NBA 2K25 Review: A MyCAREER Microtransaction Black Hole

The arrival of NBA 2K25 marks the next chapter for a basketball sim that has effectively monopolized that subgenre in gaming. While core gameplay and visuals continue to be top notch in recent years, the consistency isn’t the same across every game mode. NBA 2K25 has a lot to offer, but an ever-increasing microtransaction obsession is suffocating its potential. Even exciting new additions like a revamped MyGM experience can’t escape the black hole of MyCAREER. 

Firm Foundations for Flawed Execution 

Before digging into the major issues with how NBA 2K25 handles a few key game modes, it’s important to stress that the actual on-court play remains excellent. Graphics are fantastic, controls only seem to get more fluid each year, and it can still be a blast once you’re actually playing basketball. 

One of the best things about the way core gameplay and the NBA 2K25 controls are structured is that they offer almost endless customization. Players can adjust everything from camera cut tendencies and difficulty sliders to coaching automation and entire control mechanics until they’ve found their perfect individualized balance. 

Beginners, or those who just want to improve, can head to the new Learn 2K mode featuring extensive tutorials, different types of practice, and even mini-games that will help hone your skills. Once you’re comfortable on the court and have found your own favorite way to play, it’s easy to get lost in the action from tip-off to final buzzer. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of every game mode in NBA 2K25. 

The Inescapable MyCAREER Grind 

While NBA 2K25 is far from the only modern game affected by microtransactions, no franchise is more hamstrung by predatory “pay to play” antics or goes further to pressure players into spending extra money. The second you launch NBA 2K25, it’s trying to pull you into MyCAREER before you see the main manu and even consider entering any other part of the game. Players are prompted to choose a favorite team and custom player head, and then you’re dropped into overtime at the end of an NBA Finals game. 

It feels like a simple preview of NBA 2K25 gameplay, but finishing that game without quitting will automatically trigger the start of a cutscene. A quick “CONTINUE” or “Main Menu” choice appears, and choosing the former will put you into MyPLAYER creation and MyCAREER without even showing you what else the game has to offer. There’s a very simple reason for this: no matter how much money you spend on this game, 2K wants more. 

While your appearance and player build customization options are decent at the start, even players with the extra 100,000 VC from the All-Star Edition won’t even come close to upgrading their player ratings near the maximum or unlocking more than a handful of custom clothing options.

You’ll start with just a 60 OVR rating (which can struggle in games even on low difficulties), and it’ll cost about 100,000 VC just to reach 75 OVR. If you want to get all the way to 99 OVR, it’ll cost nearly 400,000 VC. You can either grind away a few hundred VC per game, spend hours on end making new builds just to repeatedly grind the VC rewards from a few early quests, or drop another $100 for the 450,000 VC bundle. 

Of course, you won’t be able to buy your way to 99 OVR immediately. Players must instead earn about 600,000 MyPOINTS by playing games which can take hours or days depending on your skill level and specific method.

You can use the Rebirth mechanic to skip some of the MyPOINTS grind when making a new save for a different position or build, but it’ll take the same amount of VC to level up each time. Content creators rush to find grind methods every year, and this has spawned an entire niche economy around paying someone else to play the game for you until you’ve got the player you actually wanted to use. 

Seasons Keep the Goal Posts Moving All Year Long 

If you really bury yourself in the grind and do all the work yourself, along the way you’ll probably get close to Level 40 in Season One and net tons of cosmetic rewards, in-game bonuses, and XP boosts. If you’re willing to drop an extra $10, you’ll get additional Premium Pass rewards for every level. Make that $20, and you’ll get an additional XP bonus, 10 Season Level Skips, and 15,000 VC. If you don’t wanna wait for Level 40, just buy more Level Skips at $2 a pop. Every six weeks this process starts over with the new season, so players can just drop $80 every six weeks to automatically earn the rewards without ever bothering to play. 

Of course, all that VC you’re grinding (or buying) isn’t just for upgrading your MyPLAYER build to 99 OVR and unlocking hundreds of cosmetic items in MyCAREER. You’ll also need VC to buy packs in MyTEAM, the card collecting Ultimate Team mode in NBA 2K25. With multiple limited use cards and the slow power creep of every season releasing packs featuring stronger players, it’s an eternal marathon of needing more VC to get better cards so you can get more VC to get even better cards. 

