NBA 2K25 is a little rhythm, but a lot more blues
The newest version of the 25-year-old basketball series makes great leaps on the court, but very few outside of it
This edition of The Qun is brought to you by award-winning advertising mogul Suyash Barve, who emerges from his storyboards, pitch decks and what-have-you every year or so to play the latest basketball games. And when he’s done playing them, he likes to opine on them. The following are his thoughts on NBA 2K25 that released earlier this month.
Review: NBA 2K25
Developed by Visual Concepts and published by 2K
Rating: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Okay, let’s start this story a year ago.
A proper flashback to me sitting exactly where I’m sitting as I type this, wearing pretty much the same clothes, doing pretty much exactly the same thing — gushing like a little fanboy over the latest NBA 2K title. Why? Because NBA 2K24 had just done something remarkable. It had added the GOAT tiers to the MyCareer mode. This meant that you could ascend and surpass the rankings of the all-time greats. The plot that was purely in your own head in previous editions, had become an actual upfront story in NBA 2K24. A year before that, 2K had also added Eras, which meant you could play in the Magic Johnson-Larry Bird, Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant eras with the visual presentation, graphics and scoreboards, and most critically, the drafts to match.
This year — a whole 25 years since the original NBA 2K featuring Allen Iverson on the cover launched, the developer has pushed these two motifs further. But is the upgrade worth it? Does it make the experience better? Or has it all been entirely pointless? Let The Qun’s basketball expert (or literally the only person who understands or even watches the sport on this threadbare staff) tell you everything you need to know. Let’s begin, as all great reviews do, by posterising the pointless. But first, here’s a trailer:
Eras
This year, 2K has added another all-time great to the fan favourite Eras mode. Confusingly however, this particular Era isn’t even a decade-old. The Steph Curry Era is now playable along with all the others, but as soon as you start a season, you’re left wondering why the hell anyone bothered to build it. The graphics are marginally different and the TV coverage is hardly different at all. And the rosters, well, most of that team is still playing today and ranked quite highly, so you could literally trade it into existence.
Unless you have a giant poster of Shaun Livingston hanging over your bed (and listen, I totally understand if you do) what are you getting out of this mode that you can’t get in the regular season? Also, a notable absentee from the Golden State Warriors roster, and why would you play with any other team in this particular timeline, is Andre frickin’ Iguadola1. Every Era in NBA 2K25 has players missing and I give 2K immense credit for loading in as many retired and in some cases deceased players as they have. Howecer, the omission of Andre, literally the MVP of the 2015 Finals, is glaring!
The Eras Mode continues to be fun, but the addition of Steph Curry is clearly more of an addition for addition’s sake. So if you only live to build franchises in the distant past, you might not find any worthwhile additions in NBA 2K25. Here then is a look at what the Jordan Era looks like production-wise:
MyCareer
Now, let’s leave the long forgotten world of 2017 behind, and move on to the heart of the NBA 2K experience: MyCareer. This year, you play, once again, as ‘MP’ and dive right into the business of being an NBA pro. Someday, 2K will realise that the best version of MyCareer starts in high school as it once did in earlier editions, but today is not that day. Much like last year’s edition, you choose your face, you choose your team and away you go. A minor, but excellent switch up this year, is the game tossing you into the dying moments of an NBA Final with your MyPlayer, much like the opening of ‘The Jordan Challenge’ in NBA 2K23. It’s a great way to flash forward to a high point. But it’s quickly followed by many, many lows as your career crawls forward.
In another dose of infuriating continuity, 2K is still sticking to its, quite frankly, crowded open-world format. Sure, it’s easier to get around and the map is new, but it remains unnecessarily tedious. And once the season starts, the similarities march on. The Key Games system still exists but now features a ‘choose your own adventure’ opening slate which lets you pick your goals for the upcoming season and sets critical games accordingly.
