WWE 2K22 Review

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What a difference a year off makes.

Coming off the heels of the disastrous WWE 2K20, 2K Games and developer Visual Concepts smartly decided to sit one out in order to refocus and essentially reset the series. And it’s a good thing, too, because the resulting WWE 2K22 is by far the most polished and freshest take on the franchise since it began way back in 2013. To be clear, that isn’t to say that it is entirely free of bugs, awkward collision detection, server disconnects, and a few other longstanding problems, most of them are under control now and it’s evident that the team truly took many major points of feedback to heart. The action is faster, the controls are less convoluted at the ground level, the wrestlers (mostly) all look fantastic, and there are no confounding lootboxes ruining the career mode’s progression. On top of that, the total revamp of the strike/grapple system is the kind of shake-up WWE 2K has been in desperate need of.

It’s clear that one of the key focuses for WWE 2K22 was to simplify what has become, over years upon years of iterations, just an overwhelming amount of systems governing the fundamental wrestling mechanics. There’s no more stamina meter, no more multi-tiered lifebars, no more reversal stocks, no more chain wrestling minigames, no more rest hold minigames, and every character is down to just one special payback ability.

That might sound like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but really, it’s a trimming of fat that’s paid off. WWE 2K22’s wrestling feels much faster, more arcadey, and is more pick-up-and-play friendly for newcomers than ever. They’re almost all universally great changes, and whatever’s lost in the “Pro Wrestling Simulation” department is more than made up in the