Will NBA 2K23 get a new game engine?

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Will NBA 2K23 get a new game engine?

Postby sonsongodjesusloverjr on Tue Mar 22, 2022 2:40 pm

I have been wanting to know if 2k will finally get a new engine to change the graphics, and gameplay, and foot planting, because 2k has looked the same since 2k18, and the gameplay has tweaked but still has the same feel as 2k18 or 19, so will they finally do it?
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Re: Will NBA 2K23 get a new game engine?

Postby Andrew on Tue Mar 22, 2022 6:54 pm

For Current Gen, most assuredly not. It remains to be seen how long PlayStation 4 and Xbox One will receive new releases, but they won't be a priority or bastion of innovation. As for the PC version, it depends whether it remains a PS4/X1 port, or starts receiving the PlayStation 5/Xbox Series X version.

To that end, NBA 2K21 Next Gen was promoted as being "built from the ground up", which in theory is promising news for that generation (and a PC port of it, if it's in the cards). In practice, NBA 2K21 and NBA 2K22 Next Gen don't feel very different, or necessarily better, and there are plenty of legacy issues that go back to at least the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 generation.

The main issue here is that even with new tech, if a game is designed in a similar way to its predecessors, it's going to have familiar benefits and drawbacks alike. It's why a new engine and other technological overhauls aren't always the answer. They certainly can be beneficial and it's worth exploring those options, but design choices and recycling of existing assets can stunt growth and affect quality.

Take NBA Live, for example. For years, a lot of people felt that all it needed was the right engine to get back on track. That's important, but there have been times over the past decade that NBA Live has used engines it has shared with a variety of other EA Sports titles which both looked and played better. The IGNITE engine was clearly adaptable and had some good tech, but NBA Live wasn't able to utilise it as well. In that sense, tech is only as good as the producers and engineers that are working with it.

Now, NBA 2K is obviously in better shape, but it's the same situation. If they want to design the games a certain way, those design philosophies will be in place regardless of engine. They might work a little better with different tech, but if they're undesirable approaches, it won't matter overmuch. Think of it this way: a film can have a tremendous budget and great, popular actors at its disposal, but if the script is bad or mediocre at best, all the CGI, special effects, and impressive sets won't make it much better.

Of course, it does help to have that budget and those other benefits, and likewise, a new engine may be in order. I guess the TL:DR here is that it's possible, though I'm guessing they won't be overhauling anything this soon after purportedly rebuilding the game with NBA 2K21 Next Gen. If they do, it'll very likely only be on PS5/XSX and not PS4/X1. The PC version will obviously depend on which console generation they're porting from this year and beyond.
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Re: Will NBA 2K23 get a new game engine?

Postby sonsongodjesusloverjr on Wed Mar 23, 2022 1:02 am

Andrew wrote:For Current Gen, most assuredly not. It remains to be seen how long PlayStation 4 and Xbox One will receive new releases, but they won't be a priority or bastion of innovation. As for the PC version, it depends whether it remains a PS4/X1 port, or starts receiving the PlayStation 5/Xbox Series X version.

To that end, NBA 2K21 Next Gen was promoted as being "built from the ground up", which in theory is promising news for that generation (and a PC port of it, if it's in the cards). In practice, NBA 2K21 and NBA 2K22 Next Gen don't feel very different, or necessarily better, and there are plenty of legacy issues that go back to at least the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 generation.

The main issue here is that even with new tech, if a game is designed in a similar way to its predecessors, it's going to have familiar benefits and drawbacks alike. It's why a new engine and other technological overhauls aren't always the answer. They certainly can be beneficial and it's worth exploring those options, but design choices and recycling of existing assets can stunt growth and affect quality.

Take NBA Live, for example. For years, a lot of people felt that all it needed was the right engine to get back on track. That's important, but there have been times over the past decade that NBA Live has used engines it has shared with a variety of other EA Sports titles which both looked and played better. The IGNITE engine was clearly adaptable and had some good tech, but NBA Live wasn't able to utilise it as well. In that sense, tech is only as good as the producers and engineers that are working with it.