But here, at long last, there is a reprieve from the repeat telecasts. This time, while you play as a pro and grind out the Virtual Coins (VC)2, you get to, at your own convenience, flash back to your younger years in a series of challenges called ‘The Heart Of A Dynasty’. It’s as close as we’ve gotten in recent years to the classic storylines of 2K’s past, with all the tropes on offer. A high school superstar playing for a future in the league, a rival who turns into a friend and a coach with the most original advice in the world.
There are four missions in all, each of which marks a step in your journey to the NBA. But also, more importantly, they are a microcosm to MyCareer itself. And that’s because each level requires you to be a slightly different player. Sometimes a hero-baller, sometimes a pass-first point guard — a duality and a sense of depth that hasn’t existed in the games’ plotlines until now. To elaborate, while how you play in NBA 2K25 has remained largely the same, what you’re playing for has changed significantly. This year, it’s not enough to become the GOAT. You have to build a dynasty.
Meet Dynasty Points, the latest add-on to a career mode already chock-full of objectives and side quests. Your team accumulates Dynasty Points along with your personal GOAT stats. Both are critical to your ascension and your final status as the best to ever do it. It used to be that you could jump from super team to super team, but if you really want to be an all-timer, you’ll have to run it back! Can’t just score the most 3-pointers in a season, you have to three-peat. Beating Lebron James on career points was enough last year, this time you have to beat Jordan on Finals MVPs.
Now, I know I do not speak for all of you, because, let’s be honest, most of you are insufferable ball-hogs but I, for one, love Dynasty Points. It’s a team-focused objective in a game mode that’s literally all about you. It adds a whole new decision tree into a multi-season career and gives you new arcs to strive for. But I’m also not blind to the fact that this is a tweak rather than a full blown turn-around jumper. It’s another minor add-on in a game full of many minor add-ons. Well, except for one…
What the fuck is ‘Rhythm Shooting’?
Every few years, I have to call my therapist and speak to him at length about why my usually even temper is now a seismograph in Japan. And whenever I do, he asks me the same question, “What is a ‘shot meter’ and why do you care so much about it?”
Look, I am not asking for the NBA 2K17 shot meter back. I’m really not. But if every other change in the game is a careful little tweak (click here to learn more about all the gameplay tweaks this time around), why is this year’s shot meter a goddamn sledgehammer. I could try and explain it, but after multiple games and several mind-numbing missed threes, I only have the most fleeting idea of how it works. And yes, you can obviously switch over to a more classic shot meter, but I expected better. Because while the change in the dribble physics system feels like a move forward and the ProPlay makes the look of player movements more realistic, the new shot meter feels like being spun around in a chair and asked to tightrope across a canyon. Can you tell I hate it? Because I hate it.
Last Two Minute Report
NBA 2K25 is by no means the absolute atomic bomb that NBA 2K23 was. I’ve said out loud that it was probably the best thing 2K had ever made. This year’s game is not even as good as NBA 2K24. The only big swing they took with the latest instalment was to turn the MyGM mode into an RPG. But honestly, that’s like saying Dennis Rodman wasn’t one of the best to ever play because we only ever saw him next to Jordan and Scottie Pippen. NBA 2K25 is an on-court beast. It’s put all its energy into playing solid defence and getting the fundamentals down pat. And while it won’t be the GOAT, it sure deserves its ring.
PS: A special note of thanks for 2K’s unbelievably thoughtful use of make-believe hologram tech. See below:
Game reviewed on PlayStation 5. Review code provided by publisher
As per a Screen Rant report, “NBA 2K’s removal of specific players is a practical move, not a personal one. These players are missing because the company simply lost the rights to use their likenesses in the game. These absent players have retired from the NBA, and so the rules have changed regarding using their images.”
Yes, the VC, 2K’s take on in-game currency (which can be bought via microtransactions) is still around. And yes, it’s still annoying. But equally, there’s very little that’s changed in that regard and so like every year, you can either take it or leave it.