When Rhea Ripley won the Women's Royal Rumble in 2023 from the #1 position, she became the first woman to ever do so and the fourth wrestler to ever do so (following in the footsteps of wrestlers like Shawn Michaels and Edge). On top of that, the #1 position winners are incredibly spaced out, with these victories taking place in 1995, 2004, and 2021. Edge, who now wrestles for AEW, was the first to do so in 17 years, showing how challenging this match type can be. But if someone were to play a WWE 2K game, they wouldn't really face anything close to the same level of challenge, and that's something WWE 2K24 hopefully improves, alongside some general quality-of-life improvements.
Now, to be fair, someone can easily raise the difficulty of WWE 2K23 to have a more challenging Royal Rumble, but it's still one of the overall easiest match types. That's not really reflective of the event, especially given that a PLE is dedicated to it. Essentially, players can join others to push people out of the ring, which makes it so much easier, but on top of that, performing a clothesline, an Irish Whip with a hit as they hang on the rope, or just a carry elimination makes the game mode trivial.
WWE 2K22 Servers Are Shutting Down
2K announces a shutdown of all online services for WWE 2K22 mere 18 months after its release, much to the fandom's disapproval.
WWE 2K: The Royal Rumble is Too Formulaic
WWE 2K games are iterative, meaning that mechanics introduced in one match type or game mode can lay the stage for others. For example, the multiple referees in WarGames may eventually open up Special Referee matches without relying on Community Creations. In other words, WWE 2K24 could lay a lot of groundwork if it were to specifically tackle improvements to the Royal Rumble. Upping the difficulty is necessary and may come down to simple mechanic tweaks, like not being able to clothesline someone if they have a certain level of stamina left. Another method would be to increase the limit on characters in a match, although that is something that is almost certainly easier said than done.
As it stands, it's very possible to eliminate someone very quickly before the next entrant comes in, making victory from a #1 position much easier. Limiting the conditions for which eliminations can occur would go a long way, as well as making sure that players can find themselves in a ring full of people. Right now, the limit is eight, but a WWE 2K23 Royal Rumble isn't really likely to see that number in a ring, not for those focusing on the win. Increasing that cap further (as it used to be six prior to WWE 2K19-ish) would increase the difficulty as players must fight to eliminate and avoid elimination themselves. That would go far, but one extra step would make this added step, difficulty, and added game length much more manageable.
There are plenty of elements to a real-world Royal Rumble that are not found in current WWE 2K games, and WWE 2K24 could hopefully implement them. A lot of wrestlers will end up resting under the ropes, where they are not so much of a threat. While players could take advantage of this, these wrestlers are not logically the biggest threat, and ensuring players and AI can rest properly, with some modicum of protection, would help the match feel more realistic. On top of that, it's not uncommon for someone to slip out the bottom rope to avoid elimination (and dropping heat) or just for dramatic effect. It would go a long way in making that match type more challenging and engaging.
At the end of the day, four WWE superstars have won the Royal Rumble from the #1 position, but that is incredibly easy to achieve in the video games. Giving the Royal Rumble some extra attention and some added "oomph" to emphasize its importance, even working it into WWE 2K24's MyRise mode or MyGM Mode somehow, would go a long way. But if it's not WWE 2K24, it's something Visual Concepts should consider for future iterations of the franchise.
WWE 2K24 is not confirmed to be in development.