WWE 2K22's Roster Shows How Much Wrestling Needs A Live-Service Game

thegamer.com:

WWE 2K22 launched this month and would you believe it, wrestling fans actually seem to like it. While it hasn't blown a hole in the genre, it's a marked improvement on WWE 2K20. The new additions to the series coupled with the improved graphics, smoother gameplay, and overhauled controls have breathed new life into the 2K games, and may well have done enough to keep WWE from pulling the plug and seeing what kind of wrestling game EA can create.

With each passing WWE game, the roster seems to get even bigger, and 2K22 is no different - somewhat surprising since Vince McMahon wished more than 80 Superstars well in their future endeavors in 2021. One of the reasons WWE 2K22 will feature more than 150 playable Superstars when all is said and done is because a lot of those released wrestlers made the cut. Braun Strowman, Toni Storm, and Keith Lee are all there, alongside quite a few others, despite no longer being under contract with the company.

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The choices behind who made the cut and who didn't in terms of released stars are incredibly hard to pin down. For example, Strowman was released before Bray Wyatt and Adam Cole, but neither The Fiend nor the former leader of Undisputed Era are in the game. Things get even more confusing when you realize current Superstars such as Doudrop and Zelina Vega have not been included. Doudrop and a number of other absentees will be added via DLC, but still no Vega, which is yet to be explained.

While being able to wrestle as Keith Lee in WWE 2K22 is cool, released stars on the roster, current wrestlers missing, and a somewhat bloated DLC roadmap highlights a bigger problem with wrestling games. The wrestling business, and