Ronnie 2K breaks down revamped and redefined NBA 2K25

The release of NBA 2K25 is almost here. This year’s edition of the franchise’s video game has been taken to a whole other level, and there aren’t many people closer to it than Ronnie 2K himself.

Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum was named the cover athlete for NBA 2K25, as were Las Vegas Aces star A’ja Wilson, and future NBA Hall-of-Famer Vince Carter.

In getting to test the game for a few hours (shoutout to the team at NBA 2K!), it’s easy to see that it’s been redefined, from the gameplay down to the graphics. Dribbling and shooting mechanics have been completely transformed, while animations from the revamped ProPLAY have made this game incredibly authentic.

NBA 2K added a whopping 9,000 new ProPLAY animations, which took real world NBA footage and implemented into the video game, making it as realistic as it’s ever been. Among those 9,000 animations are 1,500 dribbling animations, 1,100 signature shot animations, and over 1,300 new off-the-ball animations.

Simply put, this game is in a league of its own.

Ronnie 2K spoke with ClutchPoints in an exclusive interview about the all-new NBA 2K25, set to officially release on September 6th. We spoke about some of the biggest changes to this year’s edition of the game, including gameplay, animations, cover athletes, and how the franchise has opened its doors to even more players than ever before.

Ronnie 2K NBA 2K25 interview
Tomer Azarly: You’ve been a busy man of late. How is everything going with you and NBA 2K25 here?

Ronnie 2K: Yeah, I’m great. I have been busy. I got back from St. Louis, we opened up a court with our cover star, Jayson Tatum, a couple days ago. It was super dope. So yeah, this is always a day we’re always excited for this day because we hold the content so closely to the heart because our Development Team is so proud of it and then we get to this day and get to show it to hundreds of the people that have earned it over the years. It’s awesome. It’s always great.

TA: There are a lot of changes to this game, but Where do you start with this game when you step back and look at it? What’s the biggest thing that you’re looking forward to in this game?

Ronnie 2K: I think it always starts with gameplay. A lot of the feedback that we’ve gotten from the videos, really the gameplay videos over the sizzle videos is like the motion with dribbling. It’s totally different. A lot of it comes from us being in the second year of ProPLAY and being able to have a lot more signature data. We added 9,000 animations, 1,000 each to dribbling and shooting.

Take Jamal Murray, for example, right? Like his shot has been fixed. He’s never come in for motion capture, so it was hard to get. It was an actor doing his shot. But with ProPLAY, we’re able to get it. In his case, he had the torn ACL and then COVID and then it was like one thing after another where we had never gotten any data. It was not his fault, not our fault. But then to have a full season of his data is a big reason why that’s changed. So I just think that year two leap in ProPLAY is huge.

The thing that I’m most excited about with gameplay that isn’t getting talked about enough is the risk reward option on shooting. The fact is that we have amazing competitive players, we have people that are really good at the game, but then we have this new generation that wants to play 2K. How do you like kind of deal with that divide? This is, I think, a great solution for that. Like if you’re really good at the game, you put on the high risk, high reward setting.

Ronnie 2K: It changes stuff with the green meter. It also like gives you a little bit more forgiveness with where your shot release is. It’s like a variety of things. But ultimately, the payoff is if you’re really good and you can really get a lot of greens naturally, use the ‘high risk, high reward’ option, you’ll get rewarded. But if you need to work on a shot timer or you’re not as familiar with a shot timer because you’re playing ‘Play Now’ or what have you, then that’s the difference.

TA: So I want to touch on the new Learn 2K option. From an accessibility standpoint, it seems like it just gives everyone the ability to learn to play the game at their pace.

Ronnie 2K: “Yeah, like I said with the whole risk-reward thing, right? We need to balance our audience in terms of the people that love our game, play it for hours on end, and then the new consumer and making sure it’s an enjoyable experience for both. I think Learn 2K is our biggest advancement in that because, yeah, you can go in and become as advanced as you want to be and get really good with things that are maybe more challenging to really be an expert at. And it’s on purpose. Like, we want to reward you for being really good at our game and being a competitive player. So Learn 2K is the road to be able to do that

Ronnie 2K: I think it’s like the ability to play with NBA players in kind of like a park environment, I think that’s something our community has wanted for a while. NBA players can get onto MyTeam courts and you can play MyTeam cards, 3-on-3, in what was the old traditional courts, right? So like, Rivet City, you saw that yesterday. It’s really awesome. It’s something that people have asked for. I have such good, fun feelings for like All-Star Team-Up. It’s similar to that, it’s gonna, yeah. So it’s something that other communities wanted, but like, wanted it in a different way and we give it to them in a way that like, maybe they didn’t even see coming, but that they’re really gonna love.