Season mode was lengthened to two in-game years and features the Brand Extension featuring Ric Flair's Raw and Vince McMahon's SmackDown! For the first time, only WWE superstars could participate in "season mode". Players compete exclusively on the show they are drafted to for the first few months of year one, consisting of four Raw or four SmackDown! events, plus a monthly pay-per-view event. If the player's character is a created superstar, or if the original superstar has a rating lower than 60, he will instead wrestle on Sunday Night HEAT. Eventually, the player will be booked on the two major TV shows, appearing on two Raw and two SmackDown! shows and the PPV event. One of the featured storylines is based on the nWo of early 2002 that included Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, and X-Pac. Like its predecessor WWF SmackDown! Just Bring It, Shut Your Mouth's championships cannot be contended for in "exhibition mode" and can only be defended in "season mode". All of the major titles of the time, except for the WWE Women's Championship, are included in the game: WWE Undisputed, Intercontinental, European, Tag Team, Cruiserweight, and Hardcore championships. Various unlockables such as alternate player attires, extra movesets, and arenas be unlocked through "season mode". Televised and pay-per-view events are televised from the SmackDown! Arena, the exterior of which is based on Madison Square Garden. Although Jim Ross announces a different city at the start of each event, the exteriors remain the same. Notable areas are a New York City Subway stop named SmackDown! Station, Times Square, and The World. The game features several arenas that WWE held events at in 2001 and 2002. There are also arenas based on each WWE television show. In certain arenas, players could make their wrestlers scale the TitanTron and jump off of it. In addition, The Undertaker's motorcycle could be ridden in some matches. "Create-A-Superstar mode" gives the freedom to manipulate any part of the superstar's body. It also offers over 58 move sets from a combination of superstars in WWE not featured in the game or working in different promotions. This is the first game to feature superstars on different brands, Raw and SmackDown!. In this game, all the superstars, including champions are eligible to be drafted on both brands, except for the WWE Undisputed Champion, who is available on both brands, as long as he is the champion. This also marks the first WWE video game appearances of Billy Kidman, Brock Lesnar, Chuck Palumbo, Diamond Dallas Page, Jazz, Maven, Randy Orton, Rico, and Torrie Wilson. Diamond Dallas Page has never appeared in any of the WWE games until WWE '13 as a DLC superstar.
Development
Superstar models include realistic facial features. Fully animated entrances for each character are featured, with their entrance video playing on the TitanTron, and their respective themes playing in the arena. The title belts are also displayed in the entrances realistically. For superstar entrances, most of the themes used in the televised and house shows were incorporated into the game. Along with the in-house music from Jim Johnston, remakes of Johnston's originals from bands such as Breaking Point, Boy Hits Car, Cypress Hill, Our Lady Peace, and Saliva were featured. However, Maven, Stacy Keibler, Tajiri, Randy Orton and The Hardy Boyz do not have their correct themes. Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler provide sporadic commentary while ring announcerHoward Finkel provided his voice for match introductions and superstar entrances.
Reception
By July 2006, the game had sold 1.1 million copies and earned $50 million in the United States. Next Generation ranked it as the 44th highest-selling game launched for the PlayStation 2, Xbox or GameCube between January 2003 and July 2006 in that country. Combined console sales of WWE games released in the 2000s reached 8 million units in the United States by July 2006. It also received a "Platinum" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association, indicating sales of at least 300,000 copies in the United Kingdom. The game received "generally favorable" reviews, according to video game review aggregatorMetacritic.
