The Park experience quickly grew into The Neighborhood as the NBA 2K community itself flourished, and it’s been our most popular feature over the years. Over the past seven years, it has evolved and expanded with features that enriched the online experience at every stop. Just like walking onto an outdoor court to run a half-court game or waiting for 5s at your local rec center, the Park was our version of playing pick-up basketball and taking part in its unique, competitive vibe. This meant allowing NBA 2K players to take their custom MyPLAYERs and bring them into a whole new place where you can compete with friends and complete strangers. When we made NBA 2K14 for what was then the new, next-gen gaming consoles, we introduced “The Park.” The vision was to create a competitive online basketball environment that allowed our quickly growing community of NBA 2K fans to compete against each other outside of the authentic NBA experience. And now, as you’ve undoubtedly already seen from the trailer, the team here at Visual Concepts is incredibly proud to present…The City! The graphics…we’ve all seen the graphics! We’ve also introduced all-new WNBA experiences - The W, The W Online, and MyWNBA - that bring long-awaited gameplay modes to the women’s game in NBA 2K.
So far in these Courtside Reports, we’ve talked about next-gen gameplay and all the innovations we’re bringing to player animation, collision, AI behavior, and so much more. My endless thanks goes out to the entire team at Visual Concepts! To be in this position to kick off a whole new generation of NBA 2K games, alongside the next-gen console launches, speaks to the team’s unassailable hard work and dedication to make NBA 2K21 the best experience possible. I can’t believe it is basically already here! As I noted in the last Courtside Report I wrote, it has been an incredibly unique year for all of us here at VC, as it has been for many of our friends in the entire video games industry. We’re roughly a week out from the release of NBA 2K21 for the next-gen PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S platforms.
A special hello to everyone in the 2K community! Erick Boenisch, Executive Producer at Visual Concepts, back again.