2K has announced that musician, Machine Gun Kelly will be WWE 2K22‘s official executive soundtrack producer and will be featured as a playable character in a post-launch DLC pack.
This is not shocking as Kelly is a longtime fan and has worked with the WWE brand in the past, who provided the official theme song for WrestleMania 27. In addition to his responsibilities, Machine Gun Kelly will appear in multiple WWE 2K22 marketing campaign videos, which include WWE Legend and upcoming Hall of Famer, The Undertaker and a collection of other wrestlers.
“Machine Gun Kelly has been an integral part of the WWE family for more than a decade including performances at WrestleMania and Tribute to the Troops, soundtracking our premium live events with his music, and making frequent storyline appearances on WWE programming over the years,” WWE Music Group senior vice president and general manager, Neil Lawi said in a press release.
“He has curated a unique soundtrack for WWE 2K22 that includes not only his own music but a diverse array of artists from The Weeknd to KennyHoopla. The 12-track soundtrack is the perfect complement to this edition’s enhanced gameplay.”
Alongside the announcement, 2K has revealed a Machine Gun Kelly curated 12-song tracklist which will be featured in WWE 2K22. The tracklist is as listed below.
- Machine Gun Kelly – “Concert for Aliens;”
- Machine Gun Kelly ft. YUNGBLUD & Bert McCracken – “Body Bag;”
- Wu Tang Clan – “Protect Ya Neck;”
- Motorhead – “Iron Fist;”
- Poppy – “Say Cheese” (Live NXT version);
- Royal Blood – “Typhoons;”
- Bring Me The Horizon – “Happy Song;”
- The Weeknd – “Heartless;”
- Turnstile – “I Don’t Wanna Be Blind;”
- Asking Alexandria – “The Final Episode (Let’s Change the Channel);”
- KennyHoopla – “Hollywood Sucks.”
The release of the upcoming WWE game is a long time coming as the last game in the series, WWE 2K20 released in 2019, was a disaster at launch. Development of the game was handled solely by 2K’s internal studio, Visual Concepts Entertainment who previously co-developed the annual WWE sports titles alongside developer, Yuke’s. The developers parted ways from the collaboration after 18 years of making WWE games. The last game they worked on was WWE 2K19.
After WWE 2K20, Visual Concepts Entertainment revealed WWE 2K21 during WrestleMania 37. The game was later cancelled, which was the first time a game in the traditional WWE 2K series would not see an annual release.
WWE 2K game wouldn’t see release as WWE 2K Battlegrounds was released in its place. WWE 2K22 promised to feature a rebuilt game engine and smoother controls. The game featured an “It Hits Different” marketing campaign which revealed 10 specific features plus the return of GM Mode, which hasn’t been featured since WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2008.
WWE 2K games are historically released during the Fall and before Survival Series, one of WWE‘s big five PPVs. The game was reportedly hit by internal delays by either working from home development or WWE‘s tone-death decision to massively release close to 80 wrestlers in 2021. Some release talents may or may not be featured as it’s being reported that some haven’t been cut from the game, if they are WWE isn’t promoting that aspect of the game.
WWE 2K22 is set to release on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S on March 11th, Deluxe Edition and nWo 4-Life Digital Edition holders will be able to play the game three days later on March 8th.
