WWE 2K22 Shows Off MyGM Mode

I’m a touch late on this, though I have the excuse of playing games, including ones I’ve adored for many years now. One of those I’ve got pilled up on my desk that’s been well-loved is WWE SmackDown Vs. Raw 2008 (Featuring ECW), with the last gasp of the reason I fell in love with wrestling games, GM Mode. Well, if you haven’t heard, WWE 2K22 is set to see the return of the sole reason I’d buy a wrestling game until 2K16 & 17. Last week, coincidently, the latest trailer for 2K22 revealed some of what we’ll be seeing upon release in early March.

Narrated by the Billion Dollar Princess, Stephanie McMahon, and showing off very little of the menu-based systems you’d be tormented by, the trailer shows off the business management side. Talking drafts, setting up rivalries, and more. It also shows the create-a-GM mode in case you don’t wish you play as either current SmackDown co-GMs Adam Pearce or Sonya Deville, the (reportedly) recently released Shane McMahon, or even Stephanie herself. A cleaner, modern look comes with your draft picks, show rundowns, budgets, and other spreadsheets akin to Sega’s Football Manager series. To say I am excited would be an understatement. I just love me some Microsoft Excel.

Joking aside, I am interested to see what the people over at Visual Concepts could do with a year off from pumping out wrestling games after the catastrophe that was 2K20, with the abomination that was 2K Battlegrounds in the intermediary. After two years to work on it, with a delay setting it to be the first WWE game with a year in the title to release in that year, I hope the development teams actually had enough time to polish what they have made. I also hope, and this will cancel any plans of sending us a review copy, that 2K’s persistence to cram loot boxes into everything doesn’t ruin this one or even MyGM mode.