NBA 2K26

After many, long years of perfectly okay, but not particularly exciting games in the NBA 2K series, last year I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the game. NBA 2K26 is really more of the same, but with some positive news.

Just as EA Sports has in all of its sports games, 2K also introduced a type of technology that takes all sorts of information about a player in real life and then makes them feel special in the game. ProPlay, as they have chosen to call it, is available on the current console generation (i.e. PlayStation 5, Switch 2, Xbox Series X/S, and PC) and uses real media from the NBA. This should, according to the developers, reduce players "skating" across the floor. There should also be a new collision system that should be more accurate than the animations from the previously used motion captures. I already had fun last year with how the game worked and this year I have not changed my mind.

On the pitch, there is no doubt that it is a good game.

There haven't been any huge changes, but it's the little things that count sometimes. Like the fact that this year the game feels faster and it's very possible that this is "by design" by the developers. Or that the shot meter has been improved and is reminiscent of those that existed a few years ago, before 2K started experimenting with all different types of meters. Now it's easier to time your shot and if you drop the gauge in the green area, which is bigger if you're open and smaller with opponents in your face, the ball will go in the basket. The computer-controlled players are now also much smarter than before. They will adapt and detect mismatches like a centre suddenly attacking a point guard, they will spread out better with better support and opponents will adapt to your style of play with better understanding of spaces, passes, and defensive rotations. More often than not, one of the easiest ways to score in the past has been to just break in from the perimeter and get past opponents. Or classic pick-and-rolls. While possibly a bit more difficult now, those are still two of the easiest ways to score.

The online hub The City is now much smaller, but still packed with shops.

One of the game's biggest improvements is the career mode. I consider the NBA 2K series to have the best career mode for solo players of any major sports series. EA Sports hasn't come close since they dropped things like The Journey from FIFA (now EA Sports FC) and Long Shot from Madden NFL. NHL, to my recollection, hasn't even tried. NBA 2K26 is nowhere near the over-the-top film-like experience of ten years ago created by Spike Lee. There are no girlfriends or friends dying. Instead, we get to follow your created player, who 2K seems to have decided a few years ago should be called MP, from a small town in Vermont to college and then on to games in Europe. Yes, we now get the chance to play on one of two teams in Europe. Two made up ones from cities that have great basketball teams. It would have been nice to see a licensed team, but we'll take what we can get, I guess. The goal is to play as well as possible to go from unranked to be drafted. The story in Out of Bounds is hardly something that would have won an Oscar, but it is the best the series has created. If you don't want to play through all that, you can skip it entirely and take your player online or go straight to the NBA.

It costs to be on top.

The problem with your created player is that your offline trait points are still linked to online play. I cannot emphasise enough how much I HATE this. You can't make two different players, one to play a career and "level up" as you wish periodically, and one where you can buy your way directly to 99 overall. Nah, it all fits together here. If you don't want to spend any money at all to make your 68 overall power forward better, you will be completely overrun by stronger, faster, more skilful, better players in the NBA. You can then develop your player slowly (very slowly) and safely with virtual currency, VC, you earn after each game. This is usually around 1,000 coins per game. For comparison, I need 42,755 coins to take my centre's defensive rebounding from 81 to 94. And that's just one characteristic. Take my block from 70 to 93? In round numbers 49,300 coins. Or, of course, I can buy my way right there. To increase these two out of a total of 21 properties, I need to shell out real money. To take my player from 70 in total points to 85? More of the same. I don't even want to think about how much it costs to buy me to 99 as each step gets more expensive the further up you go. And having to pay these sums, or play for very many hours, to play offline is not okay. And if you want to play online against other players, there is no choice: You have to spend money. Show up to a game with a 70-rated player and you'll be laughed out of the room. And being laughed at is the best case scenario here. Expect a lot of not-so-pretty language too. If there's one thing I really hate about the NBA 2K series, it's how much greedier it is compared to other sports series, which are slowly but surely moving in that direction as well.

Women's WNBA players are now available in MyTeam.

Because let's not forget that there's also an Ultimate Team mode here, called MyTeam, which is obviously designed to suck as much money out of players as possible. And while the other sports series start with fairly low skill scores on the players in order to have a long, steady increase throughout the year (in both Madden NFL 26 and NHL 26, the best possible special cards had around 85-86 in total points at launch), NBA 2K26 is all about people buying as many packs of cards as possible. Right away, card packs appeared in the store with the possibility to get players with 96 in total points. And of course, there are no other ways to get players as good. Add to that season passes that cost money. And it's thrown right in your face as soon as you log in. MyTeam is basically the same as last year, but with updated team line-ups and new names on the card packs. However, the cards now include female players from the WNBA, something EA Sports already has in its sports games (minus Madden NFL). The problem is that most of them will never be used, because who wants to play with a 6'4" centre against 6'2" Victor Wembanyama? As a point guard or shooting guard, however, it works.

The thing about NBA 2K is that it's a very online-heavy game series. This is evident in the aforementioned career mode, of course, but also in the fact that the offline modes get no love. Because in MyGM and MyNBA, it's emptier than my fridge before payday when it comes to new content. New this year is Offseason Scenarios in MyGM, which is exactly what it sounds like. During the offseason, you get objectives you have to meet to make the fans and the owner happy. Yes, that's it. This is not a game series for offline lovers.

This year's NBA 2K impresses... for the most part.

Much of the review has focused on things that make me angry, upset, disappointed. Because I feel like I have to push this a little extra when this is otherwise such a great game. The basketball is better than perhaps ever and the presentation of the game, especially around the games, is leaps and bounds better than what other sports game series offer. If you can overlook (because it's hard to overlook) all the attempts to get your money out of your wallet, this is such a great sports game. I just wish they would stop being so greedy, but the fact that it's incredibly fun to play basketball on the court might be the most important thing.