Paul Heyman Says Writing For Video Games Is A Lot Easier Than Writing For Wrestling Programming

Paul Heyman comments on a big difference in the world of wrestling writing.

Throughout his career, Heyman has gained a ton of experience in the world of video games and of course, the world of televised wrestling. When it comes to gaming, Heyman is mostly known for having a writing credit on WWE ’13 — a beloved entry in the wrestling video game canon.

Speaking with Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp for a new interview, Paul Heyman talked about the differences between writing for a video game and writing for a televised wrestling show.

“Writing for video games is a lot easier than writing for general wrestling programming because writing for general wrestling programming, or for WWE in particular or ECW before that, requires you to balance out the personalities that you’re dealing with. So if you’re writing for a Brock Lesnar or a Roman Reigns or a CM Punk or a Bron Breakker or a ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin or Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson or ‘Triple H’ Paul Levesque or whomever—if you’re writing for these people, you have to understand their personalities, you have to collaborate with them. They may not like a tactic that you approach. They may not like a word that you use. They may not like a storyline that you have in mind. When you write for a video game, there’s no one to pushback except your own imagination. So the only person that I really have to clear things with would be myself.”

Fightful then asked Heyman if there were any video game storylines that came from real-life ideas that he wasn’t able to use.

“I appreciate the question and I understand where it’s coming from, but if I were to do that, then I’m living my own fantasy within the video game and I don’t know if you are aware of this, I am maybe a couple of weeks, months, maybe even a year or two older than the typical gamer that’s out there today. So because of that I try not to play to my own fantasy booking, I try to play to the audience’s fantasy booking, and not just the WWE audience, but the video game audience itself. ‘Cause I would like to steal people from other video game franchises. I like to entice people to not play Fortnite, but to play WWE 2k26. I would like to entice people to not play Call of Duty, but to play WWE 2k26. So it’s not just a matter of, ‘Ooh, what would happen if I put Lou Thesz and Bruno Sammartino and Brock Lesnar in a triple threat match together?’ It’s more of, ‘What can appeal to today’s gamer audience? What appeals to that crowd? What can I do to tickle their fancy, to entice their imagination?’ Not just live out my own fantasies that I would have trouble booking for whatever different reason in today’s environment, including Thesz versus Sammartino versus Lesnar.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Paul Heyman spoke about New Jack being included in WWE 2K25. Fans can check out his full comments by clicking here.

Fans can check out Fightful’s full interview with Paul Heyman in the video linked at the top of this article.

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