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NBA 2K25 review: a comeback year for sports gaming’s best franchise

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NBA 2K25 review: a comeback year for sports gaming’s best franchise | Top Gear

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Under mounting pressure, 2K’s baller sim redresses the balance between innovation and monetisation

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NBA 2K25 review: a comeback year for sports gaming’s best franchise

# data.attributes.metatag[].attributes.content
Under mounting pressure, 2K’s baller sim redresses the balance between innovation and monetisation

# data.attributes.metatag[].attributes.content
Under mounting pressure, 2K’s baller sim redresses the balance between innovation and monetisation

# data.attributes.metatag[].attributes.content
NBA 2K25 review: a comeback year for sports gaming’s best franchise

# data.attributes.metatag[].attributes.content
NBA 2K25 review: a comeback year for sports gaming’s best franchise

# data.attributes.metatag[].attributes.content
NBA 2K25 review: a comeback year for sports gaming’s best franchise

# data.attributes.metatag[].attributes.content
Under mounting pressure, 2K’s baller sim redresses the balance between innovation and monetisation

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Once upon a time, EA’s NBA Live series was imperious. Its licences, production values and sales numbers looked impossible to topple – until an upstart from 2K started releasing almost implausibly good basketball games. NBA 2K turned the sports game into an RPG with its MyCareer mode, recreated bygone eras of the sport down to tiny details like broadcast package appearance and shorts length, and you had to squint to discern that this wasn’t actual basketball on TV.

A lot’s happened in the years since NBA 2K became the sports gaming GOAT and the release of NBA 2K25. As seems so often to be the case, it appeared to rest on its accolades and its vast piles of microtransaction revenue. The innovations that once burst forth as if from a pressure washer jet of imagination now arrived at an apologetic trickle. Meanwhile a pair of shoes and a haircut cost the Virtual Currency equivalent of a week’s pay. For an NBA player.

2K25 has two opening salvos in retort to those growing concerns: it’s now ‘next-gen’ on all platforms (meaning the PC version is the same as the PS5 and Xbox Series X releases) and the way you earn VC is a little more generous than it has been in previous years. Before we even get on the court, that’s a good start.

On the court, 2K25’s strengths are the very same that it’s had for over a decade now. Animations are forensically accurate down to individual players’ jump shots and layups. Off the ball there’s an utterly convincing battle being waged for space in the paint between the bigs, shuffling and pivoting to gain an advantage over each other. Even the really fiddly moments like mid-air collisions look convincing. And when you’re in control of it, it’s compelling.

Shooting a three feels great, obviously. But so does grabbing a rebound, or boxing out the player you’re defending. Fundamental, utilitarian stuff that should feel like a chore becomes joyful, because every one of these actions is a cog in a machine of absolute immersion and fantasy fulfilment. The cold, hard reality is that NBA 2K25 makes you feel more like a pro basketball player than FC 24 makes you feel like a footballer. More than F1 24 gives you an F1 driver’s experience. More than any other game in the sports and racing arena. It’s the Michael Jordan of letting you be Michael Jordan.

Again, this was all true of NBA 2K24, but all the positives were couched in negatives over how the game was monetised (aggressively and cynically), how it ran (unreliably) and how much it changed from one release to the next (barely). This time, particularly if you’re playing on PC, which had previously been lumped with ports of the last-gen console versions, you notice the generational leap and it makes you bristle with excitement.

This being a modern sports release, there are more modes here than any sane human could ever explore. MyTeam, a card-collecting FUT analogue. MyGM, the franchise-building sim mode where you control the whole team in offline league games. The W, where you immerse in the womens’ game. Eras, which recreate historical periods from the league’s past. MyCareer, the sports RPG in which you build a player, give them the coolest hair and then build their attributes by grinding out the league games until they’re toppling Wilt Chamberlain’s records. (Except the one about his 20,000 lovers.)

And it all lives in The City, 2K’s shared social space where players mill around between venues and storefronts, battling in PvP streetball matches or more formal indoor court face-offs.

If anything, that’s too much content. There are tweaks to all of them too, including a redesigned City layout that lets you get to where you want to go a little bit faster, and Dynasty Rankings in MyCareer that give you clear long-term targets to aim for by emulating and then surpassing the accomplishments of the league’s all-time greats.

In truth, none of these tweaks and additions transform the experience. But they do tighten it up, and they’re bolstered by on-court improvements, particularly to defending controls, which reinvigorate even the most jaded series veteran. Time to build yet another 6 '11 three-point specialist who can also dunk, assist and rebound with the best of them and begin their inevitable rags to riches tale.

