrary hard caps for their popularity, and will very obviously become stuck on them, and locker room morale will forever be 100% unless you deliberately tank it. It feels utterly lifeless, and is just a mindless grind. Behind all this are the long-running flaws, such as the terrible UI (in which the numbers which actually matter are buried in with a stack which do not) and long-obsolete programming language (which reduces the game to a single small resolution, with slow processing). Sheer fantasy booking is the only way to get anything out of it, but if you want to do that, just write it yourself rather than being constrained by a bad game. It's such a shame that the booking sim market is dominated by such a flawed series, with no hope of it ever really improving. The dev's other games have had the same flaws - WMMA 5 likewise had zero challenge, and I see from the TEW IX demo that the UI has become even worse, and the only substantial changes are more busywork with negligible impact."
[8.0] "This sandbox game gives you so much to do, that it's genuinely insane. There is a potential to invest thousands of hours into this game, whether you play the C-Verse, a fictional mod, or a real-world mod. That said, there are a few issues. First, it's text-based gameplay, which means it isn't for everybody. Second, some people might not like that you can't make custom products anymore. Third, if you opt to play with mods, their quality can range from great to terrible, with many of them honestly being mediocre at best. Still, TEW 2020 is a blast to play, but I recommend TEW IX (the most recent game as of this comment) since it basically surpasses TEW 2020 in the majority of cases. The one advantage that TEW 2020 has over IX is that the former game shows all character's skills right away, rather than having to click through one screen to see them."
[8.0] "TEW is an interesting game. It is one of the most in-depth booking simulators I've ever seen. With it's 2020 version, it brought in some great new features, but left some good ones behind. The addition of playable developmental companies is a treat, but, it can be annoying to play with, as the parent company often calls people up for no reason, at the worst periods of tine. It is a shame to see the removal of being able to have a wrestling be sent down for a specific reason, (IE, sending Nia Jax down to improve her skills, or sending Khali down to improve his popularity). Not only that, but the removal of being able to choose who is a trainer for a wrestling school was awesome, and being able to have trainers in a developmental company was even better, If you don't have any good ideas when playing, it can often be a bore. There are very good mods for it though, which can enhance the fun. It truly is a good game though, and I believe it is worth the 35 USD that is costs."
[7.0] "An example of "too much to eat", this game confuses the hell outta me and if there were options to turn off 90% of the game's features, I would appreciate it way more. That's why I prefeer SDvsRAW's GM mode and 2K's universe mode"
[9.0] "It's one of the most in depth wrestling business simulations there is. But it's built on top of very old code, leaving the text based game to run incredibly slowly, even on powerful computers. I'm looking forward to other wrestling sims with more modern code to gain as much depth of content as this."
[10.0] "What A fun simulator game. While I don't like the laziness of Adam Ryland, it doesn't take away from the fun I've had on TEW 2020. The best wrestling simulator game ever, and the most in depth one too."
[8.0] "Before anything else, is there any other $35 game in the world that, when an update comes out, tells you to go to the dev's message board (without even bothering with something as simple as hyperlink), create an account, find the thread containing the update, download it, extract it, and move it into the game folder yourself? Is this a fucking joke? It's not a huge amount of work on the players' part but the sheer laziness of Grey Dog Software is insulting. The entire game just reeks of complacency. Adam Ryland continues programming the game with the same software that he did with the original TEW way back in 2004 because he can't be bothered learning anything new. The UI is a absolutely bloated mess. Screens are inundated with buttons upon buttons, in a relatively small game window that only be resized if you tinker with your monitor's display options and get lucky. Again, it's 2021, this is a $35 game, something as simple as changing the screen resolution shouldn't even need to be brought up. Thing is, underneath all of the ugly, unintuitive crap, there's actually a very good wrestling tycoon sim with some very important new features added since TEW 2016. I want to like this game. I really do. It's just such a hassle doing ANYTHING. TEW 2016 is just as playable today as it was upon release despite not having the new features. Just play that game. Hell, play EWR. This series needs to find a new publisher with an actually decent budget and be put onto Steam like Ryland's Comic Book Hero to take advantage of the Workshop and launcher support. GDS is a joke and for such a niche genre of video games it sucks that there isn't really any alternative. EDIT: After deciding to give this game another shot and playing regularly for the last month or so, I realize I was a little too harsh on the game. Once you get used to the UI--which is a pretty sharp learning curve especially if this is your first TEW--it is generally pretty intuitive, if sometimes time-consuming. It's clear Ryland placed 100% focus on function over form, for better or worse. However, there's still no excuse for the fixed screen resolution or the manual updating. I've noticed the game also absolutely chugs using particularly large mod databases; in the most recent update it takes literally 11 seconds just to load up the Workers menu. Granted it's a lot of data being pulled up, and my computer ain't exactly state of the art, but it can handle other, much more demanding games with relative ease. The game engine just isn't optimized. Still a fun game though, but only if you're very patient. I'll go ahead and bump my rating up from a 5 to a 7.5 and round up."
[7.0] "I understand why people like it and it is pretty fun but to me, it's just hard to get into, it has so many different systems and it just feels way too in-depth. I understand why people like it and I'm sure I'm the minority here so that's why I give it a 7."
[10.0] "Pretty much the perfect wrestling (management) game. It's fun and addicting to be able to do whatever you want. I haven't actually been able to stay away from the game for more than a month, I always get brought back into it somehow and tbh I'm glad I keep playing. The resolution could be higher to fit fullscreen but it's not that much of an issue."
[10.0] "The 2016 version appealed to me but the 2020 is much better by far, it's just amazing, frankly I recommend it to all booking simulation fans, it's the best game ever,"
[10.0] "Best TEW ever created! These options, variations, mods, excellent booking options. Adam Ryland outdid himself with TEW 2020. Every successor has gone one better, but TEW2020 has overtaken every TEW predecessor by far. The only thing is that the screen resolution is so small and that the game does not work via LAN or online and it is still NOT in full screen mode is a shame. But that doesn't change the fact that this program is a must-have for every wrestling fan who has always run a show or a league. Just epic. 10 points!"
[10.0] "Und wieder so ein grandioses Spiel aus der TEW-Serie. Die Neuerungen sind für Veteranen anfangs gewöhnungsbedürftig, machen aber zumeist Sinn, und verschaffen dem Game einen ungekannten Realismus und spielerische Tiefe. TEW 2020 wird mich wohl noch einige Nächte kosten."
