| NBA 2K25 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Gameplay & Story | Release Date | Pre-Order & DLC | Review |
NBA 2K25 is back with an enhanced animation system, a brand-new MyCareer storyline, and a whole bunch of improvements. Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth your time and money.
NBA 2K25 Review Overview
What is NBA 2K25?
NBA 2K25 is the latest iteration of the most successful basketball video game franchise. It offers a variety of game modes that each cater to different audiences, and each one is legitimately an NBA experience. Among these game modes is MyCareer, which is the game’s returning story mode that puts you in the shoes of a promising NBA rookie as he works his way up the NBA ladder and leads his team to become a dynasty.
NBA 2K25 features:
⚫︎ Frequently updated NBA rosters that reflect each player’s performance throughout this 2024-2025 NBA season.
⚫︎ A brand new MyCareer story.
⚫︎ An improved ProPLAY animation system and thousands of new animations.
⚫︎ Better layouts for Park courts and improved loading times.
⚫︎ New features and A LOT of improvements.
For more gameplay details, read everything we know about NBA 2K25’s gameplay and story.
 NBA 2K25 |
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 PlayStation |
 Xbox |
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NBA 2K25 Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 The Best Basketball Game Out There Devs Listened To Feedback |
Builds Cost A Fortune (Or Months Of Your Time) Steep Learning Curve For Online Play Offline Game Modes Can Be Better |
NBA 2K25 Overall - 82/100
NBA 2K25 might just be the best NBA 2K game we’ve had in years. It’s very similar to its predecessor, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing because 2K24 (PS5/Xbox X|S) was already one of the best games in the franchise, which also happens to be one of my favorites. Make no mistake, as this game is not just a reskin of what we had last year. Instead, it addresses almost all the flaws of an already great basketball game and further improves what it already did well. The animations are smoother, good defense is rewarded more, and it’s the most realistic basketball game to date.
NBA 2K25 Story - 7/10
NBA 2K25’s MyCareer story took a step back from how good last year’s story was, where you’re the biggest NBA prospect since LeBron and you try to back up that hype by proving you’re the GOAT. This time around, you’re a promising rookie who’s had an interesting youth career, but you don’t have nearly as much hype as you did last year. There’s a much bigger emphasis on your team now, as your goal other than being the best of the best, is to lead your team to become a great dynasty like Steph’s Warriors and Jordan’s Bulls, which I thought was pretty cool. The story just isn’t as interesting as last year and the cutscenes are skippable for the most part, but I wouldn’t say it’s bad by any means.
NBA 2K25 Gameplay - 10/10
NBA 2K has always provided its players with the best gameplay in a basketball video game. 2K25 feels a lot like 2K24, but it fixes almost everything that’s wrong with its predecessor. Animations look and feel more fluid and true-to-life, playing good defense is rewarded more, and guards can no longer do the animation cancels that allow them to move at ridiculous and unrealistic speeds. This is on top of all the other gameplay improvements that they’ve added, which we’ll talk about more below.
NBA 2K25 Visuals - 9/10
NBA 2K25 looks hyper-realistic, from the movements, the character models, the courts, and all the other visual details. Its graphics are good enough to make your Gen X and Boomer family members think they’re watching a real basketball game. The thing is, 2K24 already looked this stunning, and the two look almost identical when you don’t factor in the new UI.
NBA 2K25 Audio - 9/10
Again, it’s the same immersive audio experience you’ll get from NBA 2K24. With a good headset or speakers, everything will sound exactly how they would in real life, from the ball bouncing, swishing the net, and even fan applause and player chatter.
NBA 2K25 Value for Money - 6/10
NBA 2K25’s value for money depends on what kind of player you are. If you’re a die-hard NBA fan or if you enjoy playing in NBA 2K’s online game modes, then this game is a must-cop for you. However, if you’re more of a casual fan of basketball who only enjoys a couple of offline games every now and then, you might want to wait for the game to go on sale later on.
