Today we'll be talking about gameplay, which is powered by ProPlay.

I'm Alexis Morgan, and joining me today is gameplay director for NBA 2K25, Mike Wang.

Mike, what's going on?

It's great to be here, Alexis.

So ProPlay is an exciting new technology that we introduced last year, and it allows us to take real NBA footage and translate that directly to the on-court gameplay.

So it brings a whole new level of realism and authenticity to the gameplay experience.

So what can you tell us about the new Dribbble engine in NBA 2K25?

This is one of the most amazing upgrades that we've had to our engine, probably in 15 years.

So this is a new Dribbble engine built from the ground up that takes basically all these ProPlay animations that we have, over 1,500 animations, and it dynamically creates all the movement and all the transitions that you need to make the Dribbble move exactly the way you want it to move.

With that 9,000 new ProPlay animations to the game this year, a lot of them are shots, signature shots.

So nearly every player in the league now has a signature shot.

One of the cool things that we added was this feature called signature go-to shots.

So if you remember in 2K24, you could flick the right stick up, and you could do a little size-up sequence to get open, right?

In 2K25, if you hold the right stick up, you can do a size-up sequence that branches directly into your jump shot.

So it's a nice way to get open and get some shots off.

Let's say a player wants to recreate moves from their favorite NBA superstar.

How does ProStick Rhythm Shooting do that?

Yeah, so ProStick Rhythm Shooting is probably one of my favorite features of the game, because it's just a new way to play, a new way to shoot.

So in the past, it's always been the same, right?

You hold a button down, release it to get your shot off.

With ProStick Rhythm Shooting, what you want to do is you want to try to match the rhythm of the player's shot.

So you pull the right stick down, and when he gets to his set point, you push the right stick up in rhythm with how he shoots in real life.

So if you master Rhythm Shooting, you can actually be much better than someone who used the traditional regular button shooting.

If you just want to play casually, you're just picking up the game for the first time, put it on low, put it on real player percentage, and just try to take good shots.

And as you get better at the game and kind of master your timing, bump it up to high, and you're going to see that you're going to perform way better than you did with the other profiles.

There's a new shot canceling feature.

So what it allows you to do is to break out of any advanced shot, and just like the go-to shots we talked about, the signature go-to shots, you can break out at any time.

So if you start one, you're holding the stick up, and then you see the defense collapse, or you see an opening, you can flick the right stick to do another move to chain out of it, or you can just throw the left stick and take a lay in the basket.

It's a way more robust hesitation feature.

Mike, you know the saying, offense wins games, but defense wins championships.

So what does this mean in NBA 2K25?

You know defense is a huge part of the game.

It's something that people don't always look at as being the coolest part of the game, but it's the most important part, I think, to win games.

So there's a number of new defensive mechanics and upgrades to this year's system.

One of my favorites is what we're calling the defensive movement system.

So if you're holding down the intense D trigger, you can slide left and right laterally, or forward and back even, and you can cut off the ball handler.

And if you can anticipate well and you do it at the right time, you can cause them to lose their dribble or pick up their dribble.

You know, if you're the on-ball, locked-down defender kind of guy, then that's the thing you want to master.

How can players level up and get that win in NBA 2K25?

Well, 2K25 this year is all about personalization and customization and accessibility.

So whether you want to take on some of the new stuff we talked about, the advanced rhythm shooting mechanic, or if you're less familiar with 2K, there's a new feature called Learn 2K off the main menu, where you can jump in and whether you're a novice at the game or have been playing for years, there's something for you to learn.

There's a basic tutorial, advanced tutorials, controller mappings, there's mini-games and drills and all kinds of just different ways to practice, learn plays, everything.

So if you want to learn the game and get better at 2K, it's the first place you should go.

Thank you so much, Mike, for joining us today and talking through all of the new 2K25 gameplay features.

I'm so excited to see how pro play is evolving.

Well, thanks so much for having me, Alexis.

And I want to give a big shout out and thank you to the 2K community.

It's your feedback that helps us shape the game to be what it is today.