NBA 2K21

MyCareer, a major part of the series, returned as one of the available game modes. MyCareer is a career mode in which the player creates their own customizable basketball player and plays through their basketball career. Players may make a male or female player, although female player creation is exclusively available on next-gen consoles. The Neighborhood also returns to MyCareer, as 2K Beach, in which players can customize their wardrobe, get haircuts and tattoos, and purchase boosts.

They can also do workouts and run drills to improve their character's attributes at their current team's practice facility. Progress in MyCareer may not carry over across generations, due to some changes made exclusively for next-gen.

NBA 2K21 received "mixed or average" reviews from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic, and "generally favorable reviews" on the ninth-generation consoles.

Michael Higham from GameSpot gave the game a score of 6-out-of-10. He states "NBA 2K21 shows that the lone basketball sim we have now has largely stagnated. It's a full package, for sure, but one that demonstrates little-to-no motivation to meaningfully improve upon itself. That doesn't take away from the strong foundation that makes NBA 2K a fun and rewarding time. However, when you go through the same grind and the same process with only superficial changes, you just get burnt out faster than years prior."