NBA 2K23 Has a New Mode That Brings in The World’s Best Basketball Player
NBA 2K23 is bringing in the greatest basketball player in the world and it is going to change gameplay entirely.
The gaming fans of the ‘90s basketball, the time when basketball shorts were actually short (above instead of at the knees), have plenty too look forward to when the NBA 2K23 finally hits the digital storefronts as The Jordan Challenge makes the comeback to the iconic basketball series. The Jordan Challenge sets out to recreate the most iconic moments in Michael Jordan’s career — including the famous shrug at Marv Albert.
As reported by IGN, the NBA 2K23’s Jordan Challenges will include signature matchups from the superstar’s career, like the 1982 NCAA National Championship, the famous shot that won him the final NBA title in 1998, etc. The challenges won’t be played on modern NBA courts, or even on classic courts for that matter. Instead, each of these challenges has been completely overhauled with a spare-no-expense level of detail to recreate the sounds and visuals of the contemporary broadcast coverage.
The recently returned Challenges will also feature slightly different gameplay compared to the rest of the NBA 2K23 game, mimicking the more physical era of the sport in which a foul isn’t exactly a foul — unless you’re visibly in pain, or some non-sportsmanship behavior was involved. The entire experience sets out to recreate the kind of basketball with which the modern NBA 2K fans haven’t had the chance to experience, unless they’re diehard fans of the series that revisited the old NBA 2K11 release which was the last to include the aforementioned Jordan Challenges.
In fact, the announced Challenge is a complete rebuild of the ones we’ve previously seen in 2K11, with additional five new moments from Michael Jordan’s career. Not only that, but the NBA 2K23 developers have also included testimonials from Jordan’s contemporaries, such as Dennis Rodman, Phil Jackson, Mike Fratello, and Ahmad Rashid — and their genuine affection towards one of the greatest basketball players of all time.
We’d like to take a moment to appreciate the grandeur of the Jordan Challenges being implemented in the upcoming NBA 2K23. Twelve years have passed since they were last included in an NBA 2K game, and in the meantime, we got an entirely new generation of NBA fans who haven’t had the chance to see Jordan play live on TV or in person. Everything they know about the Space Jam superstar is through YouTube or from their older siblings or parents. The Jordan Challenges are a chance for the younger audiences to feel the same type of joy basketball fans felt during Michael’s best moments.
As for the NBA 2K23 game itself, Michael Jordan graced the cover of an aptly named Michael Jordan Edition, and the Limited Championship Edition, Devin Booker is on the cover of the Standard Edition, and Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird feature on the WNBA Edition of the game. The NBA 2K23 is scheduled to release on September 9 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Series X/S, as well as on Nintendo Switch. PC gamers will get their own version of the sports game, which is significantly downgraded to the last-gen standards, despite the fandom’s outcry.
