Summary
It’s that time of the year again, when all the annualized sports franchises release their latest game. Next week, Madden 25 will be released, then in early September NBA 2K25 will come out. After that, EA Sports FC 25 will round out that month. EA’s annual NHL title is expected to release around that timeframe, too.
And while thousands of gamers are gearing up to play as their favorite teams and athletes in their game of choice, NBA 2K25 fans have a major concern. They believe that the upcoming 2K25,which sees the Boston Celtics' Jayson Tatum as its cover athlete,is a visual downgrade compared to – get this – NBA 2K21. That game in particular was released in 2020, which, in the grand scheme of sports video games, might as well be decades ago.
After a bit of research, it turns out they may have a point.
Can We Go Back To The Good ‘Ol Days?
Taking to Reddit,a passionate fan took the time to show just how 2K25 looks compared to 2K21. The end result is that 2K21 had better lighting, while 2K25 looks extremely washed out in the available gameplay screenshots. They even went as far as to create a nifty slider to showcase their findings. Check it outhere.
It’s important to note that this isn’t the first time that the graphics in an NBA 2K game have been the subject of controversy among the community. That’s because, for a long time,gamers held the opinion that 2K14 had superior graphics and that subsequent entries were downgraded.
For what it’s worth,2K14 was a launch title for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles, and it represented a massive leap in graphical fidelity. The same can be said of 2K21,which was also a launch title for the PS5 and Xbox Series generation. In other words, there’s a chance that the original base launch titles had an added boost of lighting and touch-ups ahead of their release before normalizing.
Perhaps the final product will look a lot better than the rendered screenshots, but it certainly is a concern that has popped up before. Regardless of how you feel about sports games, there is a legitimate concern at hand. One that is impacting passionate players who are shelling out the same amount of money as any other gamer for a day-one release.
