Gameplay
On the one hand you can do every type of basketball move imaginable right down to the most minute of pivots and head fakes. On the other hand that means that there are a million button combinations to learn if you ever want to be able to do even half of them. A more casual gamer like me would be more than happy to keep it simple – one button each to spin, shoot, pass, crossover, call for a screen, head fake, go fast, and directional control over passes – but maybe that would make it too easy for serious gamers, I don’t know.
As it is I’ve been able to master the controls well enough to be able to play well against the computer at the Pro level, the third level out of six. There are times when it’s frustrating – good luck taking anyone off the dribble unless you have a superior talent at guard like Allen Iverson or Caitlin Clark who make it almost too easy – but I’ve been able to master the drive and kick game enough to be able to create a lethal 3 point offense.
While there are way too many things to learn it’s not impossible to create a good, functioning offense and get some easy buckets with time and practice. I was able to get good enough in a few weeks to bump the difficulty up a few levels and have a fun, competitive playing experience. All in all I give it an A for options, a C for difficulty, and an A for fun which rounds out to solid B+.
Rosters
The rosters are a tale of two cities. The men’s side has current teams that update to reflect real world transactions, a boatload of classic teams including several ‘best team to never win a title’ options, All-Star teams, Olympic Teams, and All-Time rosters for each NBA franchise. The women’s side has current rosters and that’s it. I get that the WNBA was just recent added as an option and that there isn’t enough history to make All-Time rosters for every franchise but 30 years in there’s no reason that you can’t have some classic team rosters like the 4 peat Houston Comets and some of the teams that dominated like the Maya Moore led Minnesota Lynx teams. There’s no excuse to not be able to play with or against Moore, Lisa Leslie, Sheryl Swoopes, Candace Parker, Sue Bird, Teresa Weatherspoon, Lauren Jackson, etc. You should able to pit the recent back to back title winning Aces against those Comets and see how it goes. I can only suppose that the makers of the game did not suspect the WNBA would blow up like it did in 2024; well, it’s time to take that into account now an act accordingly. Because of those glaring omissions I can’t give the rosters more than a C.
League Play Modes
One of the big features of sports league games is the League/Universe Mode where you can create your own version of the NBA or NFL or WWE, play through it, or just pick winners for fun. This one is pretty expansive. You can customize your league in every way imaginable all the way down the various contract rules and such. You can change the playoff round settings from one and done to best of seven throughout. From year to year you can run the draft, free agency, etc. The Eras League Mode, where you get to choose from several different eras of NBA ball, even incorporates the real life draft classes from each year. And while there are a ridiculous number of details and options to navigate, thankfully you do have the option to turn off whichever ones you don’t feel like dealing with. My only real issue with this section is not being able to change the length of the regular season. Playing 40 WNBA games isn’t a big deal but playing the entire 82 game NBA slate is a tough road, especially if you run a YouTube channel and don’t want to overload your viewers with games to keep up with.
Other Modes & Features
If you don’t want to go through a whole season there is a Playoff Mode where you can fill the playoff brackets with whatever teams you want, choose the length of each round, and go from there. If you don’t want to go through the slog of 82 games and just want to match up teams that would be fun to play with or watch, it’s a great option. The only quibble I’ve got is that you have to play or watch the games in the assigned order unless you simulate the results you can’t skip around to play or watch whichever matchup suits you at the time.
There is also a creation section where you can create players and even rosters for a whole team or the whole league. Having played WWE 2k for many years and seeing the vast imaginations of creators come up with all kinds of things including characters from sports and entertainment to insert into the world of wrestling, I was excited to see that applied to world of basketball and getting to play with WWE Superstars or Marvel Superheroes or what have you. To my chagrin I was not able to find any such creations when I searched. There’s also no way to download an individual created player without downloading an entire created roster, which sucks if you just want to find a player that’s not part of the game roster like Charles Barkley and plug them in somewhere.
And finally like every other 2k sports game NBA 2k25 offers MyCareer and My Team modes; the former involves creating a player and going through a storyline driven career with milestones to achieve that will move you up the roster while the later is a Pokemon-esque card collecting game where you get to play using roster made up of the players whose cards you’ve collected and whatever features you’ve been able to add. I don’t really have a grade for either one because I barely do anything with them. I’ve created a player and team for each but I prefer to play one off games and stick with my created leagues. These modes totally depend on whether or not they’re your cup of tea. MyCareer requires a lot of time and effort to go through and My Team is basically a game of chicken to see how fast you break down and start paying money for microtransactions to get more cards. Having fallen into that trap in WWE 2k I was not about to go there again.
Final Verdict
The number one question is whether or not NBA 2k25 has sold me on buying NBA 2k26 when it drops later this year. The answer to that is a tentative yes. I need that WNBA roster and team expansion more than anything else; the real growth in basketball this past year has been on the women’s side and it’s high time for the videogame to reflect that.
The limitations in the creation suite are another downer for me. The creation suite is part of the lifeblood of WWE 2k games and one of the best parts of having the game, whether you make your own or not. There’s a whole world of gamers chomping at the bit to run a Justice League vs Avengers 5 on 5 game or a Bloodline vs New Bloodline pickup game, and it’s a miss to not make that as easy as possible to do.
Overall I give it a B. I have lots of fun with the parts of it that I use regularly but as I mentioned there are some things I think some major shoring up that would make the experience even better. Having not bought an NBA game in a while it’s been a welcome addition but I don’t know if it’s an every year purchase just yet.
Stroke of Genius 