The WWE games in recent history have been very inconsistent in regard to quality. But one thing they all do is contain a bunch of secrets and easter eggs. In fact, it's a staple of the series by this point. And WWE 2K23 continues the proud tradition.
The easter eggs come in all different forms from all different sources. In most cases, they come from commentary, story dialogue, and crowd chants. Yet, there are some visual ones in the game, too. Overall, there is a countless number of these easter eggs. So, it's almost impossible for anyone to find them all. Thankfully for you, you don't have to look for the following seven examples.
7 Ring Announcer Isn't Excited About 2002 John Cena
The game features multiple versions of John Cena from different stages of his career. The John Cena '02 one is from when he first appeared on the main roster and challenged Kurt Angle. So, he doesn't have the same amount of accomplishments as the others.
The ring announcer recognizes this and changes his introduction accordingly. He doesn't put significant oomph on the wrestler's name like he does the more recent versions of Cena. Instead, he just says his name in the same way he would for any average member of the roster.
6 LJ References WWE's Tendency To Randomly Put Teams Together
During the legacy MyRise story, the protagonist, aka LJ, wants to compete in the first-ever tag team Money In The Bank match. When inquiring about it, Molly Holly is confused because LJ isn't even in a tag team.
The protagonist responds by saying, "WWE's whole deal is putting teammates together at the last minute for matches. Not all of them even like each other." This is a very accurate statement. WWE seems to love putting teams together out of the blue, especially when it comes to the women's tag division.
5 Cody-Vator Features At WrestleMania
The Cody-Vator is a small elevator that Cody Rhodes used as part of his entrance during his time in AEW as well as the night he returned to WWE. It isn't a part of his standard entrance these days, though. As such, he doesn't usually use it when coming down to the ring in WWE 2K23, either.
Yet, the Cody-Vator still makes it into the game. You can only see it when Cody makes an entrance at WrestleMania. So, only on the biggest stage can you witness the American Nightmare come out of the floor, surrounded by smoke.
4 The Game Mocks WWE 2K20
WWE 2K20 will go down as one of the worst WWE games of all time. It was a buggy mess that was panned by both fans and critics. In WWE 2K23, its reputation takes another hit, as the developers themselves make fun of the game.
This occurs during a story in the legacy MyRise where LJ participates in a mocap session for the new 2K game. If you don't quite do what the developers are expecting, they compare the session to one from 2K20. They also make plenty of other jokes about themselves and game development in general.
3 Corey Graves References AEW Promo
The phrase "undesirable to undeniable" comes from a promo that Cody Rhodes cut in AEW. However, it has also been mentioned on WWE programming, starting from his return at WrestleMania. On that night, Corey Graves delivered the line, and he also says it in WWE 2K23.
Yet, what's interesting about his delivery in the game is he words it in almost the exact way Cody did in the AEW promo. After all, the original line is "undesirable to un - g*d d**n - deniable." While commentating on a Cody match in WWE 2K23, Graves says it almost the same way, except he replaces g*d d**n with GD.
2 Kayla Braxton References Ratings Wars
Popular WWE personality Kayla Braxton makes a few appearances in the MyRise mode. For one challenge match, she gets LJ to fight Bayley. She does this because she hears that Bayley is going to bring back her talk show Ding, Dong! Hello and compete against Kayla's The Bump.
While explaining the situation, she says, "can you get under her skin before she makes this into a ratings war? We have enough of those in this business." This is either a reference to the Monday Night Wars between WWE and WCW or the more recent battle between NXT and AEW. In both cases, the two wrestling shows aired head-to-head to try to beat the other in the ratings.
1 Security Escorts John Cena Out Of The ECW Arena
The first match of John Cena's showcase takes you back to ECW: One Night Stand from 2006. On that night, Cena went one-on-one with ECW legend Rob Van Dam in front of a rabid ECW fanbase. In that crowd was a now-iconic sign that read, "if Cena wins, we riot." Thankfully, RVD got the victory, so no riot took place. Yet, that doesn't necessarily occur in showcase mode.
After all, that version of Cena isn't far from being among the highest-rated wrestlers in the game. So, it is easy to lose the match. If that occurs, Cena attempts to celebrate with the WWE title before the ref encourages him to leave quickly. So, he gets escorted out of the arena by security for his own safety.