Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick unexpectedly appeared in WWE 2K26 as a playable character, and now the executive has explained how that came to be while also confirming that you won’t see him in GTA 6.
Zelnick told IGN that his appearance in WWE 2K26 came about simply by asking the team to do it for him, and not because there was a big internal or external demand for him to be added to the game.
“I asked, and then I went on the soundstage, and I did motion capture and we all had fun with it. But no, this was a rare moment where I said, ‘I think this would be fun. Let’s do this.’ And everyone’s like, ‘Okay,'” he said.
Zelnick said he loves WWE and “thought it would be funny for insiders and maybe fun for some consumers.”
“By the way, a lot of people played it, as it turns out, it did very well. But the online response was sort of like, ‘Huh?’ Which I think I deserved,” he said.
After his appearance in WWE 2K26, many–including us here at GameSpot–wondered if Zelnick may appear in GTA 6 in some capacity. Will we see him in the open-world crime game? “You will not,” Zelnick said.
GTA 6 launches on November 19 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. The game will be shown off in detail on August 27 via Netflix, and a lot of people are upset about Rockstar effectively paywalling the game’s latest trailer.