NBA 2K25 Review | Best It’s Been In Years
When you take something that’s already very good and you fix its flaws while improving on its strengths, you come out with a near-perfect product. That is what NBA 2K25 feels like. It’s very much like 2K24, visually, audibly, and in terms of how it feels, but it improves almost everything that felt lacking and then some. NBA 2K24 was already the best basketball game in the market, and this one’s even better given those improvements. Let’s do a quick rundown of everything in the game and how they compare to 2K24.
In terms of its visuals and audio, it’s almost the same as NBA 2K24. The animations are even cleaner now and look even more realistic, but that’s pretty much it. It still provides an unmatched immersive NBA experience that looks and sounds exactly how it would in an actual NBA arena. Gameplay, on the other hand, is where this NBA 2K sets itself above its predecessor.
Dribbling definitely feels unlike any other NBA 2K game before. It’s almost as if you took NBA 2K24’s dribbling system that uses the realistic ProPLAY animations, but you take out all the "mechanics" like L2 canceling and animation canceling that allow players to move at unrealistic speeds. A good player who knew how to do these at a high level really felt unguardable, even against lockdown defenders with very high defensive stats and Hall of Fame (HOF) defensive badges. In my opinion, these felt overpowered and unbalanced, and sort of killed the game’s realism. Gone are the days of those ridiculously fast dribblers who can change directions in the blink of an eye without even decelerating. Eventually, players may discover ways to be able to move like that again, but for now, it’s in an excellent and balanced state.
It’s tough to put a pin on whether or not shooting is harder this year. There’s a new setting called Shot Timing Profile that affects the correlation between a shot’s timing and it’s success rate. There’s real player %, which doesn’t factor in your shot timing at all, and risk-versus-reward settings. I chose the High Risk-Reward setting, as this makes it harder for you to time your shots, but rewards you for knowing your jump shot timing by heart and allows you to shoot consistently well. In my experience, it seemed very tough, but fair. It seems that memorizing your jump shot is still key to shooting at an elite level, especially in the online MyPlayer game modes.
Defense on the other hand feels much more rewarding to play this year. While last year’s perimeter defense system was pretty good, it feels even better now, and you feel like you can stop anyone if you play great defense on a good defensive player. It feels easier to stay on an attacker’s hip, and you can now launch yourself in a direction to defensively cut off your man. Additionally, bump steals are back, which makes blitzes effective again and puts even more importance Paint defense used to be an area that felt lacking in 2K24, but they went ahead and improved that. Good positioning and timed block attempts will be key to protecting the rim. Overall, defense felt extremely rewarding to play, and when opponents scored, it felt like it was my fault for being out of position, being in a mismatch, or just not being ready for an unexpected shot.
MyPlayer has received a lot of improvements. Among these is the new MyPlayer Builder, which is a lot more complex compared to last year’s builder. Now, more attributes are tied to others, and even though you have more points to work with, you’ll end up having to use a lot of them on attributes you don’t want. There’s also a new Takeover system, and you’ll choose which one you want when you create your build. However, with a more complex builder comes the increased risk of players messing up their builds. Messing up your build is one of the worst things that can happen to you in the game, especially since you won’t be refunded for any Virtual Currency (VC) you’ve used to upgrade them and as you know, VC is a very valuable resource that can take a while to accumulate.
The City is now much smaller, and it’s perfect because last year’s City was just way too big and you’d often have to waste so much time just running or skateboarding to get to different locations. Everything is near each other, and you can use the subway to get around even faster. I imagine that this also saves players so much more storage space, as so many unnecessary locations were added in that nobody actually cared about. The courts in Elite, Rise, and the highly requested returning 2K16 Park affiliations, all have courts that are close to each other, which again, lessens the amount of time wasted by just walking around. These are very welcome changes, as one of the complaints I’ve heard the most about 2K24 was how so much time is wasted just walking and waiting for matches instead of actually hooping.
