Interview: How WWE 2K25’s free story update gives new meaning to the previously unheard words of the late Bray Wyatt

When Bray Wyatt was released by WWE in the summer of 2021, the decision not only massively affected his own career, but the plans of those working on the WWE 2K22 video game.

WWE 2K22’s MyRise story mode was going to feature a subplot featuring Bray, but when he was let go by WWE the story was removed to avoid making the game look outdated at release.

It was a disappointing moment for Andrea Listenberger, a writer who had previously written storylines and promos for WWE’s TV shows, and had now joined WWE 2K developer Visual Concepts as a narrative designer.

As one of her first tasks on the WWE 2K series, Listenberger had worked on the Bray Wyatt storyline in WWE 2K22, and now that he was no longer at WWE all his audio recordings had to hit the cutting room floor.

Bray’s departure from WWE was a temporary one, and he returned in October 2022 to a hero’s welcome, most notably thanking the fans for supporting him in a rare out-of-character promo shortly after his comeback.

Now joined by a new masked character called Uncle Howdy (played by his real-life younger brother, known to fans by his ring name Bo Dallas), Bray was back on top, and on a WWE TV show in February 2023 he challenged the winner of Brock Lesnar vs Bobby Lashley to a match at WrestleMania 39.

It was to be his last TV appearance. After this episode, Bray no longer appeared on the show, with reports suggesting he was dealing with a genuine, non-storyline illness.

On August 19 it was reported that he was preparing to return again. He didn’t. Five days later, on August 24, 2023, Bray Wyatt – real name Windham Rotunda – passed away at the age of 36, after a COVID-19 infection exacerbated a previous heart condition.

As with his previous WWE release – but obviously now on a much larger scale – the shockwave caused by Bray’s passing caused tremors that affected other projects he was involved with. One of these was WWE 2K24, which was still in development when he died.

In a twist of fate, Bray’s death led to his video game content being scrapped for the second time in a row, once again affecting the work of Andrea Listenberger.

The plan had been to take the scrapped WWE 2K22 storyline and incorporate it into WWE 2K24’s MyRise mode instead, using some of the previously recorded audio and adding new material to freshen it up.

“It was actually something that we had talked about doing and were planning on doing in WWE 2K24 when he was still alive,” Listenberger told me earlier today on a Zoom call.

“It was actually something that we had talked about doing and were planning on doing in WWE 2K24 when he was still alive.”

“We were planning on repurposing some of the cutscenes that we had shot with some new additional voice content with Bray, to kind of supplement it and to make it make sense with his character then.”

Ultimately, the plan was to to be abandoned again when Bray passed, and those audio clips recorded for WWE 2K22 clips went unheard again, seemingly for good this time.

Until now.

Last year, Bray’s brother Bo and his Uncle Howdy character made a return in a new faction called the Wyatt Sicks. Much of its storyline was based on a split personality angle, with vignettes showing Bo and his alter-ego Howdy having conversations with each other, often talking about Bray’s death.

Last month WWE 2K25’s free-roaming story mode The Island received an update which added an entirely new sub-quest based on the Wyatt Sicks. By entering the Wyatt cabin and fighting the members of the faction in sequence, players can unlock a number of videos.

Every decision has consequences 👀 🔜 #WWE2K25 pic.twitter.com/rHIP2RGXix

— #WWE2K25 (@WWEgames) July 8, 2025

Some of these videos feature brand new vignettes of Bo and Howdy in conversation, but – crucially – they also include footage of the unused Bray Wyatt character model and sound clips from WWE 2K22, allowing fans to finally see and hear this ‘lost media’ for the first time.

Listenberger told me that when it was agreed that The Island would be getting a Wyatt Sicks storyline, she realised the unused footage was a perfect way to honour Bray’s memory in a way that couldn’t be done on regular WWE television.

“We were talking about maybe doing something with the Wyatt Sicks and the Island,” she told me. “And I was kicking around, you know, ‘what kind of story are we going to tell with them? It literally could be anything’.

“And when I was watching the Wyatt Sicks, the vignettes on TV, the promos with Bo and Howdy, the idea to use some of the unreleased Bray footage came to me.

“There was like a very specific line in one of the promos about letting his memory become a mausoleum. And that really stuck with me. And, you know, I thought about it. I thought about it for a while.

“There was like a very specific line in one of the promos about letting his memory become a mausoleum. And that really stuck with me. And, you know, I thought about it. I thought about it for a while.”

“And I thought about, honestly, a lot of personal things that I’ve gone through in my life that…” she paused. “I mean, there’s a reason that those particular vignettes resonated with people. They resonated with me.

“And that was kind of the genesis for the idea of ‘well, what do we have that is kind of unique, and what do we have that only we have, and what can we do in our video game that they can’t even do on programming, that we could do?’ Something that’s kind of unique and brings something a little special to the world.

