14 DAY TRIAL // What we know: NBA 2K15 is as certain as a new Call of Duty for the fall of this year and the team at Visual Concepts and publisher Take Two will probably seek to expand the audience of the basketball simulation while making sure that they keep their lead in the marketplace.
The series will probably keep the new control scheme that was introduced last year, because fans have just begun to be familiar with it, and innovations will focus on better physics, team movement and improved realism that uses the improved hardware now available.
After looking back at Jordan’s career and forward to see how LeBron James would perform in the coming years, NBA 2K15 will probably also have an interesting twist to power the single-player campaign.
Expect to see more information on the title in late spring and demos by the time of E3 2014.
NBA 2K15 will be launched on the Xbox One, the PlayStation 4, the PC and current-gen consoles at some point around the start of October.
A new basketball sim might also arrive from EA Sports, although that’s unlikely given the very bad launch performance of the new NBA Live.
Why it matters: NBA 2K15 will arrive after two very serious installments in the series and will also probably face no competition in the market place.
This is the kind of situation that can result in a truly impressive game from Visual Concepts or in a massive flop.
Visuals Concepts has the experience and the quality to create a solid NBA title, but they need to make sure that the core single-player progression remains exciting and that they keep the changes to the control scheme minimal.
If NBA 2K suffers in 2014, in a few years, the basketball simulation world might be forced to rely on smaller games from indie studios.
The full list of Incoming 2014 Games articles can be read on Softpedia.