what's up everybody it's your boy lionel
jinx i am the creative director of the
ww2k franchise
and this time i'm not alone y'all i got
my homie with me she is going to be with
me along this journey this ride
christina please introduce us
hey y'all i am christina dm fam art
producer on wwe 2k22
and welcome to the inaugural episode of
ringside report brought to you all by
the teams at 2k and visual concepts
we're here to provide regular updates
and deep dives into the many areas and
features of ww2k22
and this year we're introducing the wwe
2k22 ringside reports and you'll hear
from lionel and myself beginning now
through the games launch march and after
for the latest on dlc
patches and other updates and we're not
gonna be taking this ride alone because
we're bringing the homies from the dev
team with us so come on bring them on
bring them on
but before we dive into that let's kick
it off with a very quick conversation
about visuals because let's be real if
y'all take a look at wwe 2k 22 you might
see some massive differences from
previous cycles and this is the best
looking game yet
it's so pretty lionel can you talk about
how the teams approach production
differently this time around starting
with the superstars
so the superstars you know in any wwe
game are the backbone of the game right
and so we have to make sure that we are
doing our absolute best on representing
every superstar to the best of our
abilities and in order for us to do that
we piggybacked on the same technology
that you guys saw in nba 2k uh 22 uh
where you know you look at their their
players in the details and just the
likenesses look amazing and so you know
we shared that same technology and
brought that uh into ww2k22 like the
cross polarization scans um improved
hair
just to me the amazing amount of detail
that you'll see in our superstars is
unparalleled for us yeah and also the
teams have overhauled the lighting
engine and there's an all-new vfx engine
as well yeah uh so you know
lighting is everything right so like all
these details and everything that we
poured into our superstars uh wouldn't
mean anything if they weren't lit
properly right and so um if you you know
take a look at this version of the game
compared to any other year like it looks
like a broadcast it looks photorealistic
at times and a lot of that is due to
lighting
and before i forget there's also
a ton of new and improved championships
as well and um one of my personal
favorites mainly because it's the team i
work with most most closely is the
environments team um there are over 55
playable arenas and we also have virtual
proud boards in the game as well so you
might see some familiar faces oh yeah
not my ugly mug
alright we know what y'all been waiting
for so we have some folks in the waiting
room gonna go ahead and invite all of
them in
so y'all
we're so excited today because y'all
know who we got
please welcome the gameplay leadership
team principal designer jason vandiver
senior designer derek donahue and senior
producer jonathan rivera y'all
this is extremely exciting and thank you
so much for joining us for the first
episode of ringside report okay so i
don't want to linger any longer because
folks have been asking for gameplay for
a very very long time
uh without further ado the moment y'all
been waiting for we are going to show
you a 1v1 match between rey mysterio and
damien priest so
let's roll the
footage so at this point one of the
things we very intentionally called out
to our fan base is that we have a
redesigned gameplay experience and
starting with jason um can you talk
about what that means to you and how
gameplay it's different
uh in wwe 2k 22 we have a completely new
animation system
this system has allowed us to greatly
improve the look and the feel of the
characters basically everything from the
way the characters move and they
traverse through the world how they
align with each other during attacks has
been completely overhauled and redone
players are going to notice a
significant difference the moment they
pick up the controller the characters
are
way more responsive than they've ever
been
you no longer feel like you're fighting
to control your character to get them
into position to do what you want them
to do strikes dives springboards they
all connect more precisely and that's
also something that we really struggled
with and took the heart and
tried to resolve this year
another key change that we've made
to the game engine this year is our
physics system uh while the series has
always had habits to some degree it was
primarily used for only hair and cloth
simulation
for 2k 22 we've completely integrated
havoc into gameplay which has allowed us
to introduce things like breakable props
uh the kendo stick starts the fray the
more you use it tables they break more
dynamically uh the chair even breaks um
and even elements within the environment
itself are now
dynamically breaking such as like the
corner barricade instead of relying on a
canned sequence animation it's a really
big change and has helped to make the
entire gameplay screen feel more dynamic
awesome
derek same question
so for me when we sat down to figure out
how we were going to change gameplay for
2k 22 one of the biggest things that we
we put as a priority was making sure the
game is is fun in a pickup and play kind
