this game isn’t perfect and you can tell it’s a baseline for future installments to build off of, but this did so much right for me. even though the new control scheme is a little complicated, i love how it gives you way more freedom to do whatever you want. i love gm mode back even if it’s a little limited, and rey mysterio’s showcase was awesome. I love that they went with an in universe documentary angle with it and it made the mode more unique and feel more important because of it. this game did a lot right and it’s done enough to restore faith in me. if wwe 2k23 improves on all the things wrong with thing one i think we’ll be in for an amazing experience

I got this for two reasons. 1. It was really fun watching clips of the Hololive girls play the game and 2. Because I wanted to compare it to the upcoming AEW game that should be out within the next few months.

I will say this, if you're looking for expressive gameplay where the wrestling is determined mostly by your skill and knowing the mechanics... you're better off looking elsewhere.

This game feels incredibly stiff, combat is super limited and while there isn't a Stamina Meter like in the SmackDown vs Raw games, a lot of the combat is really determined by mini-QTEs which I just don't think is done very well.

The character creator is fine, though I will say nothing can take the cake on Here Comes The Pain's character creator. It doesn't help that 2K22's isn't super straight forward in my opinion, so you have to go through multiple menus to get to the more direct settings.

Also all of the default faces just look incredibly uncanny, half of them just have this expression of needing to take a shit and it's incredibly weird.

Honestly the best reason to play this game is solely for the Showcase mode. Rey Mysterio is a genuinely interesting wrestler to me, and seeing him talk about some of his most engaging matches while playing through them really gets you engrossed into it. It's again, too bad combat isn't really satisfying here.

I have no doubts that AEW Fight Forever will 100% overshadow this game given it's going back to the roots of these games, and it'll probably overshadow the inevitable 2K23 game as well.

Honestly I just wanna go back to play HCTP at this point. At least I didn't blow full price on this.

A step up from recent games in the series, though that isn't saying much given the downward trend of the games under 2K. The career mode is a fun little run through, with a ton of smaller storylines running in parallel to your rise to the championship.

GM mode makes its long awaited return, but falls short of expectation. Limited timeline, bare-bones program planning, and an inept AI that puts up little effort to win the brand war.

Honestly, Universe mode is an always will be the place that requires the biggest overhaul. Until players have full story line control, and can truly treat this game as a fantasy booker, the series will continue to fall short.

It actually does hit different, in a good way. 2K22 throws out the simulation experience and adopts a refined, streamlined control scheme for faster-paced, arcade-style gameplay. There's a lot to like here from the detailed creation suite that allows for unlimited user created content, to a variety of match types, all the way to a new Career mode and the return of GM Mode.

Controls are basically identical to WWE '13 and though 2K22 is of course a wrestling game, it adds in some fighting game elements. You can press a combination of punch, kick and grapple buttons to throw out quick combos. Breakers have been added, which are rock-paper-scissors guessing style counters that allow you to counter your opponents' attack.

As fun as 2K22 is, several bugs have been present throughout the game which have caused crashes and annoyances. The game modes even feel largely undeveloped. The new MyFaction mode (a WWE card-collecting mode similar to NBA 2K's MyTeam and EA's Ultimate Team) comes off as frustrating and grindy, relying more on cheap tactics rather than skill. The new MyRise Career mode provides fun, but gets repetitive due to the fact that the mode consists of short stories lasting anywhere from 3-5 or so matches, with cutscenes being few and far in-between. GM Mode is severely lacking compared to it's SmackDown vs. Raw 2007 counterpart. NBA Live 19, a game known for it's weak Franchise mode, is more fleshed out than WWE 2K22's take on Franchise. Lastly, while Showcase mode is fun, the mode plays more like an extended tutorial with a checklist of objectives. It's definitely a mode most people will play once to unlock everything and never look back.

WWE 2K22 is a fun wrestling game that feels more like the later THQ WWE titles (SvR 2010 through '13). More time ironing out the issues and developing the modes would have made this one of the greatest of all time.

As I'm writing this, it's about a month out from the next WWE game and the first back on the yearly schedule after a brief hiatus following 2K20. I've noticed over the past couple weeks I've been feeling more antsy and excited for 2K23 than I think I expected to be and I think it's because I'm just now realizing how much this game did that, put all together, is like a melting pot of all my favorite things from previous WWE games. It's like it was built for me specifically.