They’ve at least added a few new modes within MyTEAM and refined some aspects of MyCAREER like allowing you to preview more about each build before committing to it, but none of that overcomes the capitalist dystopia baked into both game modes. If you want to spend your time in one of the modes that isn’t pressuring you to spend money every five seconds, you’ll still get hit with multiple pop-ups pressuring you to spend more money when the game is launched. If you start navigating the menu quickly and tap to enter a game mode just before one of these pop-ups appears, you’ll suddenly be in the platform store and one accidental button press away from dropping another $20 on NBA 2K25. 

MyNBA Eras and the WNBA Quietly Steal the Show 

Despite a few flaws, MyNBA Eras is still one of the best franchise mode experiences in sports gaming today. Starting in the Magic vs Bird Era, Jordan Era, Kobe Era, LeBron Era, Steph Era, or Modern Era will each let you experience the roster, rules, and overall league landscape of that specific period in time. Starting in the Modern Era also allows you to fully customize league alignment, and any team can be replaced with your own creation or a downloaded custom team like the Team Rocket court and uniforms I love to use. 

One frustrating limitation is that starting in any other era won’t allow you to adjust league alignment, add teams, remove teams, or replace one with a custom team at save creation. You can use relocation to customize all the team branding as soon as the save is created, but an entire season needs to be simulated for league expansion or realignment. The sheer amount of decisions that need to be made and navigating the mode does have a learning curve, but Eras isn’t the only franchise experience. 

MyNBA Lite streamlines much of the mode, but you can only start in the Modern Era. The Playoffs allows you to set up a custom bracket with current NBA team rosters, all-time teams made up of the best that franchise has ever seen, or specific classic teams like the ‘64-’65 Lakers or ‘92-’93 Bulls. It’s a great way to get the excitement of a playoff run without having to deal with roster management, but you can’t use relocation or custom teams in that mode. 

MyGM builds a more RPG-style experience around franchise mode where it actually pulls your most recently created MyPLAYER model and name from MyCAREER to be the GM of whichever team you choose, which can be rebranded as a custom team once a save is created. Unfortunately this means that the only way to start a new MyGM save with a different name and appearance is to create a new MyPLAYER build for MyCAREER before making the new MyGM save. On top of all the regular MyNBA franchise management aspects, you’ll also walk around a simple MyGM building to have conversations with players, coaches, other staff, or the team owner that add an extra layer of immersion as you work on improving the skills of your MyGM. 

MyWNBA adapts the same system to deliver a solid WNBA franchise experience, but there aren’t any historic Eras and team customization has to be done manually as the 2K Share feature to upload and download custom teams isn’t available. The W is the hidden gem of NBA 2K25 just like last year, as it offers a complete career mode absent of microtransactions which can remain an offline single-player experience or include online 3v3 multiplayer games. The W feels like the mode 2K doesn’t care about because they don’t think it can be a cash cow, and that accidentally makes it a really fantastic experience properly focused on basketball with occasional press conference cutscenes.

NBA 2K25 Could’ve Been So Much Better Than This 

The dichotomy of NBA 2K25 is that the more fun I have playing it, the more frustrated I become with the game it could’ve been. Microtransactions aren’t leaving gaming any time soon, but there’s a real balance that has to be struck by developers and studios. MyTEAM is always going to have these issues, just like Ultimate Team in Madden 25 or Diamond Dynasty in MLB The Show 24, but the same isn’t true for MyCAREER. 

It’s entirely possible to build a career mode with microtransactions that’s still enjoyable, but to do that 2K Sports has to divorce VC from player ratings. Literally every other major sports game knows not to do this, but 2K refuses to let go of whatever extra income they see from that mechanic. College Football 25’s career mode is completely absent of microtransactions. Madden 25’s career mode has some, but they’re all cosmetic upgrades or aesthetic things like celebration animations. 

MLB The Show 24 has microtransactions, but they’re for equipment. While getting expensive equipment does give you a small ratings boost, the game is balanced in a way that it’s very easy to simply unlock that same gear through natural gameplay. If you look at FC 24, NHL 24, WWE 2K24, even TopSpin 2K25 or Tiebreak, none of these games attach microtransactions to increasing player ratings in career mode. 

On top of that, none of them use a gratuitously chaotic knock-off GTA city as a career mode hub. MyCAREER’s issues are only further highlighted when you get into other parts of the game. The W shows what a simplified career mode could actually be. Even MyGM’s small building with simple conversations could be used for MyCAREER. If you only moved between your MyCOURT, conversations with coaching staff, and playing games, it would go a long way towards giving NBA 2K25 a career mode that seems concerned with anything other than pumping every last dime out of its players.