of way i want to be able to hand the
controller to my friend who doesn't know
anything about wwe and i want them to
still be able to have a good time and be
able to just kind of hop in with me so
we made sure that with our controls
redesign all of the core actions are
something you can discover just by
button mashing you should be able to
basically play through a match without
having known anything beforehand
but another big priority for us with
that is making sure we're not you know
smoothing over a lot of the details that
returning fans like so all of the high
level of control that you expect to have
in your character all the high degree of
customization you expect all of that
still remains
okay so you've mentioned new controls
and mechanics
combat itself is centered around three
inputs light attacks heavy attacks and
grapples so
in this cycle specifically what do those
terms mean so light attacks those are
your quick strikes the fastest attacks
in the game heavy attacks those are kind
of like strong strikes from previous
years they're bigger slower strikes but
they deal more damage and then finally
grapples those are where some of the
bigger changes come into play so you
press the grapple button once to lock up
with your opponent but then from there
you can press light you can press heavy
uh those will do your light and heavy
grapples but there's all sorts of other
options irish whips drag carry all of
those things come from the grapple state
so once you grapple your opponent you
have a lot of possibilities opened up to
you okay and i want to toss this over to
jonathan too so opening up these
possibilities can you talk about some of
the combo options that players can dive
into
yeah sure i love how simple and engaging
our new dynamic combo system feels i
don't need to memorize every superstar's
moveset but instead i practice the
timing of my inputs in order to execute
combos light attacks allow me to branch
into a combo and when i learn that light
light heavy grab executes that move i
can take that and apply it to anybody i
play with i love the exploration that
our game provides to encourage the user
to play with many different superstars
and then choose whichever ones is better
suited for them and if you don't like
the combos that we assign we also
support customizing combos i'm
personally really excited to see what
cool combos our community creates
okay very quickly i want to take it back
to one point that derek touched on
earlier which was about the
accessibility of this game and being
able to just pick it up and play and i
want to call this out mainly because i
myself am a much newer player to wwe 2k
so for me picking up and playing
has been the whole experience the
controls are super easy to learn and
while my own habits fall back on button
mashing the controller even though we
have that i enjoy having to be very
strategic and intentional about how i'm
approaching this game especially when it
comes to the timing of things like
reversals or finishers so i can
definitely
attest to
hey if you're feeling intimidated by
this please don't pick it up try it out
you'll have such a blast
but also if you're a vet you've been
playing this for a long long time uh can
y'all talk about how vets can better
show off their moves and what that means
for the overall strategy of their
experience
so a lot of the strategy for our game
comes with the new defensive options
that we've added this year so one of the
biggest examples is breakers instead of
reversals being the only tool for
countering your opponent's attacks
grapples and combos actually don't use
reversals instead you counter them with
a breaker so when you're doing a grapple
or a combo on your opponent they can
counter that attack by pressing the same
light heavy or grapple input against you
so those moves are counted as breakers
everything else is countered with a
reversal so knowing what kind of attack
you expect your opponent to perform can
already prime you to know how you want
to counter it so there's already a mind
game with that level
then you have blocking which is all new
uh if you hold down the reversal button
you enter a blocking stance and that
lets you withstand light heavy and
running attacks
and then you can counter-attack faster
than your opponent can't after blocking
you can also dodge with the right bumper
so you can kind of choose a direction
and get out of the way really quickly if
you time your dodge correctly but it's
higher risk than a block
and then when you're on the ground you
also can button mash to get up faster or
you can press right bumper to do a quick
get up
at the cost of some resource so when you
have all of those defensive options
available to you it makes when you're on
defense that's a lot more strategic but
also when you're on offense you have to
be careful with how you want to attack
your opponent so that they don't counter
you
so our community has been speculating
about the hud and like guessing like
what you know these little glowing
meters mean and all this stuff
jonathan
i'm gonna let you be the first to break
this down and break the news
and let's dive into the hud and give the
community some clarity here
uh so our goal was to create a hud that
strips down all unnecessary aspects and
simply gives the user the information
that they need without distracting the
user from the in-game action
