Feels like Rock Bottom.
WWE 2K22 does indeed - as it claims - hit differently. Different, however, does not always guarantee a change for the better. Going into this I had been out of touch with WWE games for well over a decade and so I really did not know what to expect. What proceeded was a rollercoaster of emotions as I came to terms with modern wrestling and what it offered in its games. Remember, you cannot polish turd.
This negative perception also extends to the games animations, which often defy natural physics, but not in an awe-inspiring way. All controllable movement simply feels clunky and stiff. The feedback from bodies colliding with each other or the canvas has been noticeably affected, detracting immensely from the ideal wrestling experience. Nothing ever feels as though it hits with the true wallop you were expecting. Annoyingly, wrestlers even still get caught in the odd physics-defying rope or jarringly snap into animations - so it is nice to see that all the kinks from the previous 2K20 release have been ironed out, eh. Finally, clothing and hair also suffer and their movement is completely unnatural. I appreciate that replicating the motions of hair and clothing is very difficult, but a studio producing such a AAA title should be far more capable.
Somewhere the game shines is with the high level of creativity available to the player. From wrestlers to arenas, entrances to title belts, and everything in-between, every wrestling-relevant part has been accounted for and can be manipulated. You can create from scratch or alter what's already in the game. There is very little off limits to the player and there is so much depth that each category of creation could easily have its own article.
2K22 returns with not one, but two story modes and I think this is the best way to show the cluttered nature of the game. Showcase makes a return, a mode where you take on the role of a wrestling legend - this year that being Rey Mysterio - as you progress through his iconic matches from throughout his career. In this case, from late nineties WCW up to the present day WWE. This is certainly the more entertaining of the two modes. It's short and snappy, has unlockables to earn and has plenty of replay value due to its incorporation of challenges. You can play how you like, but the whole idea is that you follow the cues of the original matches.
MyRise is the second story mode and this is your storyline. You make the wrestler and rise through the ranks to become a famous WWE superstar. It still looks horrendous, obviously, but also has poor quality voice acting accompanying it. Not to mention it's all so cheesy I want to stuff it into a Christmas hamper. Its most interesting feature is the new karma mechanic, which overtime will either make your character a babyface (the good guy) or a heel (the bad guy) in the eyes of the fans, depending on the decisions you make. Finally, be warned, because at the time of writing MyRise is currently bugged on the PC and lacks game pad support. Hopefully this will be rectified soon, as this is a rather major technical issue.
2K22 also comes packaged with two strategy games; MyGM and MyFaction. MyGM is a very in-depth and intricate business management simulator, centred around WWE. You choose from a group of potential managers - with each having an accompanying passive buff - and you choose your brand. You then have to make that brand the most successful using whatever nose you have for business. Every aspect is your call to make, you are the general manager, and you must aspire to succeed.
MyFaction is a deck building card game and it is probably the most pointless addition to this game. It works, though it seems confused and blatantly does not belong, instead reeking heavily of that classic free-to-play mobile title stench . You must assemble a deck, sometimes using real money to purchase cards for it, and then do battle. You play the cards and proceed to wrestle using the character on it. The major downside is that battles are exclusively PVE; there is absolutely no PVP. It appears 2K implemented a money farm into their game rather than a legitimate minigame. Why even amass these cards if the end result is just more wrestling gameplay? I appreciate that, on the one hand, they removed PVP to stop pay-to-win players, but, on the other, it removes any fun the mode could have generated. The mechanics behind the card game are there, but it is not something that needed to exist here.
Ultimately, I think publisher 2K kind of misunderstood the capabilities of their developer. While the immense detail buried into each and every game mode is admirable, the poorer quality visuals that linger on the surface begin to blanket that hard work. If nothing else, Visual Concepts have revealed their development strengths are better suited to strategy games rather than graphically impressive spectacles. Overall, while I do think that this is a decent effort to try and put the game back on track after the 2K20 blunder, I would still much rather have received a game with half (or possibly none) of the additional features and instead been given a more competent fighting game. A combination of trying to reinvent the wheel, mixed with developer misunderstanding, has led to a confused final product. It only ever needed to be a fighting game that was fun, bug free, smooth to play and visually stunning.
I hope you enjoyed this review.
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all images ©: World Wrestling Entertainment inc., Visual Concepts, 2k
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