Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! Every Friday I cover a topic related to basketball gaming, either as a list of five items, or a Top 5 countdown. The topics for these lists and countdowns include everything from fun facts and recollections to commentary and critique. This week’s Five is a list of five features that unfortunately seem highly unlikely to return.

There are reasons that certain features from older basketball video games have fallen by the wayside. As I’ve discussed before, even though some of the annual games may seem like mere roster updates, the code still has to be rewritten every year. If there’s a feature or function that doesn’t work properly with the new code, and if it isn’t a particularly popular or necessary part of the game, it may end up on the chopping block. Additionally, some features evolve into new concepts, or a technological advance or design change elsewhere will render them redundant.

This is how we lose some of the features that we really like. It’s not something that’s done out of spite, though when microtransactions are involved, there may certainly be a lack of goodwill. Mind you, a reasonable explanation for the absence of a beloved feature doesn’t remove the sting for gamers who were passionate about it. Sometimes we’re lucky and a mode or feature is brought back, though not always exactly how we wanted it. However, other features are seemingly gone for good, much to our dismay. We all have our own examples here, and to that end, here are five features that I wish basketball video games still had, but sadly doubt that we’ll ever see brought back.

1. Scenario/Situation Modes

Over the past couple of generations of basketball video games, we’ve been presented with gameplay scenarios via challenges in MyTEAM and Ultimate Team, as well as BIG Moments. In other words, the concept of playing out a specific scenario is still used for live service/seasonal content. Unfortunately, we’ve lost the ability to set up our own situations and scenarios. Sure, we can customise rosters or use the bevy of retro content in NBA 2K to set up historical and fantasy matchups, but we no longer have a dedicated Scenario/Situation mode where we can set the scores, time left in the game and on the shot clock, who has possession, timeouts remaining, and so forth.

That’s a shame, because those modes were great for re-creating classic games and moments! There used to be great interest in that, and I remember a couple of people in the community painstakingly creating scenarios for NBA Live 2000 PC using the in-game save option. It was obviously much easier to do with a proper scenario mode where we could select all of those game conditions, so it was awesome when NBA Live and NBA 2K provided us with one. Those modes haven’t been in any recent titles though, and since they don’t generate recurrent revenue, I’m not confident that we’ll ever see them again. Never say never and all that, but it’s an unlikely scenario.

2. Offline MyCAREER

The decline of offline MyCAREER has been sad to see. After all, it didn’t begin as an online mode. However, as the connected experiences and MMORPG open worlds were devised, and so many cosmetic items and other server-side content were added, the offline version of MyCAREER became increasingly barebones. Beginning with NBA 2K20, the mode became inaccessible once online support ended. Now, it’s understandable that 2K doesn’t want to support online play and features indefinitely, so server shutdowns are inevitable. With that being said, it’s ridiculous that we’ve lost a traditional single player experience due to mode-wide always online requirements.

At this point, the NBA side of MyCAREER has become too entwined with the open worlds of The Neighborhood and The City to feasibly see the return of an offline version. I understand that won’t bother everyone. Plenty of people aren’t crazy enough to go back and play through five years and counting in the MyCAREER mode of a game that’s a decade old; retro basketball gaming is still a niche interest. The interest is there though, not to mention that anyone who doesn’t care about the online scene still has to deal with it. The flexibility and freedom to experiment with an offline MyCAREER is seemingly gone forever, and so is the fun that came along with that.

3. Creating-a-Legend

Speaking of flexibility with the career mode experience, the loss of Creating-a-Legend was a bummer. While the lure of creating an original player and turning them into a star naturally held great appeal – and still does – many gamers also liked the idea of stepping into the shoes of a real NBA player. We got a taste of it in NBA 2K11 with MJ: Creating a Legend, a reward that was unlocked after completing the Jordan Challenge. In that mode, we assumed control of a rookie MJ entering what was then the modern NBA, rebooting his career on the team of our choice. In subsequent games, we could select any player and guide them through the rest of their career.

Obviously, playing a career mode using a real player is something that we’d already achieved through modding, but it was helpful to have that option available by default; especially on console, where such modding wasn’t possible. Career modes with our own avatar were more popular of course, while also facilitating cinematic stories and other immersive features. And, let’s face it: if you can jump into a career mode with an established star, why would you bother to slog through the grind or pay for the VC to upgrade a MyPLAYER from 60 Overall? It’s no surprise that a return for Creating-a-Legend is improbable to say the least, but it was a fantastic mode while it lasted.

4. Create-a-Team & Custom Teams in General

“Didn’t this concept just evolve into MyTEAM?” Sure, in a way, but there’s a stark difference between a mode where you quickly assemble a fantasy squad made up of any players you wish, and one in which you need to collect the players first via a system built on microtransactions. That’s not to say that there’s anything wrong with MyTEAM – well, apart from the predatory nature of loot box and recurrent revenue mechanics, anyway – but it’s not the same thing. The original Custom Teams in old school NBA Live, Create-a-Team in both NBA Live and NBA 2K, and Quick Pick Play/Fantasy Teams in NBA Live 08-10, were fun features for exhibition games.

They’re not necessarily the most popular features, though. More to the point, they don’t make publishers any money. Modes like MyTEAM and Ultimate Team have therefore replaced them, generating revenue from our interest in playing with fantasy teams. “Can’t you just mod in a custom team if you want the traditional experience?” That is a possibility – at least on PC – and of course MyLEAGUE and MyNBA offer rebranding options. Once again though, it isn’t the same as being able to quickly throw together a custom lineup for one-off games. Sadly, fun and convenience don’t always go hand-in-hand with profits, so we’ll likely never see custom teams again.

5. Original Online Team Play

It’s easy to forget that NBA Live was dabbling with the concept of online team play before NBA 2K. Indeed, that’s what the mode was called when it was launched in the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 version of NBA Live 08 via a patch: Online Team Play! Back then, there was no career mode with our own avatars, so we instead took control of real NBA players. The host on each side picked the team, and their teammates each chose a player to be locked to. If there were less than five users per side, each user could choose to switch to a CPU-controlled player if they preferred not to be player-locked. It was a novel concept, and clearly one that games were right to build upon.

Of course, now that we have career modes with avatars that we customise and level up, the notion of controlling NBA players in online team play modes probably seems rather antiquated. It’s no surprise that online team play has gone in the direction that it has, and that the original version of the concept is no more. It’s still unfortunate that it hasn’t returned as a legacy mode, though. There’s a different challenge to assuming control of a real player, and using them effectively. It did mean that someone would be stuck with a lesser player, though that arguably promoted better teamwork. It makes sense that the original OTP is gone for good, but I do think it could still work.

Before I wrap up this week’s Friday Five, I should mention that one of the features I originally included was full introductions, be it real footage or an in-game highlight reel. It appeared that intros were gone for good, but then NBA 2K24 unexpectedly featured an introduction spotlighting Kobe Bryant’s Mamba Moments mode along with a handful of current stars. I’ll admit that as with intros back in the day, I do skip it now that I’ve seen it. No doubt that’s why they disappeared in the first place, but they were always cool to see, and I’m glad that they brought back the idea in NBA 2K24. I guess it’s proof that missing features can and will make unexpected returns!

Which of these features do you miss the most? Could you ever see them making a return? Have your say in the comments, and as always, feel free to take the discussion to the NLSC Forum! That’s all for this week, so thanks for checking in, have a great weekend, and please join me again next Friday for another Five.

The post The Friday Five: 5 Features Seemingly Gone For Good appeared first on NLSC.