This year's gameplay features in NBA 2K22 are finally being revealed, and the current generation will be treated to a cruise ship experience in the game's Neighborhood mode.
It appears that even this will not be sufficient, as NBA 2K22 MT Coins will include a large number of exciting features that will be available only on next-generation consoles.
NBA 2K22 requires you to upgrade to the next-generation game consoles.
If you haven't yet purchased a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X|S, it will become clear very quickly that NBA 2K22 is doing everything in its power to persuade you to do so.
Unfortunately, this is happening despite ongoing supply issues, making all of these next-generation consoles even more difficult to come by at the present moment.
As a result, many gamers are unable to justify the purchase of a new console, which can cost several hundred dollars. This is especially true in light of the continuing economic impact of the global pandemic.
Some may wonder why it matters when people who want to play NBA 2K22 will still have to pay for it; however, finding a way to fit in a $60 expense is vastly different from finding a way to fit in an expense of $300 or more for many athletes.
If you want to get the most out of NBA 2K22 and the other next-gen exclusives, you'll have to figure out a way to keep that expense under control.
For the record, the featured image in this article is not from NBA 2K22, and this is due to the fact that 2K Sports has not yet shown anyone any real gameplay footage from the game.
It feels more like a cruise ship in the neighborhood than anything.
Only one new selling point has been added to the current-generation NBA 2K22, which is the version that will be distributed to all players on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One (including the Xbox One S), PC, and Nintendo Switch.
However, while general improvements to core gameplay will be made across all platforms, as well as updated rosters and new content in MyTEAM, none of these will qualify as truly new features or anything that differs from what was introduced last year.
This year's NBA 2K22 sees the Neighborhood, which has been compared to The City's neglected step-brother up until this point, take to the high seas by placing players on a cruise ship.
A cruise ship's deck will serve as the setting for the actual courts, and NBA 2K22 will offer a variety of unique shore excursions that will change with each new season.
It's a shame that a lot of the exciting additions we've seen in The City, as well as a lot of the potential integration with other game modes, will be missing from the experience.
The PC is still the elephant in the room when it comes to the current generation of technology.
One massive asterisk remains, however, and it looms outside the conversation, begging to be mentioned: the PC is still not considered next gen, despite the fact that it should be.
However, despite the fact that the vast majority of modern gaming PCs can boast technical specifications that are equivalent to or even better than the Xbox Series X|S or PlayStation 5, it is strange that 2K Sports will not consider them to be next generation.
Even though it has not been confirmed, there are theories that industry pressure from Sony and Microsoft has pushed companies to provide these kinds of exclusive features to encourage players to purchase next-gen consoles.
On the whole, developers argue that current-generation platforms simply aren't capable of handling the processing demands required for these features to function properly, which is debatable for some features given the age of the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch, to name a few platforms.
They are all from a different generation and have objectively inferior performance when compared to the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, but the same cannot be said for the PC.
Despite the fact that some PC players may not have a system capable of supporting next-generation features, this is no different than the case with every other resource-intensive PC game that is released.
Even though NBA 2K22 for the PC is still being developed with low-end hardware in mind, it is ironic that dedicated PC gamers are the ones who have systems capable of running new generation features, whereas those who do not are more likely to own a console.
The inclusion of other cruise ships in buy NBA 2K22 MT would be a nice bonus for PC players, as there isn't much incentive to purchase the game on that platform otherwise.