Unlike most season passes, WWE 2K22's season pass lacks the appropriate DLC content to justify its $39.99 price tag. A season pass from a different game might provide additional levels, cosmetics, or even full expansions for fans to enjoy. The coming season pass offers only 28 wrestlers, a Supercharger (which unlocks all the legends in the game), and a boost to WWE 2K22's MyRISE mode that will give additional attribute points. Both the supercharger and the MyRISE attribute bonus are microtransactions stuffed inside the pass to give it more value. Players can simply play the game and earn enough Virtual Currency or points to reach the level the DLC is providing, which means that, unfortunately, the 28 wrestlers aren't doing nearly enough to make the season pass worth the cost.
There are several wrestlers locked behind DLC that have no business being there. Indi Hartwell is DLC though the rest of The Way is in the base game. Ilija Dragunov is also DLC despite being NXT Champion in June of 2021. To make matters worse, a couple of the wrestlers in the pack are actually celebrities with thin ties to WWE. Both musician Machine Gun Kelly and internet personality Logan Paul are treated as DLC wrestlers. And while WWE 2K22 players can chokeslam Machine Gun Kelly and logan Paul now, those spots could have been reserved for WWE talent. To justify their inclusion, 2K Games might argue that both celebrities have been present in WWE media before, but there are still plenty of legends or NXT talents who are missing from the game entirely and will probably remain missing.
Among the missing wrestlers, only a few are understandable. It makes sense not to include wrestlers like Adam Cole and Daniel Bryan, who left for All Elite Wrestling, yet both Kyle O'Reilly and Keith Lee are still in the game despite also switching companies. While it's possible that O'Reilly and Lee cut a deal, it doesn't make the inclusion any less strange, though removing the plethora of wrestlers who WWE released or let go would thin the roster significantly.
WWE 2K22's Smaller Roster Isn't Helped By Strange Season Pass Choices
With a smaller roster, even causal fans may notice that WWE 2K22 has disappointed with missing content despite having an extra year to develop the game. Paige and Grayson Waller are both missing entirely despite being present as early as 2018 and 2021 respectively. Even if Paige is in forced retirement, Waller won the NXT Cruiserweight Championship in September of 2021 and appeared as early as June of the same year. That would make Waller a perfectly logical choice - at least for DLC.
There are also plenty of legends in the DLC that are head-scratching. While wrestlers like Yokozuna, Umaga, and Boogeyman are reasonably DLC as they haven't been in any wrestling games since the PS3 era, there is no reason why Cactus Jack (a Mick Foley persona) should be. Mick Foley, or some version of him, has been present consistently as a legend and his model should be more or less up to date. Booker T was also in WWE 2K20, and he wasn't even DLC - with several WWE wrestlers leaving the company, one would think there would be spots for late additions instead of placing established legends behind a paywall. Lastly, Lita is missing from both the launch roster and DLC despite being in WWE 2K20 and wrestling in WWE recently. For a fan favorite like Lita to be missing from the game, the season pass continues to disappoint.
Perhaps most notably, Ronda Rousey is also regulated to DLC. However, Rousey being a DLC character is more understandable. Though it's all speculation, Sports Games Online suggested that Rousey may have been missing from the game because she hadn't wrestled since 2019, despite being in WWE 2K20. With her prompt return, however, WWE supposedly asked 2K Games to put Rousey in. With the timing of her return and WWE's request, 2K seems to have found it too difficult to squeeze her into the main roster on launch. Either way, it's still a bit disappointing that 2K Games couldn't patch Rousey into WWE 2k22 instead of locking her behind a DLC paywall. Regardless, paying $39.99 for 28 wrestlers when many of them should have been in the game to begin with is likely to leave a bad taste in the mouths of long-time fans.
Source: Sports Games Online