I think 2K21 strikes a great balance between rewarding taking proper driving angles and respecting contact. To that end, it meant less canned interactions and doing a better job of respecting user control. Our goal with body ups was to highlight the improvements that we were able to make to both dribbling and defensive movement. It’s always a tricky balance trying to accurately model the cat & mouse game between the offense and the defense. That’s our internal name for all of the interactions between the ball handler and defender.
This includes a lot of new animation content to support signature motion styles. Bigs move like bigs, and guards move like guards.
#We were here together gameplay pro#
And because it’s built using the same engine as the Pro Stick dribble move system, movement and moves work cohesively together. No unwanted turns or having your player face the wrong way. It’s much easier to go exactly where you want on the floor, and in the manner that you’d expect to get there. The aspect of dribble movement that excites me the most is the predictability and consistency of it. Additionally, protect and post movement saw massive upgrades. We retained the concept of signature dribble styles that we introduced a couple years ago, but otherwise, everything was scrapped and re-architected bringing a completely different feel with the ball in your hands for next-gen. The dribbler was rebuilt from the ground up for next-gen and the difference is night and day. We put a lot of resources toward improving locomotion with and without the ball, and I’m excited how far it’s come to kick off year one of the next generation of 2K hoops. When that foundation isn’t solid, a lot of aspects of the game fall apart. Movement is the foundation for a solid basketball game.
If I had to pick one aspect of gameplay that’s probably benefited the most from the jump to next-gen, the answer would probably have to be on-court locomotion. Every new generation gives us the opportunity to step back and reimagine how we can push the sports gaming genre forward. There’s nothing more exciting for a developer than the arrival of new consoles. In this post, we’re going to dive into some of the tech that we were able to create to make NBA 2K21 on the PS5 truly feel like a next-generation experience.
Welcome to a special NBA 2K21 post on next-gen gameplay! We at Visual Concepts are hard at work in creating an unmatched next-gen game in NBA 2K21 on PS5 but also want to take an opportunity to talk about some of our gameplay enhancements in the weeks leading up our November launch.