After months of anticipation, WWE 2K22 is finally here along with a new version of Career Mode with a new story in the form of MyRISE.
With hours invested into the game mode, our WWE 2K22 MyRISE Review takes a closer look at whether the single-player experience delivered this year.
WWE 2K22 MyRISE Review: Career Mode comeback steals the show
Going into the launch of WWE 2K22, most of the attention for the series focused on MyGM and the revival of a GM Mode that hadn't been seen in the franchise since 2007.
However, even in those earlier days there were positive signs on the story mode front as 2K announced in their feature reveal that MyCAREER would be no more and the new Career Mode replacement would be dubbed MyRISE.
It takes a lot more than a name change to set things on the right path, but the developers for WWE 2K22 have absolutely done that with MyRISE.
As fun as the somewhat simplified but ultimately replayable MyGM mode has been, and despite others like Universe Mode and Showcase offering their own excitement, nothing has been more enjoyable than MyRISE this year.
MyRISE wipes the floor with MyCAREER
The unfortunate reality for Visual Concepts when making WWE 2K22 was that everything in the title would be relentlessly compared to WWE 2K20, and that's something they seemed well aware of.
With the failures of that launch in mind, both technically and in the game's content, this is believed to be a big part of why they pushed for delays to get more time to finish the game properly.
MyCAREER in WWE 2K20 was a bit of a nightmare, and some would consider it one of the worst Career Mode experiences in years, as it tried to tell the interwoven story of Red and Tre and their journey towards being WWE legends.
While it broke ground being the first to include the option to play as a female superstar in a WWE 2K story mode, it unfortunately hindered that by linking the male and female stories in a way that made it feel pointless to play both the men's and women's versions.
MyCAREER also followed a fairly linear path that took choice out of the equation. WWE 2K22 MyRISE stands out by comparison for having distinct male and female MyRISE experiences with tons of branching storylines for each, all in the hands of the player.
Each story shines, even when the writing gets silly
At the risk of spoiling a few of the storylines you could find yourself in, WWE 2K22 MyRISE has far more depth than was expected of the game mode.
If you're playing the Men's MyRISE, you'll of course have standard storylines about things like the Royal Rumble and King of the Ring as well as ones where you have the opportunity to win the singles championships of each brand.
While it's possible to be thorough and stay on a brand until you felt you've done everything available, players often have the chance to jump to other brands if they want a change.
There are a few romance-inspired storylines that some fans may not love, but even some of the more over-the-top ones can be fun to play just for the sake of seeing how that absurd writing continues to unfold.
On top of all the longer storylines developed either over the in-game Social Media or by full cutscenes, MyRISE is packed with Challenge Matches where characters approach and give your character a single match objective that can earn you attribute boosts.
Some of the premises behind these can get fairly over the top, especially if your request is coming from noted podcaster Robyn Rae, but those nonsensically framed one-off moments never interfere with the main story and often feel perfectly at home considering some of the wild things that have happened in wrestling storylines over the years.
MyRISE isn't perfect, but the flaws are few and far between
For all of the ways it shines, there are a few problems with MyRISE and ways they can continue to refine the experience either through updates or with changes in the next installment of this franchise.
The first and most frustrating detail at the moment is that the character in MyRISE currently can't be imported or exported into other game modes.
This means that players who spend time creating themselves, or a favorite character they like using, in the Creation Suite will not be able to then import that model into MyRISE.
Instead, players have to create their character from the ground up within the MyRISE game mode. In the same vein, after a successful career mode you are not then able to export your character from MyRISE to use in other game modes.
With all that said, it says a lot about the quality of MyRISE that exporting the characters created for the mode to use in MyGM, Universe Mode, or Play Now is something we truly want them to add.
Verdict
WWE 2K22 walked through the curtain at launch embracing the reality that fans were ready to crucify the game if it had even a whiff of the issues that plagued WWE 2K20.
As the first clips started to show up once players actually had the game, the fan response was primed to be negative with many bashing every perceived mistake or minor glitch that popped up.
Despite all of that, opinions started to turn as more and more affirmed that, even for its flaws, WWE 2K22 is an absolute blast to play and a huge step in the right direction for this series.
Visual Concepts didn't run from the mistakes of WWE 2K20, they confronted them head-on and then even poked fun at themselves with easter eggs all over this high-quality MyRISE experience that call back to MyCAREER characters and locations from WWE 2K20 or before.
WWE 2K22 MyRISE is absolutely a "so much fun you can't put it down" kind of game mode, and it even brings replayability to the table with stories that can be missed and the possibility of different paths with different backgrounds shaking things up further.
RealSport Rating (WWE 2K22 MyRISE): 4/5