It was held exclusively for wrestlers from the promotion's NXT brand division, which reverted to being WWE's developmental territory in September.

The event took place on December 5, 2021, at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida, and was the first WarGames to livestream on Peacock.

In the main event, Team 2.0 (Bron Breakker, NXT North American Champion Carmelo Hayes, Grayson Waller, and Tony D'Angelo) defeated Team Black & Gold (Johnny Gargano, LA Knight, Pete Dunne, and NXT Champion Tommaso Ciampa) in the men's WarGames match, while in the opening bout, Cora Jade, Io Shirai, Kay Lee Ray, and Raquel González defeated Toxic Attraction (NXT Women's Champion Mandy Rose and NXT Women's Tag Team Champions Gigi Dolin and Jacy Jayne) and Dakota Kai in the women's WarGames match.

[2][3] On November 9, 2021, NXT's fifth WarGames event was announced to be held on December 5, 2021, at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida.

Io Shirai then grabbed a crutch from the injured Zoey Stark and attacked Kai and Toxic Attraction with it, sending them retreating.

[13] On the November 30 episode, Ray defeated Kai in a ladder match to earn her team the WarGames advantage.

[10] On the November 23 episode of NXT, Halloween Havoc hosts Grayson Waller and LA Knight engaged in a brawl that spilled backstage.

Later that night, Carmelo Hayes retained the NXT North American Championship against Johnny Gargano and Pete Dunne in a triple threat match after interference from Tony D'Angelo.

They then challenged Ciampa, Knight, Dunne, and Gargano to a WarGames match before the two teams brawled as the show ended.

[15] On the November 30 episode, Breakker defeated Gargano in a ladder match to earn his team the WarGames advantage.

[14] At NXT: Halloween Havoc, Cameron Grimes was invited to Duke Hudson's Poker Room on the following week's episode,[10] where he beat him with a full house of 2's against his Aces.

[13] The following week, Gacy (accompanied by Harland) hosted an all-inclusive invitational in response to the Cruiserweight division being a "toxic environment" that left out "height, weight, and gender bias."

[14] On the November 30 episode of NXT, Kyle O'Reilly and Von Wagner defeated Legado Del Fantasma (Joaquin Wilde and Raul Mendoza) to become the number one contenders for Imperium's (Fabian Aichner and Marcel Barthel) NXT Tag Team Championship.

[14] Before the event went live on pay-per-view and the streaming services, Odyssey Jones defeated Andre Chase in a dark match.

[17] The actual event began with the women's WarGames match, which saw Cora Jade, Kay Lee Ray, Io Shirai, and Raquel González take on Toxic Attraction (Mandy Rose, Gigi Dolin, and Jacy Jayne) and Dakota Kai.

After Rose, Dolin, and Jayne dominated González, Jade broke up a pinning attempt with a kendo stick.

[18] In the second match, Imperium (Fabian Aichner and Marcel Barthel) defended the NXT Tag Team Championship against Kyle O'Reilly and Von Wagner.

[18] In the penultimate match, Roderick Strong (accompanied by Diamond Mine) defended the NXT Cruiserweight Championship against Joe Gacy.

[18] Before the main event, Kyle O'Reilly was interviewed backstage about his attack on Von Wagner, and also talked about not being in a WarGames match for the first time since WWE began using the concept.

[18] The main event was the men's WarGames match, which saw Team 2.0 (Bron Breakker, Carmelo Hayes, Tony D'Angelo, and Grayson Waller, accompanied by Trick Williams) take on Team Black & Gold (Johnny Gargano, Pete Dunne, LA Knight, and Tommaso Ciampa).

[19] Chris Mueller of Bleacher Report called the men's WarGames match the "biggest highlight of the show", praised the Hair vs.

Hair bout for being a "pretty good showcase" for Grimes and Hudson, felt the women's WarGames match had "poorly planned" spots, and criticized the "overall pace and story" of the Cruiserweight Championship bout, concluding that: "This was a decent show but when you compare it to most TakeOvers, it had a lot less excitement".

[21] He was critical of both WarGames matches having long runtimes and being mostly filler until the final minutes, saying the women's bout would have been "better suited as an elimination tag" and was more "dull than actively bad", and felt the NXT Tag Title match lacked importance on the card but saw both teams putting in the effort.

He called the event "far from some disaster or even that bad a lot of the time," but questioned how the NXT brand will do once the veterans leave, concluding that, "[T]he show is still holding it together and as usual, things are better when they focus on wrestling, but the future isn't exactly looking bright".

[31] Tony D'Angelo taking Pete Dunne's mouth guard during the men's WarGames match would start a rivalry between the two.

[33] On the January 25 episode, D'Angelo lost a match to determine the number one contender for the NXT North American Championship after interference from Dunne.

[34] Eventually, a weaponized steel cage match between the two was scheduled for Vengeance Day,[35][36] where Dunne won to end the feud.

Moments later, Gigi Dolin and Jacy Jayne distracted Jade, allowing Mandy Rose to attack her.

Moments later, Rose appeared on the TitanTron and challenged both of them to a triple threat match for the NXT Women's Championship at New Year's Evil.

[31] On the December 28 episode, Rose arranged a tag team match pitting Jade and González against Io Shirai and Kay Lee Ray for that episode's main event, where the winning team got to challenge her for the NXT Women's Championship at New Year's Evil.