We’ve turned the calendar over to August, which for NBA 2K fans means the start of a fresh marketing cycle for this year’s iteration of the long-running basketball sim. In a new Courtside Report, 2K goes into extensive detail about NBA 2K25’s gameplay enhancements, which will once again only be included on the current-gen versions of the game – so PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.
For starters, the team is taking the ProPLAY movement engine and turning it up a notch, replacing traditional motion-captured animations with 9,000 new animations translated from real NBA gameplay footage. Of those 9,000 new animations, 1,500 are new dribbling animations, and 1,100 are new signature shots from most of the players that were on a roster during the 2023-24 NBA season.
Along those lines, 2K25 will introduce an entirely new dribble engine, a move 2K characterizes as the most significant upgrade to its gameplay engine in 15 years. So, what’s so special about this new dribbling? Well, in the past, dribble movement was a product of pre-scripted animations and programming (a fact I have long lamented), but now, ProPLAY generates dynamic dribble movements from that same NBA game footage. The result is dribbling that both feels and looks more natural.
It appears that 2K also heard the pleas of the community – not everyone loved last year’s move to timing-based shooting, where it was essentially “green or miss”. Instead of dialing it all back, 2K25 will allow you to choose from the timing-based shooting, or that which relies on player ratings, openness at the time of shooting, and quality of the shot. Of course, if you’re skilled at getting greens, then you’re going to have a leg up on the competition.
Defending shots is also getting a big time change for the better, in my opinion. The shot contest system has been revamped and will now use a dynamic weighting system that computes the defensive impact at the start of the shot, versus at release. A player’s defensive ratings, and height differential with the shooter are also more critical now than ever.
There are a lot more gameplay changes you can read about over on the NBA 2K25 website, or check out the deep dive trailer below. NBA 2K25 launches September 6th for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.