MyTeam is also back and the card-collecting game mode has gotten some love from the 2K devs. One of the most notable additions is the MyTeam Rep system, which like in MyPlayer, puts you in a ranking and grants you rewards for every rep you achieve. Then there’s the Auction House, a returning MyTeam feature that lets you buy and sell cards with other players. The 3v3 game mode Triple Threat now has a park with 9 courts, though I, along with many others I presume, preferred the old Triple Threat as you just have to queue to get into a match and you don’t have to wait for a court to finish playing their game first. Lastly, there are new game modes that MyTeam fans would undoubtedly enjoy. Showdown Mode lets you climb 15 competitive tiers that you can climb by winning 4-minute quarters with 13-man lineups while King of the Court is a mode made specifically for the sweatiest MyTeam players, and lets them compete against each other for bragging rights and rewards.
Overall, 2K25 is an improvement from its predecessor that fixes many of the flaws that annoyed its playerbase. However, the franchise’s biggest flaw for years now remains to be solved. Specifically, this is how much VC it takes to make a build viable, how long it takes to accumulate that VC for free, and how much VC microtransactions cost. It’s not surprising that it’s still like this, as fixing this will mean fewer people will buy VC with real money, and that’s a big no-no for a gaming giant focused on maximizing their profits.
Pros of NBA 2K25
| Things NBA 2K25 Got Right |
|---|
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The Best Basketball Game Out There Devs Listened To Feedback |
The Best Basketball Game Out There
NBA 2K remains unchallenged as the premier basketball game of today. There simply isn’t anything that remotely comes close to how 2K is able to capture the essence of NBA basketball and translate it into a video game for fans of the professional sports league. That said, NBA 2K’s gameplay, visuals, and audio have remained the best for a basketball game. Its direct affiliation with the NBA makes the game almost an extension of the league and is perfect if you love both video games and NBA basketball. If this is the case for you, getting yourself the newest NBA 2K becomes an (expensive) annual tradition.
Devs Listened To Feedback
NBA 2K25 seems like the year where the devs actually took into account most of the playerbase’s suggestions. They’ve done so before, but they weren’t always able to do as much as they could have. We asked for better paint defense and bump steals and we got them. We asked for the old parks back, and we got them. We complained about how much time we wasted navigating the large open areas in the city and parks, and they’re much smaller now. Almost everything I had a problem with in the last 2K has been addressed this year, and that makes it a near-perfect NBA 2K game in my opinion.
Cons of NBA 2K25
| Things That NBA 2K25 Can Improve |
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Builds Cost A Fortune (Or Months Of Your Time) Steep Learning Curve For Online Play Offline Game Modes Can Be Better |
Builds Cost A Fortune (Or Months Of Your Time)
Once again, 2K is pay-to-play. Day one of the game revealed that getting your MyPlayer to 85 costs around 180,000-200,000 VC. This means that getting it to 99 costs around 400,000 again, and 450,000 VC in US dollars costs $99.99, $30 more than the actual game.
Alternatively, you could get there without spending any real money at all, but it’s going to cost you months of your time, which is a luxury a lot of us can’t afford.
This huge investment that you need to put in just to compete in online MyPlayer game modes is bad for the game, as those who spend will have an overwhelming advantage over those who don’t, and the time it takes to grind it out is just flat-out unreasonable.
To rub salt on the wound, it’s so easy to mess up your build this year, given how complex the new builder is. If you’re playing the game within a week or two of release and you don’t want to spend too much, or at all, you might want to wait a couple of weeks to give content creators time to come up with meta builds that you won’t regret spending your VC on.
