Lynell Jinks discusses all things 2K22 ahead of the standard video game release.
WWE 2K22 became available to play on March 9th for all who pre-ordered the game. The standard version releases on March 11th and ahead of that, Visual Concepts’ Lynell Jinks and Christina Diem Pham joined the Wrestle Buddies podcast.
Jinks is the Creative Director of 2K22 and Christina is the art director. While the game was being made, there were a multitude of talents released from WWE. During the month of November (2021), a total of 26 talents were cut from the company.
Jinks stated that it was tasking to navigate through that but at the same, it was not difficult because they’ve dealt with it before but just at a smaller rate. He shared that WWE does take into account how much of a hassle it would be to remove someone from the game so they work together to make decisions as such.
It is and it isn’t [a nightmare to put together a video game while talents are being released]. You know, every year we’ve had to deal with certain situations where a superstar would get released right before we’re about to launch the game and the WWE, they’re amazing partners, and they’ll evaluate what their contracts are and when our release date is, you know, how much of a pain point would it be for us to remove someone so they take into account so many different factors and they help us make those decisions and it was the same thing this year. It was like yeah, just at a different scale, but every superstar that either left the company or was future endeavored, there was a discussion about it and we worked with the WWE to figure out what was the best thing for the game, and so, again, they’re amazing. I think this year, with how long this production cycle has been and with all of these changes, not only to just their roster but you know, with the pandemic and the ThunderDome and what happened at WrestleMania, it’s just like there were so many uncertainties on what the actual look of WWE was going to look like when this game was gonna ship and so, we were all kind of like just waiting and they were keeping us in the loop and it was just, you know, to me, I felt like this year on so many levels, we hit our stride and we all kind of came together and through the weirdest circumstances. I think Christina [Diem Pham] and I met twice in person.
WWE 2K22 includes the return of General Manager mode. Jinks admitted that while they were figuring out what type of experience they wanted to create with MyGM, they looked at what Xavier Woods and Tyler Breeze were doing with ‘Battle of the Brands’ on UpUpDownDown.
He added that it got to a point where they had to start asking the question of if what they created so far was good enough or not because of how much it takes to establish said mode. Jinks shared that more features to MyGM will be added as they continue to check in on the game and improve it.
I hate to say it because of where we’re at and when we started this journey [MyGM on WWE 2K22], it was just like we looked at what — honestly, what Xavier Woods was doing on UpUpDownDown [with Battle of the Brands] and that type of experience and that co-op, sitting down with your friend and I know that’s a lost art form now but like, it’s that type of competitive nature and booking against each other and trying to make those decisions and see it play out and that was the type of feeling we were hoping to get from this mode. We know… all of the omissions like tag team titles or a bigger match card or things like that. We know that there’s definitely room for improvement but our main focus honestly was just — and it was a huge — it was a heavy, heavy lift to get that in the game along with blowing up all of the gameplay and adding MyFACTION, right? We had to cut corners in certain areas without compromising the mode itself, so you’re like — to me, it’s like, we had to settle on, ‘Is this good enough and will people be satisfied?’ And we’ll add more features to it as we go, now that it’s back for good but we felt that this was the best offering that we could put on the table and not jeopardize the quality and the experience because there’s a lot of — if you look at the amount of information and just logic that’s built into the mode right now in its current state where you’re just like, you add tag teams to the mix, you add certain crazy, I would say ‘match types’ like Battle Royals. Things you’re like, ‘Oh my God, what does the game do?’ So we obviously had to think about all of those things and weigh that into how much time we had left to get it done, because there was no foundation. This was a brand new thing that had to start from scratch, unlike, let’s say ‘Universe’ where you’re like we felt confident we could put a ‘Superstar’ mode in or ‘Showcase’ that’s a tried and true formula that we know how to build and build very quickly and to me, very well, and so, with MyGM, there was a ton of things that were on the table but designing them out and playing them out and testing it and we created a prototype and we realized like, all right, there comes a point in time in production where you’re like, ‘Do we keep adding to this and jeopardize us not shipping this at all?’ Or do we just say, ‘Hey, what we have right now is good enough and let’s just get this thing done.’
On today’s Daily News Update, Wai Ting and John Pollock were joined by video game reporter Mike Straw to discuss 2K22. To hear their conversation, head over to the POST Wrestling YouTube channel.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit the Wrestle Buddies podcast with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
