WWE 2K25’s MyGM MODE IS ONE OF THE MOST TENSE STRATEGY GAMES OF THE LAST FIVE YEARS

by RHI EASBY

I’m frozen, unable to make a decision.

One more move, and this is all over. 

One more move, and I’ve won.

But it’s also one move until my opponent wins.

A single bead of sweat rolls down my cheek.

My opponent has played all of their cards. They’ve pushed me down, and they’ve made my life almost impossible. But what they don’t know is that I have tricks up my sleeve, too.

I sigh. The decision is made.

Just one more question.

Who should be the new WWE Intercontinental Champion?

It’s fascinating, really, how the MyGM mode in the WWE games was missing for a considerable amount of time. Years without the mode being included at all, to the point that when it returned, it was met with cheers from the entire fanbase. Personally, I was never much for it – I always preferred Universe mode, where I make my own stories. However, I tried MyGM mode with WWE 2K25, and I realized two things – firstly, this was better than Universe mode by a wide margin. Secondly, this was one of the best strategy games I’d played in years.

I think what really speaks to me about MyGM mode is the planning aspect of it all. It might just seem like an Excel spreadsheet simulator, but scratch a little beneath the surface and you’ll find something that requires deep thought. Working out your roster requires a lot of strategy. You’ve got a limited budget, but you also want as many different fighting styles as possible so that you can make your matches as high-quality as you can. But there’s also the secondary issue: scarcity of time. Your roster is stacked with superstars to showcase, but there’s a limited number of slots per show to book them on. Who will fans tune in to see every week, or spend their hard-earned cash to see live?

 There are multiple different titles for both the men and the women, and you’re not going to have the room to devote equal time to all of them. So, what title gets the focus? Which plays second fiddle?? Is it the men’s tag titles? Is it the women’s intercontinental title? Something has to give, after all. 

Like the aforementioned Universe mode, you can actually decide who wins each match by playing them, but it’s somewhat more fun to let the random nature of the game take most of these matches and choose an outcome. Doing so requires you to think on your feet 

Playing ‘cards’ can make your life easier in this regard – make it so that your matches are cheaper for the week, or that it’s less likely one of your stars gets injured, or so that your opponents have a much harder time booking shows next week. But this isn’t just one-sided. Your opponent can do the exact same thing to you, and if you bite them, then they might just bite back. 

It reminds me a lot of playing XCOM, weirdly. While it’s not like I have to worry about my wrestlers dying (though I do have to worry about both their morale and their injury status, which is a whole different thing), I still have to consider how my actions impact them. If I want to have a story where Cody Rhodes and Damian Priest face off in a championship storyline, then I can do that. But I also have to remain conscious that fans don’t want to see the same matches over and over, each match has a fixed cost that will affect your bottom line, and that while it might seem like a good idea to have all of the higher-end matches back-to-back to maximize quality, that’ll have an impact on whether or not my superstars are well enough to fight the next week. 

Just like trying to make sure that my best soldiers stay alive and kicking in XCOM, I have to make sure my best wrestlers stay around on my show. Promos allow them to earn me money, earn the brand fans, earn themselves popularity, and increase their rivalries without actually putting them in harm’s way. But if they’re injured, they can’t do that. Some superstars have requests that earn rewards if they’re fulfilled, but is it always worth fulfilling those requests? Sure, it’ll make your superstar happy, but it might interrupt your story and affect the way that you’re booking the show. Suddenly, this stops being a simple game of plugging wrestlers into matches and watching them battle away. It becomes a complex game of chess, where every move could be your last. Where you could lose somebody at any turn. 

So spare a thought for me, my finger hovering over the confirm button for my final Wrestlemania card. It’s Cody Rhodes vs Tommaso Ciampa for the big one, with a Johnny Gargano run-in on Ciampa set to further a blood feud, a story I’ve been building up for the entire year. Gargano has taken everything from Ciampa – and now it’s time for Ciampa to prepare for his revenge. Everything hinges on this, and it’ll affect how I plan my next year. I hit confirm and let the fates take me by the hand.