Now, NBA 2K is obviously in better shape, but it's the same situation. If they want to design the games a certain way, those design philosophies will be in place regardless of engine. They might work a little better with different tech, but if they're undesirable approaches, it won't matter overmuch. Think of it this way: a film can have a tremendous budget and great, popular actors at its disposal, but if the script is bad or mediocre at best, all the CGI, special effects, and impressive sets won't make it much better.

Of course, it does help to have that budget and those other benefits, and likewise, a new engine may be in order. I guess the TL:DR here is that it's possible, though I'm guessing they won't be overhauling anything this soon after purportedly rebuilding the game with NBA 2K21 Next Gen. If they do, it'll very likely only be on PS5/XSX and not PS4/X1. The PC version will obviously depend on which console generation they're porting from this year and beyond.
Wow! what a thorough response, I have gained a lot of knowledge understanding engines now, yeah it makes sense that it takes way more than changing an engine to fix the game, and that it will look all similar to 2k18-22, I assume it will be the same thing for 2k23, well hopefully they at least change something significant.
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Re: Will NBA 2K23 get a new game engine?

Postby vetmin on Wed Mar 30, 2022 9:53 pm

Andrew wrote:To that end, NBA 2K21 Next Gen was promoted as being "built from the ground up", which in theory is promising news for that generation (and a PC port of it, if it's in the cards). In practice, NBA 2K21 and NBA 2K22 Next Gen don't feel very different, or necessarily better, and there are plenty of legacy issues that go back to at least the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 generation.


It'll never cease to amaze me how much of a bald-faced lie that "built from the ground up" stuff turned out to be. I honestly wonder if they might've had a more ambitious vision for next-gen (for which "built from the ground up" would've been an accurate description) that ended up being scuttled due to pandemic-related challenges during development, and unlike other games that could just postpone, 2K had to adjust their ambitions due to having to stay in sync with the real-life NBA season. That's my 'giving-them-the-benefit-of-the-doubt' conspiracy theory, and even then, you can't just forge ahead still with "built from the ground up" as the backbone of your whole marketing strategy if it's no longer even in the ballpark of being true.

What surprised me is not that it was falsely advertised -- any of us who have worked in marketing / advertising have come across the types of people who only care about what sounds the sexiest right now, regardless of whether it's true or realistic -- but what was surprising is that they went out of their way to promise solutions to long-lamented problems in NBA 2K games when in reality they weren't going to be addressing those problems at all. It'd be like if a new Cap'n Crunch Berries cereal were coming out, and a whole big marketing campaign came out about how "It's the Cap'n Crunch you know and love... BUT WITHOUT SCRATCHING UP THE ROOF OF YOUR MOUTH!!!", and they lean into that angle for like a year, then it comes out and it's literally the identical Cap'n Crunch Berries but with one new color of berry. Like, why would you even market it that way if it's going to be so blatantly untrue when it comes out? Why not just market "exciting new flavors" or something?

For 2K, it would've been as simple as saying something like: "You say you want a revolution? Well last time NBA 2K jumped to a new gen, that's what you got. Powered by the PS4 and XB1, NBA 2K became the premier choice for virtual hoops, while also becoming a global phenomenon even beyond hardcore sports gamers. Now, with 2K21 on next-gen, the 2K basketball gaming experience that propelled the series' success is back and better than ever, with lightning-quick load times, unparalleled smoothness and graphical fidelity, and a host of new features and innovations. It's the 2K you know and love... but like you've never seen it before."

...or whatever. I'm just riffing, but it was totally possible for them to market the game without basing the whole marketing strategy on promising the exact thing they knew they wouldn't deliver.
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Re: Will NBA 2K23 get a new game engine?

Postby Andrew on Thu Mar 31, 2022 4:10 pm

That's definitely an interesting question. I think it's plausible that more ambitious plans fell through due to the interruptions of the pandemic. It's also possible they do have some new tech to play with, but still went with the same blueprint and a lot of existing assets, resulting in a familiar game. Maybe a bit of both, or the former led to the latter. I guess it comes down to the same thing in the end, that being a promise that wasn't kept/lived up to.

