NBA 2K25 - Xbox Review

NBA 2K25 by developer Visual Concepts and publisher 2K Games—Xbox Series X review written by Nick with a copy provided by the publisher.

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

I can almost hear the naysayers with this latest release of NBA 2K25: “Another year, another sports title update, another roster update with nothing substantial added”. Well guess what? They’re very, very wrong. NBA 2K25 is the best annual update the series has seen in some time. I’d go so far as to say NBA 2K25 is the best sports video game release we have seen in years.

I wouldn’t want the unenviable job of trying to develop new features, while trying to figure out what worked from last year’s game and keep it going, while balancing that against wanting to freshen things up, all on a limited timeframe because of the yearly cycle of major sports leagues. It’s a tightrope act that can often earn more jeers than cheers from fans who lament the cycle as a roster update cash grab.

NBA 2K25 doesn’t completely reinvent the wheel here, but it doesn’t have to. This is a franchise that didn’t get exclusive NBA rights like Madden did with the NFL; they simply put out the best basketball game year after year until the would-be competition picked its ball up and went home. Since then the series has been good, but seldom great. Last season was a bit of a bust in my opinion, so I was unsure what to expect from this year’s release. And right off of the bat? I had a somewhat odd feeling because things felt off. Different. Uneven. Loose. There were a lot of descriptors going through my head as I figured up a quick match and just wanted to get a feel for the game itself without working through the tutorial. 

The thing is, what started off feeling sloppy actually grew on me as I realized it was simply more fluid. The feeling of loose controls was flexibility in movement and control options. The more I ran up and down the court, the more I began to appreciate that this game I knew so well and had been playing for well over a decade now finally felt like it had shaken some of its on-rails stiffness. There have always been exciting, flashy plays in NBA 2K, but many times things felt scripted. A specific set of animations triggered to go off in a very specific way. That may still well be the case behind the scenes, but the engine used in this year’s game feels like it has hit a new level.

Shots don’t just swish or bank in, they roll around the rim, ricocheting off of the backboard in unexpected ways. An errant pass doesn’t just sail out of bounds, but sometimes bounces off of a foot or a hand. One time it bounced off of the back of a player’s head, only to be snatched out of the air by a nearby defender who put the ball on the floor to advance, making contact with a teammate, nearly losing their balance before pressing on up the court. Such a simple set of events, but this is by far the most realistic representation of player movement I’ve seen yet.

Sure, this engine looks great in general. Well-known players look like themselves. The really great ones don’t just look like themselves, but are animated to move like themselves. Little nuances from free throw form, to how they handle a crossover to how they chew on their mouth guard. There’s a level of authenticity here that NBA diehards are bound to eat up, and all of it translates to the best basketball playing experience I’ve had yet. 

The presentation doesn’t stop there, as there’s an excellent soundtrack of music that plays in the background, tons of voiced dialogue in the MyCAREER mode, tons of authentic filters and commentary both for the modern game and some of the older eras for those throwback games. There’s still times where I recognize bits of audio commentary that’s been used in the last game or two, but the repetition’s down this year, with more audio than ever it seems like. There’s still room to expand – maybe have some more commentators or something, similar to Madden introducing more teams this year, but I know that’s likely a lot of work and a few bucks to bring those crews in – but it’s an area that could be improved.

Speaking of improvement, there’s aspects of the UI that I don’t love. Maybe I’m just being an old fuddy, but I preferred the last couple of shot meters to the ones presented here. It was a bit of a surprise to see what it looked like this year when I pulled up for my first shot. It bricked. There’s something about navigating the MyTEAM mode that took more time to get used to than usual as well. Just something about the menu UI didn’t click with me for a while.

Last but not least, since I’m airing grievances? I might as well bring up how much I have Virtual Currency. The microtransactions are strong with this series, and they have been for many years. They want too much of the VC (virtual currency) for the packs in MyTEAM, which is a sort of fantasy sports meets card collection mode that wants you to open your wallet. Still, you can choose to spend or not, and outside of the VC I start with for the version of the game I reviewed, I never buy any more. I’m just not a big microtransaction person in any game, so I tend to grind in games to avoid paying more. The good news is, compared to last year’s NBA 2K24? This year’s MyCAREER didn’t feel nearly as grindy. In fact I was earning VC at a good rate and enjoying my time doing so far better. 

That being said – I do have a request 2K: Could we stop with the pop-up windows when the game starts? Instead of defaulting to having them open, maybe have a banner with a button to be pressed to bring them up.  It’s annoying to fire up the game (which takes a bit to load in the first place), then see a menu and attempt to pick your game mode only to have a window pop up trying to get you to upgrade your purchase. And sometimes if you close that, a second window with a different offer pops up. It’s annoying, and it keeps me from getting right into the action.

There’s plenty of other modes to be had here outside of MyCAREER and MyTEAM as well. MyNBA is all about running a franchise. I love that there are different eras represented here (including the new ‘Curry Era’. I went back to the 80s to live out the early and later stages of my Detroit Pistons Bad Boys era in two different franchise files. There’s a ton to sink your teeth into here, and I lost a lot of hours to it. There’s also a MyGM mode that’s more of an RPG-lite management experience set with the current era as you also take the reigns of a franchise, but with a bit more story behind it. The story’s writing feels a bit stilted at times, but it’s still a lot of fun.

I was really happy to see The W get more love this year as well. Whether you follow the WNBA or not, it’s impossible to be more aware of the league with the arrival of some of this year’s top rookies, Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. But it’s more about these new faces to the league. There’s more of an effort to make this mode more fully fleshed out than years past, including some storyline elements that don’t quite make it equal with MyCAREER, but a worthwhile endeavor all the same. And it’s worth noting that you get a set amount of VC for completing games in these other modes. I’ve seen some people grumbling that the requirement for ‘always connected’ could one day render these offline modes unplayable, but in reality I like that I’m getting VC for playing games, regardless of where (though MyTEAM does have a second currency in there. Frankly I think they should do away with that and just unify everything through VC. 

Even with all of these modes? The vast majority of my time is spent with MyCAREER mode. I went with a different build than recent years for my first one, and I’m having a blast with it. The actual storyline’s not as interesting as a some of the prior years have been, but the voice acting is solid and the progression elements have been a lot of fun. I’ve been up entirely too late at night since installing NBA 2K25, and it’s usually because of this roleplay-lite mode.

Simply put, NBA 2K25 is the best release this series has seen in years, and it’s probably my favorite sports game right now. This series has a knack for being my guilty pleasure, in that I play it more than almost anything else each year, and that’s very likely to be the case here once again. The package isn’t a flawless one, but there’s undeniable progress throughout NBA 2K25, and fans of the NBA owe it to themselves to play it.

 

Score: 8.75 / 10