NBA 2K25

If you’re a fan of sports games, you know the drill by this point – a new entry in your favorite series releases every year like clockwork, asking you to abandon last year’s iteration for the new edition. Some years the update is worthwhile, and some it isn’t, quite frankly. I reviewed NBA 2K24 last year and walked away feeling it had the best gameplay yet in the series. Fast forward to NBA 2K25 and the team at 2K are touting this year’s game as featuring one of the biggest gameplay refreshes ever with its entirely new dribbling engine, as well as the updated ProPlay movement engine. These under-the-hood gameplay changes feel like a step forward, rather than a quantum leap, but combined with several improvements outside of the gameplay engine, NBA 2K25 is a worthwhile upgrade from NBA 2K24.

Truthfully, NBA 2K25 is a tough title to review because of its scope and scale. A mile wide and a mile deep, this is a sports sim franchise that has evolved into a lifestyle game over the years. I’ve spent dozens of hours with 2K25 for this review but could easily spend dozens more, which is to say that this game is stuffed with content. Without a doubt, you can easily get your money’s worth in 2K25, but it will try to get its money’s worth out of you too.

I began my content-stuffed journey like I always do, with MyTEAM, the card-based team-building mode where you collect players from the past and present to build your personal dream team and compete across various game modes. My personal favorite mode – Domination – is back again this year, but two new modes are the real standouts. The first is Breakout, a roguelite-ish mode with boardgame-style presentation where you begin at the center of the board, playing games to work your way to the edge of the board to earn prizes. Losing three times will end your current run and force you to start a new run back at the center of another randomly generated board. The good thing is that you can choose your difficulty level each time, so if you want to play on rookie difficulty you certainly can, but it does take longer to reach the rewards if you do so. Breakout can be a challenge, sometimes frustratingly so due to in-game objectives that you must complete to unlock the next section of the Breakout board. In other words, just winning games in Breakout mode is not enough to reap its rewards. Prior to an update the day after the game released, I would have told you Breakout mode was simply not rewarding enough to endure the grind. However, an update the day after launch massively buffed the mode’s rewards, and for players who prefer to play offline, it’s probably the best mode to do so.

So, while Breakout mode quickly redeemed itself in my eyes, my favorite game mode in MyTEAM this year is Triple Threat Park, which is a sentence I can’t believe I just typed. Why? Because it is a co-op PvP mode, and I can’t recall a PvP mode in an NBA 2K game that has ever truly resonated with me. Enter Triple Threat Park, a largely casual 3-on-3 pick-up experience where you and two human teammates play with your favorite MyTEAM card against three other humans and theirs. Put simply, it is dope, and I can’t believe I’m typing that either. Yes, you will still run into ball-hogging yahoos who ruin the experience from time to time, but when you get matched-up with decent teammates, it is a blast. I found myself playing for hours, including until 2AM on a work night because me and my squad of randos were on a win streak, and of course I couldn’t let the team down. As I said, Triple Theat Park is a more casual experience, taking place somewhat within the framework of the game’s MyCAREER mode, as it is accessible from what is known as The City, but also the menus of MyTEAM mode – a subtle user interface design feature that helps address one of the issues I had with 2K24 that I will discuss further in just a bit.

While discussing MyTEAM and its online modes, I must also give kudos to the team at 2K for seemingly addressing its multiplayer infrastructure. I lamented last year (and in years past) that playing online against other humans was nigh impossible in NBA 2K with the amount of latency that I would encounter year after year, game after game. I’m not saying there is zero latency while playing multiplayer in 2K25, but it is markedly improved – enough for me to play Triple Threat Park games for hours at a time, and that’s a huge W. As is the return of the Auction House, the user-to-user eBay-like marketplace where you can buy and sell cards for the MyTEAM mode to help build your custom team. NBA 2K24 was a case study in “you don’t know what you have till it’s gone” regarding the Auction House. After initially praising its removal from last year’s game, the more I played the more I realized it was sorely missed. And so did the fanbase, because the calls for its return were heard loud and clear by 2K.