I think the unfortunate fact of the matter is that they marketed it that way because they know they can, and a lot of people will accept it. It helps that they have influencers who will flat out shill, insisting that the game absolutely is awesome and built from the ground up as promised, and take part in shouting down valid criticism. They're also the only game in town. NBA Live hasn't been a viable alternate (for most people's tastes) in over a decade, and EA hasn't released a game since 2018. 2K can get away with it, and even if people complain, they'll get shouted down, or just give up because complaining feels like yelling into the wind. They'll either suck it up and get the game anyway because it's the only one on the market, or someone else will buy it in their stead if they do boycott the series. NBA 2K is in a very comfortable position.

The other problem is that outrage doesn't last long, or is too quickly forgotten when a slick new preview is released. For a lot of people, the fact that they promised "built from the ground up" and didn't deliver on it isn't an issue because that controversy is old news (or in some cases, they just believe that there wasn't an issue and the promise was fulfilled). Same goes for problems with microtransactions. It's become a case of "Are you still harping on that?" when the issue is raised. Of course, the reason people are "harping" on it is because they're criticising and condemning an ongoing problem and practice. A lot of people just want to move on, forgive and forget, and then get upset when they get burned again.

I mean, there are examples of developer blogs revealing outright lies in the previous year's developer blogs. Still, a lot of people take them at face value, and deny the notion that promotional material might not be 100% truthful. NBA 2K23 could be promoted as "the first bug-free basketball game ever made" and people would totally believe it and insist that it's true; at least for the first couple of weeks, after which some honest feedback might start gaining some traction when it stops getting shouted down.
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Re: Will NBA 2K23 get a new game engine?

Postby nextnba on Mon Apr 04, 2022 3:00 am

I doubt it. This game has been broken for years and they can’t seem to fix it. When the sliders work the game runs fine but for some stupid random reason it breaks and the speed goes really fast a and ur just running around super fast w no weight. I have it on ps5 and same dumb issue.
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Re: Will NBA 2K23 get a new game engine?

Postby jmmontoro on Thu Apr 07, 2022 3:55 am

With their business model, the problem is not gameplay or graphics but price tag, it is unequivocally a free to play experience with everything mtxed. It wouldn't surprise me at all if 2K23 had NFT apparel, it's very consistent with everything they've been doing.
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Re: Will NBA 2K23 get a new game engine?

Postby Amioran on Fri Apr 08, 2022 6:28 pm

Andrew wrote:The main issue here is that even with new tech, if a game is designed in a similar way to its predecessors, it's going to have familiar benefits and drawbacks alike. It's why a new engine and other technological overhauls aren't always the answer. They certainly can be beneficial and it's worth exploring those options, but design choices and recycling of existing assets can stunt growth and affect quality.


It depends on what you mean with the term "new engine". If an engine is built appositely and specifically for the end result you want to achieve (so that the tools are all designed and developed from the ground up to work at their best in such a context) then such an engine is always and unequivocally better, as the implementation and workflow is built appositely to fit the scope you want to achieve (exactly like a tailoring dress is designed appositely for the anatomy of the dresser, and hence fitting perfectly). However if for "new engine" you simply mean adopting another engine (usually an already existing one, meant for many different end results and hence generic in its approach, or simply the old engine with some revised or added new tech) then what you say is totally true, and "new" doesn't necessarily mean beneficial (and on the contrary it can even become a drawback, take for example the adoption of Frostbite by EA for sports titles that such an engine is not meant for, or the the countless "new" iterations of the Creation Engine all carrying legacy issues that become more apparent the more they try to patch them).

That's where the marketing semantic trick resides, because when you talk of "new engine" in a developer context then you strictly talk about an engine built specifically for the result you want to produce (and that's usually done when you plan for a long series of titles in the same genre), but many many times in advertising the term is instead used just as to mean a "new" engine in layman terms (simply meaning a change of engine, nothing more and nothing less).

What 2K has done is clearly adopting the marketing strategy on the usage of the term instead of the actual meaning in a developer sense (that's what most people meant it to be), tricking countless people (me included) in the process. I don't know if 2K23 will be the "new" engine on PC (I frankly think that it would be preposterous if PC is still developed as a PS4/Xbox One port, but hey, this is 2K we are talking about so they aren't really ashamed of anything at all at this point) but what's sure by now is that the "new engine" is not new at all, but just the old engine with some reworked tech behind (mostly having to do with management or resources, graphics/animations and UI).
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Re: Will NBA 2K23 get a new game engine?