“That’s where the genesis for the idea came from. I kind of tiptoed up to Lynell [Jinks], the creative director, one day.

“I was like ‘wou… would they let us do this? This is a little out of the box, and we want to make it very clear that we’re going to treat it respectfully, And we want to [make sure] this is not a shock value sort of thing. This is very much in line with how I think that they’re representing the whole storyline, the whole Wyatt Sicks on television.’

“And that’s how it kind of all started, including the collaboration with the new footage with Bo and Uncle Howdy as well.”

This new footage, in the typical blurry-filmed, fourth wall-breaking style of the Bo and Howdy vignettes on TV, have the characters discussing the release of the unseen footage in the game.

“This isn’t real, this is just a game,” Bo says in one clip. “We play along as an escape. An escape to a world where loss doesn’t triumph, where the pain and suffering of existence is eased for just a moment. Just a moment. Where that which was left unfinished seems complete. But it’s not real. None of this is real.”

Bo also notes that he hoped the “whispers were more than just an echo”, but concedes that “they’re just remnants, incomplete, unfinished, reminders of what will never be, a life left as abandoned as a video game cutscene on the cutting room floor”.

I asked Listenberger how much of this dialogue was written by her, and how much was input from Bo. She explained that it was mostly a collaboration between 2K’s writers and WWE’s own writers, ensuring that Bo was happy along the way.

“Our process kind of varies for a lot of different things,” she explained. “For this one, we worked with WWE creative, as we always do with certain things, especially with video content.

“We wrote the script. We worked with their side, went back and forth, making sure that there wasn’t anything that he wanted to add, made it very clear that ‘hey, you know, we’re telling a story but this is also your story’. So we went back and forth with some of the language and everything.

“But, you know, I think what’s really kind of nice about the story, is that it’s so universal. So there’s things that are specific to Bo, but there’s things that everyone can relate to.

“So some of it is a little bit of part of that collaboration from WWE. There’s some words from them, there’s some words from us, and it’s just this marriage of the best of both worlds.”

By far the most important part of the new Wyatt Sicks storyline is the final video, which is unlocked when you defeat Uncle Howdy himself.

In a final chat between Bo and Howdy, the discussion ends in a positive note, with Bo saying he’d like to stay in the game for a little longer, because “even an illusion can hold peace”, and Howdy telling him: “This is not your end. The work must continue. It’s what I – he – would have wanted.”

We then get to hear an audio-only clip of Bray, during the WWE 2K22 recording session, addressing the player as part of a mission. Except now, thanks to his subsequent death, they take on an entirely new meaning, made clearer by footage of Bo’s face added to the picture. This is no longer a message to the player, this is now a message to Bray’s mourning brother.

“I have taught you well, little firefly,” Bray says in the audio. “I’m so proud of you. And you know what they say. If you love something so much that you want to squeeze it until it dies, do it if you have to. But try to let it go.

“If you love something so much that you want to squeeze it until it dies, do it if you have to. But try to let it go.” – Bray Wyatt

“Don’t be sad. You’ll always be my little firefly. And I’ll always watch out for you. You’ve done so much for me.”

And then, his final line – “Goodbye! For now.”

It’s an extremely emotional ending to what players initially think is just a cool way to hear some unreleased content, and according to many of the comments under the various YouTube videos of the footage shared online, numerous tears have been shed over that final message in particular. Some of those were mine – Bray Wyatt was my personal favourite, and the knowledge that this dialogue wasn’t originally intended for this purpose doesn’t make it any less poignant to hear.

As it turns out, the message also meant more to Listenberger. Not only did some of her abandoned work finally reach the public, it was work that had a deeper meaning to her, because when it was originally written she had pulled it from real-life experiences.

“There was something that felt a little full circle about it,” she told me. “And, to be real, it wasn’t so much about putting out stuff that didn’t get seen.

“There was something very strange about… you know, the lines that ended up being in the parts that we included – because there were multiple storylines in 2K22, I didn’t write all of them, to be clear. There are other writers on the projects. I want to be very clear that this is a team collaborative environment, I do not write everything.

“But the lines that really worked for this story, there were a number of them that I did write. And looking back and hearing some of the lines when I was reviewing the footage, put me back in that space when I was writing them ahead of 2K22.

“And a lot of the story – without, you know, getting too much into it – it is kind of universal. And it was inspired by some things that have happened in my life, because everyone can relate to personal loss, and how do you move forward while still honoring someone? Because that can be very, very hard.

“So seeing something that was done that I wrote in the past when things were maybe a little bit more difficult for certain personal reasons, being used in the present for a story that’s meant to kind of challenge people and push people, but then ultimately celebrate this idea?

“That felt like some sort of closure.”

The new Wyatt Sicks storyline is available to play now in The Island mode in WWE 2K25.