NBA 2K21 shows its ‘revolutionary graphics’ in first PS5 video

2K has released the first NBA 2K21 next-gen gameplay footage, showing off the next-gen basketball game captured on PlayStation 5.

NBA 2K21 will be released on November 10 for Xbox Series X/S, and November 12 for PS5 in the US, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea, and November 19 for PS5 in all other regions.

“Never before have we been able to deliver this level of visual fidelity and realism in a video game,” said Greg Thomas, president of Visual Concepts, in a prepared statement.

“NBA 2K21 is the standout title that best delivers the promise of next-gen: truly revolutionary graphics, lighting-fast load times and incredible new features and gameplay only possible on next-generation hardware.”

NBA 2K21 was the first next-gen game to be priced at $70 and other publishers have since followed suit including Activision and Sony.

Last year Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said he believes the industry’s “close” to delivering games that are indistinguishable from real life. The executive told CNBC that PS5 and Xbox Series X would help developers achieve photorealism.

“We have a new console generation coming and that’s going to allow us to do some things that we haven’t been able to do before creatively, that’s exciting,” he said.

“But as I’ve said before, we’re going to reach a point where you won’t be able to tell the difference between what’s created in the computer and what’s real.”

Zelnick said lifelike graphics are particularly suited to certain types of games such as the NBA 2K series, but not to others.

“That doesn’t mean we’ll do it for all of our games,” he said. “Borderlands, for example, is an animated universe, it’s always going to be an animated universe.

“But this promise of taking certain titles like basketball and making it truly look like live-action—it’s pretty close now, squint a little bit, it looks like live-action—that’s really exciting, and that gives our creative folks a new canvas on which to paint.”

Take-Two said in August that NBA 2K20 had shipped 14 million units.

Further reading

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NBA 2K20 is already 2019’s best-selling game in the US

Basketball title enjoys best launch month sales of any sports game on record