Recently we were given a chance to get a short amount of hands-on time with WWE 2K22. An entry in the series afforded a bit of extra time in development, WWE 2K22 represents at the top of the pile, the WWE as a brand perhaps better than any title before it.

Which is actually more important than at first might seem. There's nuance and flair where the WWE's myriad brands are concerned, and so representation of them and of the business as a whole helps sell that experience evermore.

Here's a snippet of our thoughts:

From a gameplay perspective, what really jumped out at me, again, in an admittedly short stint, was the tight and measured approach to the squared dance. There’s a massive emphasis on not spamming your way to victory, though the inputs may look spammable, there’s a dance to moving between light and heavy strikes, and all of this feeds a greater sense of combat fluidity in the revamped game. To be fair, I never sunk enough time into the last WWE 2K outing to be able to confidently explain whether this is leaps and bounds better, but I can say I picked it up more quickly than any other wrestling games I’ve played in quite some time.

Click here for our full hands-on with WWE 2K22.