As someone who actually somewhat enjoyed having a CAW story mode in these games, this years is particularly bad. Most of your playtime is going through mandatory random exhibitions to grind stars to then continue the story. If you're familiar with these games, you know that the match star ratings don't mean anything, its just counting up how many times you hit a finisher or beat someone with a weapon. It's not particularly fun to fight an AI to a 5 star match, that would just involve prolonging the match until the meter is eventually full. You can just have multiple more 2 star matches but its still just as time consuming. The overarching story is practically non-existent. You lose to either Bron or Jordyne in your first match and have to work your way up to get a rematch at the next Wrestlemania. The mens and Womens stories are identical aside from the opponents. Roxy or Jacob Fatu, Bron or Grace, etc. After losing the first match they immediately do the whole kick you off the main roster to go work in the fake indies thing again. If you do bother playing the mode I recommend going the face route for the first part of the story so you don't have to grind Underground matches.

In past years, there were fun unlockables like new entrances and silly storylines that would mirror what used to be on TV. This year you just chase a title/trophy constantly (when you aren't bogged down doing exhibition matches). There's nothing inspired here. My theory is a good chunk of the team that would usually work on MyRise was moved to The Island since that mode seems to have more voice acting and speaking characters this year.

Overall quite disappointing. I would not be surprised to see this mode get axed soon.