NBA 2K27 Review

It seems that booting up a new annual sports game is no longer about hitting start and getting straight out onto the floor. Within thirty seconds of loading NBA 2K27 on PS5, you run into administrative busywork instead of the squeak of sneakers or the roar of the crowd: the 2K Account setup.

I get why publisher accounts exist. Cross-progression, cloud saves, online matchmaking — fair enough. The way it’s handled here, though, is rubbish. When putting in my details, the game insisted on a manual double-entry confirmation of my email address with the DualSense on-screen keyboard. Tapping out long strings of characters with an analogue stick is tedious at the best of times; having to do it twice back-to-back — when console-level account linking has been the norm for a decade — is just annoying. Worse, after spending five minutes wrestling with the virtual keys, I realised the whole thing was skippable anyway. A minor annoyance, but as first impressions go, an unfortunate one.

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Past the digital bouncer, the game drops you into a tutorial match — which you can back out of — before shoving you headfirst into the modern MyCAREER setup. Here, you build your player from scratch: picking a position, tweaking attributes, choosing archetype badges, and obsessing over wingspan while comparing your rookie to actual NBA legends the whole time. First time around, you're playing through the story mode. Before you can test your creation on a court, you're stuck in a ten-minute cutscene with your agent and entourage. It’s complete overkill. Stripping away control before you've even decided if you want to play the story mode is exhausting, and it feels less like a sports sim than an interactive soap opera you never asked for. Fortunately you can skip chunks of this mode, and on a second career you don't have to do it at all. 

Looking through the broader game modes, you can explore the modern career grind in The City, take on structured challenges on indoor courts, or step outside the linear story entirely to play through historical eras. Feeling a pull of 90s nostalgia, I jumped over to the classic Jordan Era with a custom player build. It’s one of several eras available — alongside the Kobe, LeBron, and Steph eras, plus the Magic vs. Bird years and the modern league — all with period-accurate court logos, retro rosters, and vintage presentation filters. Teaming up with Michael Jordan on the 90s Chicago Bulls sounded great on paper.

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On the court, the retro match was visually jarring. From the default broadcast camera, the action looked murky and washed out. You can adjust the camera angles to find something comfortable, but the players, the court, and the crowd had a weird, blurry softness to them. It turns out this isn't an engine failure, but rather 2K's deliberate attempt to simulate an authentic 90s CRT television broadcast. The intention is admirable, but the execution feels heavy-handed: the artificial scanlines, chromatic aberration, and softness smear away asset detail to the point where the arena looks like a late PS3 title at best rather than a showcase for current-gen hardware.

The contrast becomes obvious the moment you step off that retro floor. Backing out of the Jordan Era and loading into the practice gym immediately removes the vintage post-processing, and the visuals snap into focus: sharp textures, clean skin shaders, and crisp lighting. You can manually toggle the retro broadcast filters off in the presentation settings to restore current-gen clarity, but leaving them on by default makes the historical modes feel needlessly low-res. 

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Look past the visual filters, and the depth of the gameplay engine hits you right away. There is a crazy amount of detail in how the game handles. This isn't an arcade game where you tap one button to pass and hold another to shoot; the controls are dense and demanding. You have fine control over directional passes, bounce passes, fakes, layup packages, rim protection, steals, blocks, and an intricate Pro Stick dribbling system that lets you mimic almost any move an NBA star pulls off on live TV.

If you live and breathe digital basketball, that depth is brilliant. But for a newcomer — or anyone who just wants to shoot some casual hoops — it’s a massive wall. If you don’t already have the stick timing and inputs down, you're stuck relying on Learn 2K, the training hub. Here you can spend hours running drills, minigames, and video tutorials – just to get your head around the basics.

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Even if you know the sport, the game’s underlying evaluation logic can be infuriating. In that first match with the Bulls, playing as my 60-rated rookie alongside Jordan’s 98-rated self, I actually outscored MJ. My reward was a flat 'F' Teammate Grade. That grading system doesn't care about your raw box-score numbers; it strictly judges your tactical execution, floor spacing, and defensive rotations. Putting points on the board counts for very little if you take an ill-advised shot or blow your defensive assignments. There is something deeply frustrating about winning a game off your own scoring only to be handed a failing grade because you didn't play according to the simulation's strict tactical script. I get that it’s teaching you to be the best basketball player, not the best shooter, but still.

Back in the main menus, the sheer amount of stuff to do is wild. Alongside MyCAREER and the Eras, there’s the WNBA mode (The W), deep franchise management in MyNBA, online leagues, and the card-collecting machine that is MyTEAM. Much like Ultimate Team in EA Sports FC, MyTEAM is all about opening packs, working the auction house, and putting together fantasy rosters for single-player and online tournaments. If you like opening packs, chasing card tiers, and grinding seasonal battle passes for cosmetic gear and player cards, there’s enough here to swallow an entire year of your time. Of course, microtransactions are present, and they’re probably necessary if you want to get the most out of MyTEAM. 

All that scale shows the identity problem at the centre of NBA 2K27. Visual Concepts has built a basketball encyclopaedia — a technical powerhouse that has been a fixture of the virtual court for over two decades. But by chasing granular realism, the series has locked out anyone who isn't already committed. With football, or an old arcade basketball game, anyone can pick up a controller, pass, shoot, and have fun right away. In NBA 2K27, trying to play basic basketball without mastering stick angles, release timings, and defensive triggers just leads to turnovers, missed shots, and an angry letter grade. The recent NBA The Run was more immediate and fun from the get-go, despite its limitations.

If you're a hardcore fan who wants every strategic nuance, vintage roster, and dribble package available, it’s all here. But if you're a beginner who just wants an easy, pickup-and-play game of basketball, this unforgiving, microtransaction-heavy beast gives you very little reason to jump in.