The Tutorial

Just like last year, WWE 2K23 has a tutorial. It has the storyline of Xavier Woods (pro gamer and awesome wrestler) training for a fantasy match against the cover star John Cena. It has much of the stuff featured in last year’s game, sans one thing; a  new pin system! Here’s a video of the tutorial.

WWE 2K22 Review: A New Start

The Gameplay and Presentation

Gameplay and presentation is much the same as last year. In the presentation department there’s updated trons for wrestlers, and thanks to ray-tracing tech, the trons actually reflect of of the stage this year in a very beautiful and realistic effect. In the gameplay department, there’s a new match called War Games featured, something that, to me, is a very welcome addition to the game as it’s been used very prominently on WWE programming for almost 4 years. You can find footage of the match above.

The Online

Online is amazing. Being able to play with fellow WWE fans in matches we see on the regular is super fun. And even though MyFaction (similar to NBA’s MyTeam, just without any online capability) is still in, which to me is pointless, the rest of the online modes, especially the Community Creations, make up for it. Creators have really stepped their game up, making true-to-life arenas, wrestlers, championships, and more.

The Showcase Mode

This showcase highlights John Cena, a name anyone might be familiar with, as his ventures outside the squared circle, like Hollywood, have been we’ll in the public eye. But, instead of focusing on the high points of his career, they focused on his losses, a truly unique change of the formula we’ve been fed over the past 5 years. It includes matches like RVD vs Cena at the infamous ECW One Night Stand pay-per-view, his debut match against Kurt Angle, (yay!) his matches with The Rock, and more.

The MyGM Mode

MyGM is great, also having major improvements like the ability to play multiple seasons of GM Mode, something we weren’t able to do last year. This makes it flow a lot more coherently and makes the gameplay more fun. They also have a new Hall of Fame system for people to work towards, and new GMs with new power cards.

The MyRise Mode

The MyRise mode is very fun this year, including storylines for both men and women wrestlers for the second year in a row. On the men’s side, the storyline is that you were fired and have to make your way back to the top in unconventional ways, like setting up a faction to combat management. The female side involves you being a second-generation wrestler and trying to either follow in your mother’s footsteps or forge your own path. In my opinion, this is one of the best storylines in a WWE game since WWE 12 a decade ago.

The Bad

Not that much bad stuff to talk about. All I can think of are glitches like the MyRise mode freezing on startup, but other than that, this is an extremely polished iteration.

The Conclusions 

Easy 4 stars. The improvements upon last year and the new additions make this a joy to play. I can’t give the game 5 stars because it certainly isn’t perfect, MyFaction being my main gripe, but I’m certainly enjoying playing this.