NBA 2K24 launches later this year and with it, of course, comes its most popular mode, MyCAREER. The mode puts you in the shoes of a rookie (created by you) and follows your career from the draft all the way to your retirement. Throughout your career you get to experience many different things.

You make friends with some pros and build rivalries with others. You get to meet with your agent, the press, and multiple media personnel as well. In recent titles, you get the opportunity to explore some open, or semi-open (depending on your platform) areas where you can go to gyms, shops, or play with others at the courts.

But over the years, the developers kept adding to the experience. While more content is never a bad thing, some of the storylines and features added got in the way for some players. These new storylines took the player out of basketball and got them involved in non-sports related industries like music and fashion. That's why NBA 2K24 aims to improve MyCAREER by “Streamlining” the experience.

What Does A Streamlined MyCareer Experience Mean For NBA 2K24?

This essentially means NBA 2K24's MyCAREER is more focused on hoops than anything else. Players should still expect a rich career mode full of many different things to do. However, hopefully this means we won't have to rap in the game anymore:

But that's not all. NBA 2K23 also included a Fashion District in it's City, which contained quests related to the fashion industry. While we appreciate the game attempting to weave together all the cultural elements of basketball, it felt more like a chore.

There's fun things like 1-on-1s and practices with real professionals, and then there's putting flyers around the city to get a hot dog hat. At a certain point, NBA 2K23 felt like it went way too overboard.

But NBA 2K24 aims to center the experience solely around basketball. We've yet to find out what this means, but for many it's already a good sign.

If we were to guess, it could mean multiple new storylines coming to the game that are more concerned with the actual sport. Perhaps this means a more in-depth pre-draft process. Maybe rivalries and agent meetings will be expanded even further. Or there may even be less storylines in favor of improved gameplay.

Whatever the case may be, we're looking forward to a basketball-focused career more where hoops comes first before all else.  Hopefully the developers also consider the community feedback on microtransactions, which hurt user scores of NBA 2K23 severely.

What 2K Players DON'T Want To See

A Streamlined career mode that focuses mostly on basketball is nice. However, we hope the removal of certain storylines doesn't make the experience feel barren. If the devs want to remove unnecessary storylines like the music and fashion industry quests, by all means they should do so. But the hope is that they replace it with something so the game doesn't feel empty.

With a huge city to explore, and multiple seasons to play through, It's up to Visual Concepts to make use of everything it has at its disposal.

Players don't want to see content taken away with nothing in return. Just look at the Madden NFL franchise, where multiple features in both presentation and gameplay get removed only for nothing to replace it in future titles.

So it's definitely a challenge. At what point does the extra storyline and content become too much? And at what point does it become too little? They'll have to focus on the proper balance that keeps players coming back and not getting bored.

The NBA 2K series is the most popular sports video game series in the U.S. right now, according to research. While it's nice to be at #1, this means they can only go down, should they make the wrong decisions in game development. Considering both the financial success and the great gameplay experience the 2K series has going for it, we're optimistic they'll make it work.

Release Date

NBA 2K24 hits store shelves this September, with multiple different editions to choose from. The game is available for pre-order for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. The game stars L.A. Lakers' Legend Kobe Bryant as the cover athlete for both the standard and Black Mamba editions of the game.

The next NBA season doesn't begin until late October, so there's plenty of time to kill before then.

For more gaming news, visit ClutchPoints Gaming.