Since June, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has been featured as a playable character in “WWE 2K26.” He has now explained why—and why he won’t be making a cameo appearance in “GTA VI.”
Brown leather shoes; at first, only the lower part of a pair of blue suit pants is visible. Then the camera slowly pans upward, with the character still largely in shadow. Until it finally becomes clear: It’s Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two Interactive—in WWE 2K26. Quietly and discreetly, 2K had already added the 69-year-old to the game back in June as part of an update. Background: Like Rockstar Games, which is developing GTA VI, 2K Games is part of the parent company.
With a rating of 77, Zelnick is fairly well-rated in the game. More remarkable, however, is his walk-on. It’s accompanied by Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”—a prominent licensed song that, incidentally, is character-specific. The song cannot be used for entrance sequences of your own fighters.
Here is Strauss Zelnick&39;s exclusive to him. WWE2K26 pic.twitter.com/csDpfu0oFH
— ™ (@WhatsTheStatus) June 3, 2026
“… but that would be a lie”
Speaking to IGN, Zelnick has now confirmed that the idea came from him. “I wish I could say there was huge demand both internally and externally, but that would be a lie. I asked around, went into the studio, did the motion capture, and we all had fun doing it. It was one of those rare moments where I said, ‘I think this would be fun. Let’s do it.’ And everyone was like, ‘Okay.’”
But why WWE 2K of all things, and not, say, NBA 2K? “Because I love the franchise and I loved WWE, and I thought it would be funny for insiders and maybe fun for some players, too,” Zelnick explained. “I think it got exactly the response we expected. And by the way, a lot of people played it—as it turned out, it did very well. But the reactions online were more like: Huh? … Which I probably deserved.”
This inevitably raises the question of whether this will be his only appearance—or if Zelnick will show up in a video game again in the future. In GTA VI, perhaps? The Take-Two CEO’s answer, however, was unequivocal: “I won’t.” With that, Zelnick put an end to any speculation right away.