Postby Andrew on Sat Apr 09, 2022 1:40 pm

Oh, for sure. There are definitely benefits to building an engine from the ground up. Of course, even if the new tech is potentially beneficial, it needs to be utilised properly. The quality of the game will also be affected by the usual design choices when it comes to the impact of microtransactions, whether or not there's matchmaking, the implementation of a mechanic that claims to add a skill gap (but only very artificially so, if at all), and so on.

"New engine" and "built from the ground up" are great marketing slogans, at least from the publisher's point of view. As you noted, there are semantic tricks that mean it can always technically be the truth, but not necessarily in the way people think or are hoping for. It suggests improvements, and people buy into it. It distracts people from the fact that whatever is meant by "new engine" or "new tech", similar design choices and philosophies will result in similar games, with similar pros and cons.

I don't want to say that the matter of the game's engine is completely irrelevant because that would be an exaggeration, but rather than wondering "Will it have a new engine?", I believe there are more pertinent questions:

Will a pushy approach to microtransactions make modes like MyCAREER and MyTEAM unbearably grindy and a chore to play if you don't spend?
What impact will the MyCAREER story have on the mode?
Will the MT economy in MyTEAM still be broken?
Will Beluba continue to push for concepts like shot aiming, which claim to add a skill gap but are more likely to swing between the extremes of exploitable and frustrating?
Will there be matchmaking in the online modes, and attempts to curb the toxicity?
Will there be an unnecessary change to dribbling controls and mechanics, making them more contrived?
Will the classic teams receive proper attention in terms of having correct ratings, tendencies, and animations?
Will long-standing bugs in the franchise modes be addressed?
Will there be obvious canned moments?

And so on.

While new tech could at least partially be addressed by changes in tech that benefit animations, physics, etc, a lot of the ley issues come from design choices and focus. They could debut an engine that gives them all the flexibility they need, results in a beautiful game with tremendous animations and physics, and of course, the most realistic sweat we've ever seen. But if they're still eschewing matchmaking and a fun journey in MyCAREER in order to push recurrent revenue mechanics, if player ratings are still wildly inaccurate, and there are bad ideas in the controls, they're going to nullify those technological improvements with a game that's still frustrating and not as enjoyable as it should be.
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Re: Will NBA 2K23 get a new game engine?

Postby Amioran on Sun Apr 10, 2022 1:22 am

I agree wholeheartedly with what you said. You can exchange a Honda for a Lamborghini all you like, but if your only use of a car is to just drive 30 minutes through traffic to go to work then the benefits would be marginal. No matter how dedicated an engine is or how well the tools therein are implemented, if the design choices at the root of the title are bad all the technical prowess in the world will not turn them into good ones. I think that the term "new engine", at least for what it concerns 2K, carries such a weight in the userbase just because in the mind of so many the term is not strictly and solely tied to what constitutes the engine itself, but it evokes in them a hope for a drastic change in the philosophy of the game design at the root, a return to a more sim based style of gameplay.

If you look back at old threads discussing the topic you will see clearly that most people when they heard of a "new engine" attached to the term the hope for a fundamental redirection of focus, tied to a more simulative experience (most of the comments had to do with things like foot planting, the way players move, the role of physics vs canned animations, contest system etc. etc. all things tied to making the game more realistic). A "new engine" in the mind of most people carried the expectation that 2K would use the technological advancements introduced by such an engine to create a more realistic representation of basketball.

The implications behind the adopting of a new engine in the mind of most did go much beyond its scope in itself, and that's why there was so much delusion in the community after the trailer showing a snippet of the gameplay came out (while the first trailer that focused strictly on the lightning improvements was well received instead), because the expectations behind the adoption of a new engine carried with themselves expectations of a design focus switch. If you take a look at the replies to that trailer you will see clearly that while many people were indeed not happy at small graphical jump in comparison to the one in 2K14, still the greatest matter of concern in the mind of everyone was how the gameplay didn't seem improved at all from a simulation standpoint.
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Re: Will NBA 2K23 get a new game engine?

Postby Andrew on Mon Apr 11, 2022 11:36 pm

Absolutely. Technical buzzwords are still very effective, especially any mention of an engine. There's definitely some 2K fatigue in recent years, and a bit more cynicism than there used to be. Buzzwords and lip service in the developer blogs do get people's hopes up, though.
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