The other big draw in NBA 2K25 is MyCAREER, which lets you create a custom player from scratch to climb the NBA ranks as. The player creator is crazy deep, though I’ve never had any luck with the face scan feature that lets you put your own face into the game – it never does like my facial hair very much during the scan process. As in the past, you can create a player with a fully custom playstyle, choose an existing NBA player as a baseline, or new this year is the ability to select a pro-tuned player archetype. For example, I went with the Micro Magician point guard, which is inspired by Isaiah Thomas and is built around playmaking and the ability to score from all over the court. I found the pro-tuned option to be a much better way to create a player that fits the way I like to play, alleviating the fear of dumping points into the wrong attribute categories.

I had two major issues with MyCAREER mode in 2K24 – the overwhelming amount of information forced on newcomers, and the not-so-subtle push towards microtransactions. Only one of these things has been addressed in 2K25, and I’ll bet you can guess which one. Thankfully, 2K has instituted an improved user interface in MyCAREER that make it easier to view and track quests, activities, and challenges. It’s also easier to figure out what is what on the in-game map, as well as traversing what is known as The City – an MMORPG area overflowing with things to do. You can race a go-kart, play 3-on-3 games of streetball, buy clothes and accessories for your player, play games in your NBA career, and more. Last year I felt so much like a fish out of water that I couldn’t bring myself to stick with MyCAREER mode. It was analysis paralysis, if you will, but with 2K25, I’m more invested than I’ve ever been in the mode, and all it took was a little housekeeping.

With that said, there is one major caveat that remains in MyCAREER, and it’s the strong undercurrent of microtransactions that are nearly impossible to escape. Your player starts at a 60 overall rating, which is fine considering the spirit of the mode, but VC (virtual currency) is required to upgrade your attributes, and lots of it at that. Yes, there are plenty of things to do to earn VC, but the grind is still very much real. The game essentially forces you to pick a mode and stick with it, especially if you don’t plan on treating NBA 2K25 as a “lifestyle game” – one that you play almost exclusively until 2K26 comes out next year. 2K provided a copy of the game for review which included 100,000 VC, so in the name of science, I spent some of that to see how far it would take me. I spent 42,201 VC, which is equal to about $15, to improve my player from a 60 overall rating to a 70. The catch is that the more you level up your skills, the more expensive they become, requiring even more VC. Of course, you can totally play the game without spending a dime, but be prepared to dump dozens if not hundreds of hours to reach your player’s apex. Once again with 2K25, as was the case with 2K24, I don’t understand the borderline gatekeeping of modes, other than to get you to spend real cash of course.

So, what about those dribbling and movement improvements? They are improvements, sure, but I wouldn’t say they are monumental changes. Having said that, I think the gameplay changes made in 2K24 led to the best gameplay in the entire series, so 2K25 didn’t have to do too much in that regard. The new dribbling engine and physics improvements further refine what was already excellent gameplay, adding fluidity and realism on the court. It feels easier to perform and chain complex dribble moves, and players behave in a more realistic, albeit subtle manner. I noticed new idle dribble animations among other things, but the improvements are most noticeable when playing with real life players. For instance, I watched a replay of my guy Jordan Clarkson from the Utah Jazz dozens of times after I hit a three with him, marveling over how impeccable his facial animation and body movement was. From a realism standpoint, NBA 2K25 continues to set the bar high for sports simulations.

To really appreciate the gameplay improvements, including thousands of player animations motion captured and translated from real NBA game footage, the MyNBA mode, which is essentially franchise mode, is the way to go. It’s largely untouched from years past, still letting you control every aspect of one or multiple NBA or WNBA organizations. However, MyGM mode has returned in 2K25 under the MyNBA umbrella. MyGM brings the RPG aspects of MyCAREER over to the franchise setting, allowing you to create your GM, upgrade their attributes, and make crucial decisions about your respective team. My team governor wanted me to promise that I would acquire a top three pick in the upcoming NBA Draft, for instance, something I wasn't at all keen on doing.

NBA 2K25 is not a monumental step forward from last year’s game, but it didn’t need to be. 2K24 laid a gameplay foundation that 2K25 incrementally improves upon in subtle ways that up the ante for sports game realism. Moreover, some of my criticisms of last year’s game have been addressed. MyCAREER finally feels like a mode that new players can wrap their head around, while MyTEAM sees the much-needed return of the Auction House and the addition of an addicting new game mode. If you can accept, or at least work around, its somewhat pay-to-win microtransactions, NBA 2K25 is a remarkable basketball sim experience from top to bottom.