so at the very top you'll have the
vitality meter and this is basically
your health bar
below that you'll find a special meter
which is a resource you want to spend to
perform signatures paybacks or
defensive actions finally at the bottom
is your finisher meter where you can
store up to three stocks
so there's one thing that's that's
missing that i think a lot of people
like where where's the reverse stock
can you talk a little bit more about
like
you know the changes we made there
yeah sure yeah obviously the biggest
change uh that we made was the removing
the reversal stock from the hud we felt
that 2k 20's matches came down to how
the users manage their reversal stock we
wanted to bring a bit more skill to a
match by giving the users unlimited
reversals but making them a little bit
more difficult to execute
in our internal matches with 2k 22 we
get wild swings and back and forth and a
bunch of oh so close moments that we
really feel make the match memorable
and in addition to that um we added a
new stun meter that shows up on the
characters when it's close to being
filled so we're really excited to show
off our new hud and and
for for our users to play with all of
the new additions and our streamlined
approach
cool like one of the things that you
know at the end of the match where i'm
like you know in previous years or you
know iterations once you could you
basically knew once the your opponent
didn't have any reversal stock all you
had to do was hit your sticker finish
your match was over that's not the case
anymore right like someone can just pull
out like a reverse on this this back and
forth um and so derek can you talk about
the like the you know how strategy is is
is incorporated into that that part of
the this new mechanic
yeah so with reversals no longer being
on a limit that opens up a lot of
possibilities for how your opponent can
count you right like they could always
pull a reversal out uh or if you're
using combos and uh grapples they could
hit you with a breaker but the stun
meter that jonathan mentioned earlier
that's one of your biggest tools for
making sure that you can pull off your
biggest move without getting countered
so lighter attacks while they don't do
as much damage to the vitality of the
opponent they're better at filling your
opponent's stun and if you can get their
stun meter filled that's your
opportunity to perform an attack without
the risk of getting a reversal or a
breaker
button mashing is back y'all like i love
it it creates a whole new level of like
intensity in those those uh those tight
matches and uh yeah like i gotta
practice my finger strength on
so i can beat everyone down
when this game goes online
[Applause]
all right y'all we can go on and on but
unfortunately we're out of time so to
close out
now that we're nearing the end of
production what are y'all looking
forward to most for the game whether for
your own experience or with players
specifically let's start with jason then
derricks and jonathan
i'm really looking forward to seeing how
my rise turns out we've been working so
hard on gameplay that haven't really
been able to look at the rest of the
game
those guys have been really
really really working to deliver an
awesome awesome story this year and
from everything i've seen they're ready
to deliver youtube get in the ring for
me it's the backstage uh the completely
redesigned backstage i think people have
only seen a small peek of there's a lot
of really cool stuff going back there
especially with the verticality
and for me it's i'm super excited to see
rey mysterio in our showcase mode
playing some classic matches that were
recreated for our for wwe 2k22 so i
think people are going to be really
excited about that
awesome well again thank you so much for
joining us for the first ringside report
ever for this like messed up you can
even ask me christina like what i'm
looking forward to that's his message
we'll take it back we'll take it back
all right rewind
well i know what are you most excited
for it's everything right like you know
i i've been fortunate enough to like
have my hand in you know every single
cookie jar and um as you can tell like
this covered weight ain't going away
anytime soon but um yeah like
you know it's seeing you know what we're
doing on the gameplay side and how that
bleeds into universe and how it bleeds
into my rise and in in my gm my faction
like it
we've done so much um in the time that
we we have and i'm just super excited
for everyone to get their hands on with
it and and just have fun like again like
just practice practice now practice your
your thumb strength because you're gonna
need it your thumb thumbs
y'all so that again that wraps it for
our first ringside report thank you to
jason vandiver
derek donahue and jonathan rivera for
joining us
sure
thank you thank you for having us
oh my god
was i supposed to
leave
i think
okay so once again for real this time
thank you to jason derek and jonathan
for joining us and thank you to all of
you the player community for
tuning in for our first ringside report
we are so excited to release this game
and we can't wait for you all to get
your hands on it
yeah thank you guys uh so much uh for
joining us and thank you all for tuning
in um we will talk to you all soon and
in the meantime check us out on social
media at wwe games
[Music]
you