The latest game in the NBA 2K series is here, and after putting many hours into it during the early access period, I can say that fans of the series have a lot to like about what the team has come forth with in NBA 2K26. Like any annual sports game, it’s all about what can be done to maintain what works in the prior edition and fix what doesn’t, and on the balance, there’s more good news than bad.
NBA 2K26 Review
What I Like
As one of the more well-respected annual sports games in the business, any new edition comes with a high floor of expectations from fans. Fortunately, 2K26 generally meets these minimum requirements while offering some fun areas where it exceeds baseline demands to create a fun and varied gaming experience:
Premier Game Play
One of the biggest areas of criticism for last year’s 2K is that the game’s engine had turned controlling your players into a disaster. Gamers felt that its controls were slow to respond, while the overall movement of the players was sluggish. If a good sports game lets you feel what it’s like to be a real elite athlete, 2K25 lets you feel what it’s like to suddenly be in the body of an elite athlete and realize you don’t know how to make it do elite athlete things at all without their brain, too.
To that end, a lot of focus in 2K26 has been on improving the feel of games, and it has largely been a success. Movement around the court is much more effortless, and the increased range of animations and player archetypes to attach to your different shots, as well as new types of shots to customize, means a more realistic feel that is wonderful to play with.
The W
As someone who covers women’s sports in his free time, the recent boom of women’s sports and the resulting increased presence in major sports games have been wonderful, and 2K deserves full marks for the work done to integrate the WNBA. Offline, the ability to carry out a franchise mode with all the depth and nuance of the NBA version is a welcome treat. Being able to hop in and get in control of Paige Bueckers’ career just as easily as Cooper Flagg’s is a simple but welcome opportunity.
It’s also excellent the way the W is incorporated into online modes, with WNBA players not just available in MyTEAM building, but an integral part of it. From a gameplay perspective simply translating players’ attributes over directly is the only way to pull off integration, but that doesn’t change that the decision to do so comes with the knowledge it will lead to outrage from players who would never ask about the same scaling for players being ported over from decades in the past when athletic levels were also below the modern NBA par, and I appreciate them doing so anyways.
Modes On Modes On Modes
If you enjoy basketball and video games, there is probably going to be a way for you to enjoy NBA 2K26, and that’s because it is just positively brimming with game modes. Franchise is there for players looking for a long haul campaign, while a quick playoff mode allows for an abbreviated title chase.
Online play is overflowing with different ways to hit the court, be it with your MyPLAYER, who can also play out his career in Out Of Bounds, or with your collection of real-world stars in MyTEAM. This includes not just the type of ball, from full court to half, five-a-sides to one-on-one, but the rules around the game you’re playing. No matter what you’re trying to do when you log on to play 2K, you’re likely just a few menus away from being able to do so.
MyNBA Eras Remains Elite
Anytime a gamer who prefers baseball, hockey, or football to basketball plays Franchise mode, there has to be a part of them that’s jealous of the unique options available to 2K players. While extending rosters through decades and decades would likely be unfeasible in any of those sports with their significantly larger roster sizes, that doesn’t take anything away from how cool it is to be able to start up a new franchise whenever you want to do so.
The ability to begin at different eras in NBA history is amazing, whether your plan is to carry out seasons and seasons, decades and decades of your own alternate history, or simply want to jump in and play a one-off season in the past. This is the gold standard of offline franchise modes, and nothing about NBA 2K26 changes that.
What I Don’t Like
My overall impressions of NBA 2K26 are positive, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything I’d love to have seen improved, if not for this year’s edition then for 2K27.
Onboarding Remains A Challenge
The move from sports games where you booted up and played a one-off or a season is long since in the past, so for seasoned sports gamers, it’s nothing new to log onto a game and find that you are being bombarded with information and game modes. When reviewing a game, however, I always like to put myself in the shoes of somebody trying out a game in a series for the first time, or for the first time in a long time, and this is an area where 2K26 comes up a bit short.
To be fair to the developers, it’s clear that a lot of effort is put into creating roadmaps to try to guide players through their first experiences within the game, but it still feels like such an overwhelming amount of information to try to keep track of that a new player who isn’t used to it could easily find themselves lost at sea. The game recommends starting with Out of Bounds, but the mode is only accessed through a separate mode on the main menu, for example.
I included how much there is to do in 2K as a bonus, and for the majority of people hanging around a sports video gaming website, that will remain true, as this is likely not your first rodeo. If you’re not well-versed in sports gaming over the last decade, however, you need to be prepared for the fact that you’re going to be hit with a lot of information about a lot of things before you’ve even set foot on the hardcourt. From the jump, the game will hit you with menus, explanations, and systems that might feel overwhelming. And if you start clicking around too quickly, you’ll likely find yourself dropped into tutorials or forced to make decisions you didn’t expect.
Even in areas where the game funnels players toward good intro modes, that does not come with a push toward tutorials, which can leave a new player unsure of what they’re doing, let alone unprepared to get the most out of the more complex systems in place that maximize your players’ performance.
Online Remains King
I’m not allergic to online play in my sports games. I’ll happily play around a bit in a moneyless approach to MyTEAM modes, and the various hooping options in The City make 2K as approachable and diverse an online experience as you can hope for. Still, as someone who has been playing sports video games since before they were 3D, I can’t help but hate how each new title seems to push offline solo play further into the background.
This is not to say that you can’t have a great time playing solo offline games. My time playing around with eras — and seeing how much more I can do with the Dallas Wings than they’ve managed in the real world — has been fun. It’s just also very clear when the game is in your hand that the offline player is not the primary audience. This is, of course, a simple and practical decision, as online economies drive the majority of income for any annual sports game, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating.
Bottom Line
Reviewing annual sports games is a very different experience from reviews on general video games, as what the average reader is likely looking to know — as well as the likelihood that the effectiveness of the game’s execution will actually impact whether you buy or not — is quite unique. A good sports game is likely still mostly similar to the edition that came before it, and a lazy roster update-adjacent one will still hold appeal to fans of the series for that roster update and the ability to participate in the year-long events online, regardless.
The good news for 2K fans is that, within that paradigm, NBA 2K26 does a pretty solid job of being the former more often that it feels like the latter. Gamers frustrated with in-game handles will appreciate the new feel enough to justify the transition to the new edition on that alone. Coupled with the various fun modes available to ensure that the online experience doesn’t quickly become a stale experience of grinding out daily, weekly, and seasonal goals, it all balances out to a strong, if not perfect, addition to the sports gaming canon.
