Alright, who here had “NBA 2K21 decides to go MMO” on their 2020 bingo cards? Anyone? Anyone? Yeah, me neither, but here we are with a full-on MMO-like gameplay mode for a basketball game.
This new mode is called The City, and it’s essentially an extension of the series’ Neighborhoods mode blown up to larger scale. The City will be made up of four boroughs, each with its own rival Affiliations, along with promise of “towering skyscrapers, sprawling plazas, and a city center.”
The mode basically operates in a very MMO-like way, complete with custom characters that can freely explore the City on foot, bike, or skateboard, a starting area known as Rookieville, garage hoops where players can duel in 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, or Horse games, and even NPCs around the City that grant quests and objectives. The competition among the four Affiliations is the heart of the City’s gameplay, with a Rival Day Conquest every two weeks to let members of an Affiliation command rival courts, culminating in a final Rival Day Championship to determine which Affiliation is tops in the City and gets a nice beefy reward.
Each Affiliation will also have its own player mayor who will be responsible for things like music playlists, court and mural design, and uniform selection. Mayors are elected every six weeks, while the game’s launch will have “some of the biggest names from the NBA 2K community” as borough mayors initially.
The City will also have a hi-tech event center where events and special intra-Affiliation competitions will take place, a training center where players can beef up their avatar’s stats and skills or rent courts to play games with friends, two special courts — one 4v4 and the other 5v5, apparel stores, the Pink Diamond Plaza that hosts the entirety of the MyTEAM Triple Threat Online experience, and a mechanic where 10 wins on Affiliation courts sets the ball on fire.
NBA 2K21 and its wholesale b-ballin’ MMO-ish mode will arrive to Xbox Series X and S on November 10th and PS5 on November 12th. A sizzle reel of the City can be watched below. Seriously, marvel at it. But don’t sweat the technique.
