A dataminer has revealed that WWE 2K23 will release March 17 and that it will feature John Cena as the cover star for the first time since WWE 2K15.Earlier this week, an insider reported that WWE 2K23 would be releasing by the end of March, with an official reveal planned on the day of an upcoming Royal Rumble event. Thanks to a dataminer, we've now got a more concrete idea of when in March the game will release.As reported by VGC, the discovery was made by Twitter user ALumia_Italia, who regularly shares images and files from the Xbox store and Windows store. ALumia_Italia shared the cover art and release date for WWE 2K23 in a tweet, before quickly deleting it, presumably not wanting to have accidentally leaked the title.
The cover art for WWE 2K23, or at least the cross-gen version that was datamined, features John Cena doing his iconic "you can't see me" pose. There's a joke here about someone not actually being on the cover, but I used it for the strap and will likely do it for the tweet, so I won't do it a third time.
John Cena is unarguably one of the most famous WWE wrestlers of all time, so it might surprise you to find out that this is the first time that he's been the cover star since WWE 2K15. Rey Mysterio was last year's cover star, followed by Becky Lynch and Seth Rollins for 2K20, and AJ Styles in 2K19.
Although ALumia_Italia quickly got rid of the tweet, the cover art and release date have been making their way around social media since being revealed, so it's a pretty open secret now. 2K has yet to announce any details on the game officially, but it has started teasing it, having shared an image earlier today of a WWE 2K mat while saying "Soon".