NBA 2K25 Review

For the past two years, the NBA 2K series has left a bad taste in my mouth. Since NBA 2K23, every…single…year has been disappointment after disappointment. The same issues that were the main problems for not only myself but for others as well are still present in NBA 2K25, which to be honest isn’t a surprise. 2K has a monopoly on the NBA sports sims to the point where little to no effort is made to improve the title. That’s not the dev team’s fault, but the higher-ups and bigwigs making these decisions. The NBA 2K player base that purchases the game every year is also part of the problem but we can get into it later when we talk about the primary reason on why the NBA 2K series will never get better. If you’ve read my previous NBA 2K reviews then you’ll understand my frustrations with the series. How did it fare in comparison to last year’s counterpart? Same thing, different year…

Much like in NBA 2K24, NBA 2K25 has MyNBA Eras which is the one new addition, but shocker… it doesn’t do that much. You can “relive” certain parts of a NBA player’s career like Lebron and Steph Curry, but unlike the showcase mode in WWE 2K25, it’s pretty low effort. MYGM also makes a return but 2K doesn’t deserve any praise for putting a mode back in that was already a feature before. Doing this is the bare minimum as it’s nothing new. It’s called settling for less and players deserve so much more than this.

I’ll come right out and say that NBA 2K25 looks amazing. Every single year the graphics get better with each technological advancement we see within the gaming industry. Character models look fantastic and continue to improve every year. That’s it though. NBA 2K25 is a copy-and-paste game. It’s painfully the same game to the point where I feel like I’m repeating myself with every review I write. Ridiculous that I’m even saying this but it’s painfully true. The same game modes MyTeam, and MyCareer return and are more money-hungry than ever with VC being the plague of the series once more. It’s gotten to the point where a $70+ asking price for NBA 2K25 isn’t really $70+ due to the fact that you need VC to do pretty much everything.

VC or Virtual Currency is the reason why the NBA 2K series is in the trash can. You need VC to level up, customize, build your team in MyTeam, etc. The fact that it’s universal across all game modes is predatory on top of that. Unless you empty out your wallet, more than likely you won’t have a good time. The NBA 2K series has built a F2P (Free-to-Play) foundation (battle pass included, not free by the way) and still charges players $70+ to play. They’ve gotten away with it due to it’s player base shilling money out on an excessive amount of VC every single year. Because 2K gets away with it every year it doesn’t change it’s methods.

MyTeam is EA’s Madden Ultimate Team. Nothing new, nothing inventive, “Give me money. Money now. Money me give now.” Same for MyCareer. However, MyCareer is actually worse now. One of the major changes is that it’s much harder to shoot in NBA 2K25 compared to other years. Between comp play, Park, and REC, shot timing is different for all of them. So that means you have to master your shot across all these different modes with garbage latency issues that will more than likely never be fixed. All this is just a ruse for players to spend more money on VC to “play better.” It doesn’t help. I have a 94 3-point shooting and I still struggle to hit my shots. It has to be pinpointed on the money or you’re just going 6/30 from the arc. People pay money for a basketball simulation game, not to experience what it’s actually like shooting in the NBA in real life.

Conclusion

I’ve genuinely lost hope in this franchise. With the mix of VC shills, content creators that overhype a garbage product, outlets praising the word vomit stew that the player base eats up every year – at least the ones with deep wallets – and the F2P tactics in a paid game, NBA 2K will more than likely never return to its glory days that I loved. I’m tired of repeating myself and I’m tired of having expectations go below the bar, like it wasn’t low enough. Every single year it’s “a step in the right direction.” No, it’s not. I stopped settling for less and everyone else should too. NBA 2K25 is a basketball game but feels like a grindy RPG with heavy predatory practices at play. An utter disappointment. Save your money and play a better game.