Every match you play in WWE 2K22 is judged and evaluated across a range of factors, and one of these is “drama”. This is one of the tiny details that prove how Visual Concepts and 2K Games finally understand wrestling as a sport, and, more importantly, as entertainment.
2K’s 2020 WWE game was plagued with issues, forcing the publisher to take a sabbatical from its usual annual releases. If WWE 2K22 launched in a similar state, it could well spell the end for wrestling games, at least until another developer dives in off the top rope to save the day.
While it’s not perfect, WWE 2K22 is, fortunately, a return to form. It’s a wrestling game that remembers to entertain, straddling the line between simulation and arcade, grappler and brawler. It brings back the drama to the sport. As in real wrestling, the game is full of interferences and roll-ups, unexpected and unpredictable pins, lots of special moves, finishers, and many tools (such as the Payback mechanics) to reverse the course of a match that might seem lost.
Wrestlers’ movements in the ring don’t have the same robotic quality as previous games, and animations mostly flow nicely from one move to the next. There’s still some rigidity, but that’s to be expected when there are so many options and variables in something as dynamic as professional wrestling. UI and controls are easy to grasp, thanks to excellent onboarding and tutorials.
The game is at its best in 1v1, both with characters created from scratch, or legends of the caliber of Batista, Edge or Undertaker. This is because bigger matches are more complex to manage: any time you try to pin your opponent, someone comes in and interrupts the count – that someone is difficult to intercept due to a stringent disqualification system and, above all, because of how slow your wrestler is to switch target.
Defending also works well, with intuitive parrying and counter-moves systems. With their excellent responsiveness, they allow you to turn the tables at any time (within the limits dictated by an overlying bar, that is irreparably emptied after a few hits). It’s set up to allow for surprising underdog victories and upsets, which means no fight ever feels completely hopeless, even if you’re getting pummeled.
A new entry this year, MyRise is a proper story mode where you create a custom wrestler and try to make them a Hall of Famer. The creation process is quite painful, undermined by dozens of loading screens (even on PS5), and the plot itself is very basic – from a purely mechanical point of view, though, it’s a tasty introduction for WWE fans.
As in any RPG, you can choose a background for your character, whether they come from Hollywood or MMA, and this influences dialogue options, as well as that wrestler’s abilities. You can also accept or reject quests, which grant you points to be distributed across the fighter’s skills and whose success or failure affects some narrative junctions, while your conduct inside and outside of the ring will determine whether they are heel (villain) or face (hero). MyRise shows how WWE 2K22 understands the fantasy of wrestling.
The game still has several issues from a purely technical standpoint. In the ring, it’s still frustrating how it handles interrupting your opponent’s moves, since in most cases, when an animation starts, you’re committed to it. And there’s the referee’s AI, which often struggles to start a count before finding themselves a nice, comfy place in the ring first.
Entrances are barebones, facial expressions and eyes are empty (though they look fine from a distance), and it’s fairly inconsistent between wrestlers, too. John Cena looks like a knock-off toy version of John Cena that you’d find in a dollar store.
Some characters are undoubtedly better looking than others – just look at Randy Orton – and a large portion of the roster has received an impressive upgrade compared to WWE 2K20, at least.
It’s fairly bug-free compared to that mess of a game, thankfully. Cutscene animations seem to lose some frames, and replays at the end of the match are often broken without a specific reason, but there’s nothing as major as two years ago, at least ahead of public launch.
Overall, PS2 and early PS3-era Smackdown vs Raw’s smoothness are still a distant dream, but the franchise seems to be finally on the right track. Ideally, Visual Concepts and 2K Games will need to fix the structural shortcomings found in several modes, and hopefully they figure out how to make a virtual John Cena one day. If you want a good wrestling game that knows how to bring back the drama of the sport, though, WWE 2K22 is finally a viable option.
Written by Paolo Sirio on behalf of GLHF.
