WWE 2K22 returns after a year off and it hits different! No but seriously its a fun game, bias wrestling fan or not, this is a fun game, its not the best wrestling game ever or anything like that, but I don't think it needs to be, its just needs to be a fun game and I think it its. The game is packed with things to do, the 1st day playing it I wanted to try a little of everything but would get hooked here and there and couldn't play it all. The visuals are great, the gameplay is rebuilt, and the player models are a bit outdated for some wrestlers but with the power of the creations suite you can at least update some gear on your own if you want. Things have been removed, things have been added and its a lot to talk about so lets begin. I'm a big WWE fan so this might be a long deep dive into the game, bare with me, I've waited 2 years to play this and that .3 might be bias, but I don't care, its what I'm giving it, coulda went .5 but lets leave room for growth, this game is reviewed on the Xbox Series X and is the deluxe edition.
Lets just start with the gameplay, WWE 2K22 brings us a brand new engine, that changes the style from the pervious 2K wrestling games, gone is the stiff and slow gameplay and now we gave a newer faster paced style with more of an arcade feel that feels so much better. A combo system has been added which means we have way more moves we can do, (in the older games, the matches could get stall, you had such a small list of moves to do) but now you have a lot more moves, because you have the combo moves, and you have the basic moves. If you don't wanna memories all the combos (most of them are the same for each wrestlers, but the moves are different for each of them obviously) you can do the strong or quick grapple and strikes. They also improved the targeting system, its easier for you to target someone close to you, as you will now automatic look at them, rather then having to press the target button until you start looking at who you want too, this makes mismatches a ton easier, as you can just attack someone quickly or save a pin ect. Gone is the ability to interrupt any move, I missed this, being able to stop any move and possible saving your partner from damage was nice, now you have watch the move happen, regardless if you're there to stop it or not. The aiming is off on some high-risk moves and often you'll just miss for no reason, I did a headbutt landed but it still counted as a miss, and this happen with a lot of high risk moves and its pretty annoying. A new block system is added also, you still can do a normal block, but now you have combo breakers, if you guess the combo correctly, you will break it and counter, for example there is 3 combo types, Light (X), Heavy (A) and Grab (B) so if you press the correctly you'll break it. The pin system has changed also its much more easier now, with a button mashing system instead of a timing system, but this can be switched in the menus.
Game modes, not counting online (which I didn't try at all, so if you're looking for stuff on that sorry) the game features 6 game modes, Play, Showcase, Universe, MyGM, MyFaction, and MyRise. Lets start with the 2K Showcase which is center around the career of cover star, Rey Mysterio, starting all the way in 1997 ending in 2020 with 12 matches total, sadly due to some licensing issues and certain wrestlers not being in the game, some of Rey's biggest matches are not featured like his 1st World Championship win. I always enjoy showcase mode and this is another good, here some quick pointers about the mode, the timeline is broken into sections, but order doesn't matter, you can play in any order, and unlock whomever you want at any time granted you compete the objectives. This time around the matches no commentary just music playing in the back and the arenas have weird filters on them which is fine for this mode but once you unlock them and play them in Play mode the filters are still on and its a bit weird. Sometimes its a little awkward just fighting with background music, but at times Rey will time in and tell you a little story about what's going on in the match and what he was thinking about. Rey is telling us stories throughout the entire mode. Cutscenes are still in but in a different way, completing some objectives will prompt a cutscene that will then translate into real life footage of the match, whereas in the past it would be a cutscene of what happened during the match (I personally prefer the cutscene animation but the real life footage was cool too). Overall a solid showcase, for some reason, I didn't get all my the achievements from this mode, that was pretty annoying as no game as ever not giving me achievements I know I got (for example you get a achievement for playing a match in showcase mode, I beat the whole thing, but didn't get the achievements.)
Moving on to Play mode is your standard exhibitions you turn the game on, and just wanna play some matches, you go in there and have a good time doing whatever you want, put a title on the line go for it, and you can even create match types and go wild with that (even though this is limited to how it was in the past, please let me be able to create first blood battle royals again!) MyFaction is WWE's version of NBA 2K's MyTeam, which I don't play and I dont play MyFaction either, so I can't talk to much about it, you build a team of wrestlers, and do matches, and apparently they have some special wrestlers that are unplayable in other modes (similar to some players in MyTeam), I started it up, and it was a bunch of tag matches I didn't wanna do and I didn't have much interest to go back into it.
Moving on to MyGM, yeah they capped, its nothing like how it was back in the day, and I played threw and entire shorten season (15 weeks, he longest is 50 weeks, 25 weeks is also an option) on the day it came out and (at the time of writing this) havnt played again. It was fun the 1st time playing it and trying to get threw it but once it was finished I just didn't wanna play it again. Its so limited, there is no US or IC Championship and no Tag-Team Championship, but you can only do tag matches or one on one matches. But basically you pick a GM or create one all with a perk, you pick which brand (all which have a unique power card) you wanna control and you go head to head with another brand and you pick a roster and you book matches and its kinda bland. They want you to draft and book based on types so you really don't have the control you want, a match with Randy Orton and Keith Lee sounds like it would be good, (an example not tested) but in the game it would be rated low, because of the mesh but a match with a lower tier wrester with a similar styles will be rated high. Triple H will give you commissioner goals but sometimes they make no sense, like don't book your world champion on a ppv, like what? But competing a commissioner goal will grant you a nice reward. I'm happy GM mode is back and hope it just grows from here, a lot needs to be added.
Universe Mode is usually my favorite mode, not much was added this year but things was fixed, this mode always has some booking problems where it will change you matches, so I'm glad they added the abelites to remove matches when booking a show, and if you already started a show you can edit a match. They removed the promo system so now you're just doing matches, this mode still doesn't hit the way it did like it did when I was in High School, but its still fun to run you're own wrestling show and see play it out. They also added a Superstar mode, where you play as one superstar and play threw the mode. This mode only has 3 save slots, wisht there was more.
Lastly, MyRise the revamped career mode, you have two separate stories for both a male and female created superstar (you can't import a CAW you already made this time around and that's pretty annoying). You have 4 backgrounds to choose from and these background change up the stories a little. You start off at the PC and from there you have a nice bit of control of what you want to do, you can change brands when you're ready, turn face or heel at any moment really and you can make decisions to turn at times. You have a list of good guy stories as well as bad guy stories and a bunch you can do being either or. The stories are unique between genders and are fun to play, some of the major stories are long while others are pretty quick. The game also has side stories, theses are one match stories'. I enjoyed MyRise, some of the stories are actually pretty entertaining and its fun to play, some matches are win or lose to determine what happens next, while others you have to win and you'll get hit with a rematch, and some matches have objectives that are 50/50 if you're about to get hoe'd or not! lol! Very good story mode, and proud of this. The mode does feature some alt version of wrestlers that you cant unlock and used in other modes, which is kinda lame, but with the power of Cross Play Community Creations you can download them there.
Overall, this a great game, I'm just as sad as everyone else that custom entrances were removed but its okay, the loading times for Create A Wrestlers is annoying at first but I got use to it. As a wrestling fan, this is a great step, the gameplay is fun, the story mode is fun and you can do some creative things in this. I would recommend this game, for wrestling fans or not its a good game to jump in and play. (Update, ordinally had it at an 8.3 but thanks to patches and some improvements I changed the score).
Overall-8.5
Gameplay-8.8
Graphic-9.3
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