NBA 2K is teasing its own college basketball game after EA announced it was working on its own. NBA 2K has largely shut out all of the other basketball video game competition. EA and 2K used to be in direct competition for years, but eventually EA threw in the virtual towel after multiple lackluster NBA Live games that failed to match the heights of the 2K games. Instead, EA focused its efforts on FIFA, Madden, and NHL. As a result, the NBA 2K games haven’t had a competitor that forces them to be better because fans have no other options for AAA basketball games. This has resulted in a lot of frustration from fans, but now, things are heating up.
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Following the huge success of EA’s re-emergence into college sports games, EA is teasing the return of another beloved franchise. Over a decade ago, college sports games ceased to exist because of issues involving things like player likenesses and compensation. However, things changed a few years back and players were able to start accepting NIL deals once again, prompting the massive return of EA Sports’ College Football video games. The second game in the new series will make its debut later this month, but EA won’t be stopping at football.
EA recently confirmed that it will be developing a college basketball game, though there’s no word on when that could happen. This really excited players as it means 2K finally has some kind of competition, even if it’s not an NBA game. It’s still a major basketball game from 2K’s rival publisher and will likely put some pressure on the studio. Following the announcement, a fan stated that 2K should be making a college basketball game which prompted the official NBA 2K Twitter account to state that the “campus has been quiet for too long.” Ronnie 2K followed it up with another tweet that simply said “Well then…”
It seems like NBA 2K is teasing that it wants to make its own college basketball. Whether this was in the cards before EA’s announcement is unclear. It’s possible that 2K wanted to do this after seeing the success of College Football. Now, there could be a sort of arms race to see who can get a college basketball game to market first. Of course, fans are looking for quality rather than the first one, but it’ll be interesting to see what happens. Either way, it’s good to see some competition back in the basketball genre and hopefully it leads to better games.