The microtransactions are still there. The prices of all its different editions still feel too high. And it’s still plagued by cheaters whom 2K can’t seem to eradicate. The longstanding problems haven’t magically disappeared this year. But what matters is that it feels like both publisher and developer are trying. NBA 2K25 makes some long overdue changes that it’s community has been requesting for years, and tightens up its on-court controls just enough for this release to feel like maybe – whisper it – this could be the beginning of a renaissance.

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Once upon a time, EA’s NBA Live series was imperious. Its licences, production values and sales numbers looked impossible to topple – until an upstart from 2K started releasing almost implausibly good basketball games. NBA 2K turned the sports game into an RPG with its MyCareer mode, recreated bygone eras of the sport down to tiny details like broadcast package appearance and shorts length, and you had to squint to discern that this wasn’t actual basketball on TV.

A lot’s happened in the years since NBA 2K became the sports gaming GOAT and the release of NBA 2K25. As seems so often to be the case, it appeared to rest on its accolades and its vast piles of microtransaction revenue. The innovations that once burst forth as if from a pressure washer jet of imagination now arrived at an apologetic trickle. Meanwhile a pair of shoes and a haircut cost the Virtual Currency equivalent of a week’s pay. For an NBA player.

2K25 has two opening salvos in retort to those growing concerns: it’s now ‘next-gen’ on all platforms (meaning the PC version is the same as the PS5 and Xbox Series X releases) and the way you earn VC is a little more generous than it has been in previous years. Before we even get on the court, that’s a good start.

On the court, 2K25’s strengths are the very same that it’s had for over a decade now. Animations are forensically accurate down to individual players’ jump shots and layups. Off the ball there’s an utterly convincing battle being waged for space in the paint between the bigs, shuffling and pivoting to gain an advantage over each other. Even the really fiddly moments like mid-air collisions look convincing. And when you’re in control of it, it’s compelling.

Shooting a three feels great, obviously. But so does grabbing a rebound, or boxing out the player you’re defending. Fundamental, utilitarian stuff that should feel like a chore becomes joyful, because every one of these actions is a cog in a machine of absolute immersion and fantasy fulfilment. The cold, hard reality is that NBA 2K25 makes you feel more like a pro basketball player than FC 24 makes you feel like a footballer. More than F1 24 gives you an F1 driver’s experience. More than any other game in the sports and racing arena. It’s the Michael Jordan of letting you be Michael Jordan.

Again, this was all true of NBA 2K24, but all the positives were couched in negatives over how the game was monetised (aggressively and cynically), how it ran (unreliably) and how much it changed from one release to the next (barely). This time, particularly if you’re playing on PC, which had previously been lumped with ports of the last-gen console versions, you notice the generational leap and it makes you bristle with excitement.

This being a modern sports release, there are more modes here than any sane human could ever explore. MyTeam, a card-collecting FUT analogue. MyGM, the franchise-building sim mode where you control the whole team in offline league games. The W, where you immerse in the womens’ game. Eras, which recreate historical periods from the league’s past. MyCareer, the sports RPG in which you build a player, give them the coolest hair and then build their attributes by grinding out the league games until they’re toppling Wilt Chamberlain’s records. (Except the one about his 20,000 lovers.)

And it all lives in The City, 2K’s shared social space where players mill around between venues and storefronts, battling in PvP streetball matches or more formal indoor court face-offs.

If anything, that’s too much content. There are tweaks to all of them too, including a redesigned City layout that lets you get to where you want to go a little bit faster, and Dynasty Rankings in MyCareer that give you clear long-term targets to aim for by emulating and then surpassing the accomplishments of the league’s all-time greats.

In truth, none of these tweaks and additions transform the experience. But they do tighten it up, and they’re bolstered by on-court improvements, particularly to defending controls, which reinvigorate even the most jaded series veteran. Time to build yet another 6 '11 three-point specialist who can also dunk, assist and rebound with the best of them and begin their inevitable rags to riches tale.

The microtransactions are still there. The prices of all its different editions still feel too high. And it’s still plagued by cheaters whom 2K can’t seem to eradicate. The longstanding problems haven’t magically disappeared this year. But what matters is that it feels like both publisher and developer are trying. NBA 2K25 makes some long overdue changes that it’s community has been requesting for years, and tightens up its on-court controls just enough for this release to feel like maybe – whisper it – this could be the beginning of a renaissance.

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Under mounting pressure, 2K’s baller sim redresses the balance between innovation and monetisation