NBA 2K24 has been officially revealed by developer Visual Concept, but the team didn’t actually announce much in terms of gameplay. In fact, the only things we really know about NBA 2K24 at this point are the pre-order bonuses and that it will support cross-play at launch on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. However, there have been several leaks coming out from different places, most notably the early reveal of what is assumed to be the current overall ratings of the top 100 NBA players. Recently, we’ve also learned that one gameplay feature that many players didn’t love in NBA 2K23 is supposedly coming back. The Adrenaline Bar Boosts were first seen last year, and it looks like the mechanic is sticking around.
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As always, you’ll want to take this leak with a hefty dose of skepticism, but the leak is coming from 2KIntel on Twitter. That account previously successfully leaked the special editions of NBA 2K24 and revealed that we would be getting cross-play. In this new leak, they simply say that “Adrenaline bars are coming back in NBA 2K24.” That doesn’t tell us much about how the game will actually play outside of that one mechanic, but it is enough to get many in the community upset that 2K is leaving the mechanic in the game.
In NBA 2K23, adrenaline bar boosts are a way for 2K to regulate how many explosive moves you can do in a single possession. If you use the turbo button to launch yourself into an explosive sprint, you’ll lose one of your three bars for that possession. This means players controlling the bar can’t chain together dribble moves as effectively and off-ball players need to manage their sprints when cutting. Especially among Park players, this mechanic wasn’t well-liked because it severely limited their ability to dribble around the court and past their opponents.
Of course, there are two sides to all of this. More casual players in 2K23 weren’t as against the feature because it meant that players who were simply really good at dribbling couldn’t decimate their defense every possession. Regardless of where you come down on the issue for NBA 2K24, it’s safe to say that we need to actually see what the game has to offer in terms of new gameplay additions before we can really judge. 2K hasn’t given us a roadmap of when to expect new gameplay features to be announced, but hopefully, it’s sooner rather than later.
