NBA 2K25 is just a few weeks away, and the team at Visual Concepts is kicking off a multi-week preview of the game today. This first of several unveilings looks at the most important part of the game: on-court play. For 2K25, the studio has committed more resources to expanding ProPlay, the game’s unique animation system that translates real-life NBA footage into animations in-game.
This starts with what the team calls “the biggest change to our gameplay engine in many years,” the all-new dribble engine. In all past versions of NBA 2K, dribbling the ball was pre-scripted and manually programmed using a library of mocapped animations. But starting with 2K25, that’s no longer the case.
Now dribbling is led by ProPlay and its ability to turn game tape into gameplay. The 2K team says “stops are higher, launches are more explosive,” and the feature brings more lifelike gameplay to the series across every inch of the court. Similar to Madden NFL 25’s Boom Tech, the new NBA 2K25 dribble engine seems like an idea that is hard to express but easy to understand once it’s in your hands.