MyCareer is incredibly hit or miss, while there is a nugget of good ideas, the entire concept turns into a grind up affair quite quickly. In order to get shots at title belts, you will need to improve your standing through matches, promos, and rivalries, but these can take ages to actually form. Not to mention, WWE 2K17 has a bad habit of pitting you against the same three opponents for several matches in a row, which can grow incredibly stale after your third or forth match with John Cena.

Yet, the worst aspect of WWE 2K17 has to be the “Live Promos” concept that they added in. The idea is that you will go into RPG-esque dialogue sequences that are timed between you, the audience, and your opponent as you try to either appear as a good guy (Face) or a bad guy (Heel). This has always been a critical part of wrestling, so its inclusion should be a natural fit, yet there is one glaring issue with it – no one has a voice.

For whatever reason, both your own wrestler and the actual real life wrestlers were not dubbed in, which leads to some extremely awkward moments where your tough wrestler yells at an opponent with no sound coming out of his mouth. Needless to say, this instantly disconnected me from living out the fantasy of being a wrestler and just made me want this entire section to end as soon as humanly possible.

This is only made even more puzzling because certain sections of the game are voiced, such as the announcers, trainers, and people who interview you backstage. Yet, the lines delivered are cringe worthy and often add little depth or immersion to the matches. Most of the time they will often repeat the same lines or make nonsensical remarks like “We’ve never seen that move before!” despite having seen that exact move in the match prior. This is genuinely frustrating as the mix of both having voice overs and not having them just gives WWE 2K17 an incredibly inconsistent feel.

Universe Mode is thankfully far more robust and makes up for the huge shortcomings of MyCareer. Acting more as a general manager mode, you are able to form rivalries, storylines, and entire events as you essentially manage an entire season of the WWE. It’s interesting and creating feuds between some of your favorite wrestlers is quite engaging, and also allows you to add your own personal touch to the events. Why this wasn’t implemented directly with MyCareer is beyond me, but it feels like a missed opportunity.

The real challenge starts once you take the fight online in a variety of game modes that can be tweaked and customized as well. This can be especially fun when you are playing with friends and thanks to the latest patch, the lag and latency issues have diminished but will pop up now and again. 2K Tonight is the most interesting aspect of the online portion as it acts as a pseudo “King of the Hill” where you can take on challengers and build up win streaks as you drop more and more opponents. This can be rather entertaining as you can begin to form your own rivalries with people online, though more match types included in 2K Tonight would have been nice.

Overall WWE 2K17 is a game that feels like a wasted opportunity that is only saved by Universe Mode, a robust character creator, and some solid tweaks to the combat mechanics. However, the massive amount of bugs, disappointingly shallow MyCareer Mode, laughable voice overs (and lack thereof!), and heavy reliance on counters make it a less than thrilling experience. This is a series that needs to take a few years off and go back to the locker room if it ever hopes to be taken seriously again.

 Score: 3/5 – Fair