This is like a perfect blend of WWE All Stars and a grounded reality in the ring. Its got the combos like All Stars, which means if you let it you can have matches devolve into back-and-forth fast-paced brawl at any point but it also has a grapple system reminiscent of some of the older games where all the moves are performed from a lockup so you can slow the pace at your leisure. In a similar feeling from All Stars as well the combos are very solid at reflecting the kind of wrestler you're playing as. A technical guy may have a combo end in a move targeting a specific body part or end in a submission, a smaller high flyer wrestler will be more flashy in their combos like with quick kicks and a fast ending, while a powerhouse will just swing their arms around and then throw you ten feet the opposite way. This probably sounds like pretty basic stuff for a wrestling game but it wasn't until this game specifically that I thought about how each individual wrestler didn't feel as intrinsically expressive in previous games. Now I finish a session thinking about which wrestlers in the game I haven't played with much recently and get a little sad since it feels like a different experience I'm missing out on. Signature moves and finishers are earned independently of each other like All Stars meaning the matches feel less like you're just working through the same pattern again and again.

Showcase mode is something that gets a lot of negative feedback because people want older modes from previous games to return in its place. It would be cool to see some of those have a comeback maybe, but I'll never be sad to see Showcase return. Reliving some of these older moments is usually fun and they come with additions to the rosters that might have never appeared otherwise. MyRise, even though you can only play as your own created wrestler carries with it the absolutely bonkers, wrestlecrap energy of my beloved Road to Wrestlemania mode from Smackdown vs. Raw. The only real complaints I have are towards MyFaction and Universe Mode, MyFaction because it's completely pointless and only exists to be Ultimate Team equivalent that has plagued modern sports games though I wonder if it can ever become that whale hunter those games live on since it could never replicate the reasons people play wrestling games, and Universe Mode is just a technical disaster filled with glitches and crashes that I hope gets a full facelift soon.

Even with the complaints though I can't deny the simple fact that for the first time since WWE All Stars when I end a session of WWE 2K22 I never feel like I've played enough matches for the day and would rather do something else now. Back on the yearly schedule means this kind of turnaround won't happen again for a long time but I'm so satisfied with this new base that I don't feel like I'll need that reset for a long time. I'm just so excited to be this excited again!

It's probably been about 4-5 years since I've played a WWE game and after seeing this on PS+ and hearing that it's actually an improvement over the other games and one of the best in years, I decided to give it a shot. Yep, it's still the same thing. Where are these drastic improvements people are talking about? GM mode is kinda fun, but its literally the exact same as it was in the older games. Showcase mode was disappointing and super short. I didn't bother trying Faction mode since it looks like some stupid cash grab, like a FIFA ultimate team copy or something. The gameplay remains the same. It can be fun at times, but I got bored incredibly quickly, although maybe that's just because I don't watch or like wrestling anymore.

This is a solid entry in the WWE 2K game series and is a step up from the lackluster and nearly broken previous entry WWE 2K20. There is a huge roster of both current stars (well, relatively) and Legends from the past. The gameplay has once again been tweaked unnecessarily in my opinion just so it feels different from the previous but still isn't as fun to play as some of the older games. There are several different game modes but none of them are all that appealing to me personally (I never even touched MyFaction or MyRise modes). The graphics are the best they've ever been but not every superstar looks as good as others and many of the titantron graphics are somewhat low quality. Also while this game isn't nearly as buggy as 2K20 was at launch I've still encountered a number of bugs and the game crashes semi-regularly. All in all I feel that these games have become complacent and there's a risk that competition such as the upcoming AEW Fight Forever game could unseat WWE as my primary wrestling game experience.

I can confidently say WWE 2K22 is a phenomenal game. It's the most fun I've had with a wrestling game since 2013. I have been highly critical of 2K and their WWE games since they got the license in 2014 and at one point I just started to skip them altogether. I am extremely happy I did not skip this one. Well worth the $60 I payed for it. The my GM mode is incredibly fun especially over remote play with a friend. The career mode is well put together with branching stories that really helps you feel like a WWE superstar. This game is exactly what I'm looking for in a pro wrestling game and it's good to see 2K finally get it right.

im over 200 hours in, playing primarily universe mode, will doubtless play for months if not years to come (depends on the upgrade that 2k23 presents)

significant upgrade over 2k19 in many aspects, especially striking, reversal animations and stagger

ps5 load times are phenomenal

there are however many, many small irritating bugs, way more than 2k19 and the game has hard crashed twenty times more often than every other ps5 game i own combined

I played for about 4 hours in MYRISE mode and encountered so many annoying issues that I quit. Long loading times on the Series X makes switching between menus and matches a slog.
The career mode often traps you in matches you must win to progress rather than having an alternative fail path. The career mode stories/feuds are generally just presented via Twitter posts. There seem to be bugs with the career mode too as in one of the few stories/feuds with cutscenes I won the US Championship after a series of matches. Then the game seemed to forgot that I won it and gave the title to someone else on Twitter. My title win was never recorded and it seemed like the multi part story just didn't happen.
The grappling system has been changed to an old combo system that I haven't seen since the end of the 90s and games like WWF War Zone. The game has a barebones tutorial but doesn't explain many of the control inputs and just expects you to pause the game during a match and look up your moveset and other actions. I preferred the original, more simple but gratifying, Smackdown method of grappling/reversing.
I think it's time to give the licence to someone else.