NBA 2K25 Reveals First Gameplay Details
NBA 2K25 aims to make big improvements with another year of ProPlay.
Outside of revealing the cover and release date, the NBA 2K25 developers have been keeping most of the details about the game under wraps. That's not too surprising given that developer 2K Games has waited until we're only about a month away from each year's release date. With NBA 2K25 launching on September 6th, we've hit that point and the dev team has revealed the first details about the changes coming to gameplay this year. After introducing ProPlay with NBA 2K24, the team has had another year with the tech and is promising some major changes.
While the team is quick to hype that there are more than 9,000 new animations in the game, the most exciting announcement is that NBA 2K25 is getting the franchise's first new dribble engine in 15 years. This was made possible by ProPlay and 2K says "Motion is one-to-one with how NBA players dribble in real life." Essentially, the team has captured the real-world motion players make and translated it to the digital world, delivering something they claim is "more consistent" than the old engine. Of course, we'll need to see the new engine in action to judge if the team has met its goal, but it's a promising update from the team.
NBA 2K25 also introduces Pro Stick Rhythm Shooting. This is a new way to shoot that gives players a high-risk high-reward option that the team claims to better recreate what fans see in the real world. Plus, if you struggled with last year's shooting mechanics, 2K has added several new settings to give you even more customization settings. If you want the old "green or miss" style of shooting, it's still there, but players can tune it to match their preference more than last year. The developers have also given defense a pass and have added a new cutoff system that gives on-ball defenders more tools to counteract offensive players. They've also tuned the contest system, saying every block attempt should now "make sense."
Finally, the team confirmed that the PC version will now be on par with the next-gen version of NBA 2K25. For the last few years, PC players have been on the old-gen version of the game, but 2K has finally made the switch, making PC a much more viable option for players.
Of course, this is all just scratching the surface of the changes 2K is making to the game this year. Make sure to keep your eyes peeled for mode updates as we get closer to launch and give the full dev blog a read if you want to dive deep into gameplay changes. NBA 2K25 launches on September 6th for PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, and PC platforms.