Steep Learning Curve For Online Play
This is an issue that’s plagued 2K for years, but getting into online play for the first time is very, very hard, especially if you play as a guard and if you’re only playing with randoms. You’ll have to study what works and practice your moves and jumpshots first. When you think you’re ready, you’ll have to line up in park courts, get destroyed after waiting 10 minutes for a game, and then do it again. Moreover, you’ll probably team up with other players who also don’t know what they’re doing, since the good players often have squads they run with. Sadly, a lot of random players don’t know how to pass the rock, and you might not even get the ball in some games at all, which can be a very frustrating and discouraging experience.
You could also choose to play online game modes where you control your entire team, like Play Now Online, but the chances of you getting matched up with a seasoned 2K veteran and losing by 20 points in just the first quarter are high.
Being skilled at beating the AI in 2K just won’t translate much into online play against players who know exactly what they’re doing. It takes practice to get good at NBA 2K and the learning curve is steep. Is it worth the time and trouble? If have fun in the offline game modes, you’ll have even more fun online once you get good.
Offline Game Modes Can Be Better
While the AI in this game has grown smarter and more skilled at the game, NBA 2K25 is fun offline for now, but that’s only until you figure out how to beat the AI again. Even at the highest difficulty, matches against AI are just so lifeless and boring. It’s possible that this is just because I’ve done it countless times already that it just isn’t fun to me anymore, but this is a common saying among plenty of tenured 2K veterans.
It doesn’t help that the MyCareer story mode, which is supposed to be the game’s immersive story mode that lets you virtually live out your own NBA career, is rather boring. It’s nowhere near as entertaining as the Orange Juice dynamic duo from 2K17 with your created character and your favorite sharpshooting teammate played by Michael B. Jordan. It took a step back from last year’s story, which was one of the best in the series so far. At least it’s grounded in reality, unlike the absurd storylines of some past 2Ks, like the one where you’re a DJ who happened to land an NBA deal. Moreover, the focus on creating a dynasty and your team playing a bigger role in the story is a nice touch that we haven’t seen before. A decent storyline that’s overshadowed by its predecessor.
Is NBA 2K25 Worth It?
Yes If You Play Online Or If You’re A Big NBA Fan
The thing with this franchise is that a lot of casual players feel like every NBA 2K is the same game every year, but with minor upgrades annually just so they could sell a "new" game. In some instances, they’re right, especially if they only occasionally play offline games by themselves or with their friends. Offline players often miss out on a lot of the new features every year, as the devs seem more focused on giving players an excellent multiplayer basketball experience. That said, these players might not care much about all the new things that make 2K25 a better game, since they’re not as invested as the people who play online often.
Some years, the game is very different from the last release, and that often warrants a purchase from the casuals. This time around, it’s very similar to NBA 2K24, especially in terms of graphics and audio, so if you have NBA 2K24, you don’t care much about updated rosters, and you only play offline, then you can get away with not buying this game.
On the other hand, if you’re one of those people who buy NBA 2K every year, a diehard basketball fan, or if you’re a basketball casual that hasn’t bought 2K in a year or two, NBA 2K25 is well worth your money as it provides the best online multiplayer basketball experience to date.
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PlayStation |
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NBA 2K25 FAQ
Who were the players removed from NBA 2K25?
Some of the most notable players who aren't part of NBA 2K25 are John Wall, Serge Ibaka, Andre Iguodala, and Blake Griffin. These players will be absent from the rosters of historic teams they're part of.
What are the best builds in NBA 2K25?
It's tough to tell the meta at day one, but some strong build ideas include an undersized PG with HOF/Legend shooting badges, a well-rounded tall guard, a lockdown build, a stretch 4, and an inside big.
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NBA 2K25 Product Information
| |
| Title | NBA 2K25 |
|---|---|
| Release Date | September 6, 2024 |
| Developer | Visual Concepts |
| Publisher | 2K |
| Supported Platforms | PC(Steam), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S |
| Genre | Sports, Simulation, Action |
| Number of Players | Online Multiplayer |
| Rating | ESRB E |
| Official Website | NBA 2K25 Official Website |
