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When five-time NBA champion Dennis Rodman was interviewed throughout Netflix’s Final Dance documentary, he defined how he’d have mates shoot hoops from all angles nicely into the morning simply to extra precisely monitor rebounds and work out the place he wanted to be to scoop up possession.
Assessment information
Platform reviewed: PS5 (on PS5 Professional)
Out there on: PS5, Xbox Sequence X|S, Nintendo Swap 2, PC
Launch date: September 5, 2025 (Early entry one week prior)
Why do I convey that up when speaking about basketball recreation NBA 2K26? As a result of, as a lot as rebounds are much less show-stopping than acrobatic dunks, they’re the premise on which profitable groups construct assaults, and each single late-night session predicting angles and flight paths led to Rodman changing into an NBA legend.
Whereas NBA 2K26 might not hit these heights (at the very least not but), what’s right here plasters over among the cracks in final yr’s recreation to supply the perfect digital basketball expertise in years.
No Extra Bricks
I loved my time with NBA 2K25, however I do know I’m within the minority for that. A giant cause that the neighborhood discovered itself divided by final yr’s recreation was 2K’s dedication to revamping a core a part of the expertise, which we’ve been used to during the last decade and alter: the shot meter.
Whereas final yr put an terrible lot of emphasis on the ever-present hazard of taking pictures a brick and fluffing your traces, this yr it’s rather more forgiving. It’s not fairly a walkback to earlier video games, but it surely seems like Visible Ideas has finished an terrible lot to remodel the act of taking pictures the basketball, or driving to the rim, this time round.
You’ll nonetheless throw some absolute honkers in the event you’re not cautious, however you at all times really feel extra in management, whereas final yr issues felt a bit of too random.
Final yr, it took a significant shine off of the in any other case stellar animation system that did a greater job of constructing gamers really feel like they had been shifting extra realistically, and in vastly bettering offense this yr, the entire recreation feels prefer it’s sooner. It’s not fairly arcadey, but it surely’s a extra thrilling sim than it’s been in years.
Now, you’re not lacking simple layups or having to spam dribbling strikes to discover a tiny opening, as a result of all gamers really feel rather more able to scoring factors from anyplace, and participant locomotion feels just a bit slicker.
That additionally ties into the long-running participant builds system. Final yr, until you invested a ton of stat factors into your participant (or actual forex), you’d end up lacking easy photographs. This time round, the brand new ‘MP’ (your in-game avatar in MyPlayer) feels rather more just like the gifted prospect they’re speculated to be initially of the story.
Rags to Riches (Once more)
That brings us properly to MyPlayer, the mode from which a lot of NBA 2K26’s others move. Let’s begin with the great: Visible Ideas’ dedication to having a single, central created participant stays one thing I want rivals would undertake.
It’s superior to have the ability to construct up your model of MP in a single mode earlier than taking them on-line, and whereas the story right here is fairly predictable, it stays a enjoyable technique to construct your participant’s legend from highschool to the NBA.
Cutscenes look higher, though they naturally pale compared to the on-court motion, however what’s right here is extra of the identical.
There’s a draw back to that, too, and it’s VC. You’ll earn forex by means of taking part in, however as with all NBA 2K instalment, you possibly can spend loads of actual money to develop your participant rapidly and into one of many in-game archetypes.
My Small Ahead has loved a meteoric rise (at the very least in response to the MyPlayer storyline), however he’s nonetheless nowhere close to as spectacular as anybody who’s thrown their forex of selection on the recreation.
Elsewhere, MyGM stays one in every of my favourite methods to play regardless of not having any main enhancements this yr after its re-emergence in 2K25. There are contemporary long-term targets referred to as Offseason Eventualities, they usually function real-world examples like a Bulls rebuild or weighing up the right way to observe up the Warriors’ Steph Curry period.
Greatest Bit
Jettisoning the controversial taking pictures meter from final yr, NBA 2K26 seems like a recreation filled with delicate adjustments that make scoring factors extra enjoyable than ever, whether or not you’re within the paint or taking pictures from distance.
They’re not the sort of issues that you simply’ll essentially be completely drawn into, however they’re a neat addition that provides you one thing to attempt for. Nonetheless, for a longstanding NBA fan, the continued assist for MyNBA Eras stays one thing that places rivals to disgrace. Now you can copy a MyPlayer right into a traditional period of the NBA, letting you rub shoulders with Larry Chicken or Michael Jordan.
Talking of dream eventualities, MyTeam is again and, as at all times, it’s very simple to throw VC factors at pack openings. I do respect that the mode is fairly rewarding in the case of offline play. I’m first rate at 2K, however the recreation’s fervent neighborhood may slap me six methods to Sunday, so it’s good to be accountable for what I play if I need to push for higher gamers for my squad.
This yr sees the debut of the WNBA within the mode, which is a large transfer that’s been a very long time coming. EA FC has seen loads of success by including the ladies’s recreation into Final Workforce, however the nature of basketball as a sport the place top makes a giant distinction implies that it’s not unusual for one participant to utterly tower over one other.
It maybe wouldn’t be an enormous difficulty in the event you may rotate your squad to put smaller, sooner gamers in additional attacking roles moderately than anticipating them to cease a 7ft 7 juggernaut, however that’s at odds with having gamers with roles and positions assigned to them after they’re contemporary out of packs.
Again to town
Look, I’ll be trustworthy: I’ve by no means actually loved The Metropolis. The mode has at all times felt like a good suggestion that’s had an excessive amount of government enter, designed to attract gamers in to drop their VC to construct their participant and purchase clothes and footwear.
Final yr took the sensible step of lastly shrinking the playspace, and NBA 2K26 goes one step additional with interconnected areas that make it a lot simpler to get to the place that you must be.
Maybe the perfect factor I can say about The Metropolis is that efficiency is vastly improved. Final yr’s recreation bought a PS5 Professional replace, but it surely at all times felt laggy on Sony’s latest system. This yr, it’s nonetheless not as responsive as taking part in on the courtroom, but it surely’s noticeably simpler to navigate.
That brings us, lastly, to NBA 2K26’s presentation. Put merely, that is the best-looking sports activities recreation round, at the very least on PS5 Professional. When Visible Ideas boasted about with the ability to see the pores on gamers’ faces forward of launch, I scoffed. Because it seems, you actually can see the pores on participant faces, in addition to stitching on footwear, and people all-important reflective surfaces just like the shiny courtroom.
Do you have to play NBA 2K26?
Play it if…
Do not play it if…
Accessibility
NBA 2K26 has a number of accessibility options. You possibly can modify shot timing home windows and visible cues, whereas there are issue settings, too. Vibration and DualSense triggers may be tweaked, too.
Maybe most impressively is that the shot meter, which may be tough to identify within the chaos of an ongoing match, may be custom-made with a wide range of choices. It’s not strictly there for accessibility functions, however that customization could possibly be an enormous boon for individuals who want further visible readability.
How I reviewed NBA 2K26
Having reviewed a number of NBA titles throughout totally different platforms in recent times, I performed this one on my PS5 Professional, with the usual DualSense wi-fi controller, the Astro A50 X headset, and on a Sky Glass TV.
I’ve most not too long ago performed NBA 2K25 within the final couple of months, so I’ve grasp of what’s modified. I constructed up a good beginning line-up in MyTeam throughout this present evaluation interval and spent a while working my means by means of the ranks in MyTeam.
I additionally explored The Metropolis, was destroyed by different gamers in pick-up video games, and started the journey to take the Chicago Bulls again to a brand new period of dominance.
First reviewed August-September 2025
