One of the things that I can truly appreciate from 2K every year is that they leave no mode behind. No matter which one is the most popular or doing the best, they make an effort every year to improve everything from MyCareer and MyTeam to Blacktop and Play Now Online. Coming from LD2K himself, “We don’t like to leave any mode unturned. There’s so many people working on different modes and we try to give them all their fair share of TLC.” With that being said, let’s take a look at what’s new for each mode in NBA 2K17.
Play Now Online
PNO was a huge step up from just having normal ranked matches over and over. It gave some organization with team tiers and allowed us to work our way up through the rankings and be rewarded for using teams other than the Warriors and Cavs. This year, there will be new tiers and the ability to even customize your matchmaking preferences. So if you wanna only face people in your tier? All good. Wanna look specifically for people in higher tiers? You can do that too. You can even choose to look for people using a specific team. So if you wanna be the Robin Hood of 2K to search and destroy all the trolls using the Warriors online, you will be forever remembered. And yes, for the people asking, there are new leaderboards!
Blacktop
In my experience anyway, blacktop is the mode you jump into when a friend is over your house and they wanna talk trash like you won’t just kick them out. So instead, y’all pick up the sticks and go head-to-head, Kobe v. Lebron. Whoever wins gets the bragging rights. So to make that experience more entertaining, they’ve added an entire crowd and set the stage almost in a Rucker Park scene on a court outside of Harlem, NY. You can now play half-court or full-court and have the power to dictate every single win condition possible.
*flashes back to NBA Ballers*
Pro-Am
For the most part, Pro-Am is already a mode with leagues of potential. So instead of messing with the base recipe, they’re just trying to get better quality ingredients.
- You can now earn park rep through playing Pro-Am
- There are now 10 roster spots on a team and the owner does not HAVE to be there for new additions
- Your team can now shoot around together on one court before games
- Scouting is now available and you can look at a stat breakdown of your matchups
- 3 team tiers (Amateur, Pro and Elite) with Elite tier teams having the most features available to them. More VC, sponsors, court/arena customization, and the ability to import pictures
- Finally, we were given the honor of being able to be the first to announce their All-Star Game Pro-Am tourney where Elite ranked teams will face off for a 250K prize and tickets to the 2016-2017 NBA All-Star Game.
MyLeague/MyGM
Eric Boesnisch took a minute, before walking us through the shiny new features of these two modes, to let us know that the main things that were kept in mind during development of MyGM/MyLeague were innovation, authenticity and engagement. Recreating the realism that is building, running and maintaining a team(s). This, outside of MyCareer, was their longest mode presentation. There were so many new improvements that it would probably take near a full 5 page research paper format to describe it all, so instead, here’s the rundown:
- You can now choose to start either in the playoffs or that exact day of the calendar year with updated injuries, trades, ect.
- The ability to start in the offseason prior to this season. So if you wanted to go back and try to land D-Wade on the Knicks before the season started, you could! #KnicksTape
- Every season, just like in this offseason with Free Throws, new rules will be considered to shake things up in your league. For example, one incredibly hilarious rule that we were shown was called “Sudden Death.” Basically, whenever a game would go into OT, the first team to score would win (trolly, right?). However, we were assured that any rules we weren’t fond of could be rejected for the future.
- Advanced rotations have been introduced to allow you to control who is playing, how much, and who you prefer them to be on the court with.
- Pick swaps and pick protections have (finally) been introduced to add some more realism to the league and stop the people (like me) who would cheat the 76ers out of their picks every year before the season started.
- Finally, League Expansion. The option of stretching your online league to 36 teams and the ability to design any team of your own; whether it be a historic Supersonics squad or the Flint Michigan Tropics. Team templates by 2K will already be set in place but, as always, they give the community the power and freedom to create whatever and whoever they want. That should definitely eat up some time.
The above mentioned modes, in all honesty, are ones that I maybe play a couple times throughout the entire year of 2K. But with these new features, I feel like I’ve been given more incentive to try them out because just like 2K has done with the actual gameplay, all the modes now try to mirror real life. A MyTeam breakdown will be a full video due to the non-exaggerated length and information that was provided; you’ll find that on my main YouTube channel. As far as MyCareer goes, we’re technically not allowed to speak on that until a future date but all I can say in regards to how it’s looking? It’s lit fam. *Drops mic*
Any specific questions you may have, be sure to hit me up on Twitter: @TheSurrealAndre and I’ll answer them to the best of my ability! Be sure to subscribe to Sports Gamers Online for all of your NBA 2K17 needs!