{"id":2082,"date":"2026-04-12T12:15:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T12:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/2020\/11\/20\/21587613\/nba-2k21-the-w-my-wnba-impressions"},"modified":"2026-04-12T12:15:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T12:15:09","slug":"nba-2k21s-new-wnba-mode-is-a-first-step-and-not-much-else","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/nba-2k21s-new-wnba-mode-is-a-first-step-and-not-much-else\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA 2K21\u2019s new WNBA mode is a first step, and not much else"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re not already a fan of women\u2019s professional basketball, NBA 2K21<\/em><\/a>\u2019s new mode, The W won\u2019t do much to get you fired up for it.<\/p>\n

The W is sports video gaming\u2019s first single-player career mode<\/a> for a women\u2019s team sport. It\u2019s not a tokenized experience, nor a reskin of things <\/em>NBA 2K<\/em>21<\/em> already does for the men\u2019s game. But it is a glaringly few-to-no-frills experience, and the lack of investment I have in my player\u2019s development defeats the purpose of a single-player career. As such, I can\u2019t really warm up to the mode or recommend others spend much time trying it.<\/p>\n

Other than picking one of 10 player archetypes \u2014 whose attribute minimums and maximums are locked \u2014 the only influence I have on my player\u2019s development is simply playing well (or not) in a league game. Whatever XP (\u201cMyPoints\u201d in this case) come from that, the game applies automatically in a very opaque process. <\/p>\n

In NBA<\/em> 2K21<\/em>\u2019s MyCareer, players can set aspirational maximums for their attributes and build a player according to the things they do well or enjoy the most. Inside a season, players get to choose how to apply their earnings to the player they\u2019ve created. Why this isn\u2019t possible for the WNBA\u2019s career mode, I can only speculate.<\/p>\n

\"Screen <\/picture> <\/span> <\/span>
In the no-frills career wrapper that is The W, practice is as simple as clicking a button. In fact, that\u2019s all it is.<\/figcaption>Image: Visual Concepts\/2K Sports via Polygon<\/cite> <\/span> <\/figure>\n

Developing my player\u2019s off-the-court persona is a similarly rigid and lifeless progression. Developer diaries before NBA 2K21<\/em>\u2019s launch suggested that The W players would take on roles that real-life WNBA stars pursue, whether promoting the league itself, taking on side gigs in media or fashion design, or preparing for a career as a coach. Well, all of this is handled in a process whose only player interaction is picking one of three options off a card between games. Again, progression is fixed, and all it delivers is unlockable cosmetics items on a fixed schedule.<\/p>\n

All this means is that you get into a very limited core gameplay loop very quickly, and one that is very reminiscent of career modes I saw on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It\u2019s tough to call The W a good first shot at career-mode parity when so much of its enjoyability comes from, well, just playing the games themselves. At least that action is distinguishable from the rest of NBA 2K21 <\/em>while still being fun \u2014 but it was when I was messing around with the WNBA in MyLeague last year<\/a>, too.<\/p>\n

Likewise, it\u2019s tough to criticize Visual Concepts\u2019 design here as though tossing female avatars into the much larger world of MyCareer would be the simplest or easiest solution. The WNBA deserves to have its own career ecosystem; it\u2019s a more supportive statement to give the WNBA its own mode, rather than just dump them into NBA 2K21\u2019s<\/em> aggressively competitive multiplayer world and tell them to fend for themselves or, worse, patronize them with inflated attribute ratings.<\/p>\n

And, as a practical matter, most NBA 2K players don\u2019t want to maintain more than one player avatar in a mode that is already very heavily <\/em>influenced by microtransactions<\/a>. 2K Sports would be pilloried if it offered up WNBA players as just another vector for real-money sales of Virtual Currency. To Visual Concepts\u2019 credit, a WNBA player does earn Virtual Currency that goes toward the user\u2019s overall balance. It provides at least a small reward for trying the mode. But it\u2019s a spectacular irony that the WNBA player herself doesn\u2019t get to \u201cspend\u201d what she earns \u2014 whether on her own progression, or clothing, or whatever.<\/p>\n

\"character <\/picture> <\/span> <\/span>
Top left: You can pick one of three things to do with your time between a game. Advancement moves on a strict schedule, and the rewards are likewise fixed.<\/figcaption>Image: Visual Concepts\/2K Sports via Polygon<\/cite> <\/span> <\/figure>\n

The W is joined by a multi-season team management mode, called MyWNBA. But its menu-driven feature set resembles something from MLB 2K10<\/em> or 2K11<\/em>. There isn\u2019t much to this beyond getting two \u201ctasks\u201d at the beginning of the year \u2014 one to trade a certain player before the deadline and another (from \u2026 the governor?) to win a certain number of games. In a multi-season background simulation, my failure to deliver either didn\u2019t have much of an effect. The real reasons for running a team \u2014 developing players, installing an offensive scheme \u2014 are still as self-driven as whatever narrative MyWNBA happens to deliver.<\/p>\n

There may be depth in there, but the wrapper around the mode is still just stuff we saw in sports video games two generations ago, when single-player career modes were first starting out. At least in the earliest days of NBA 2K\u2019s MyPlayer, I could pick which local business I wanted my player to endorse. Now it\u2019s just, reach level 4 in popularity in The W, and your name is on a plumbing shop\u2019s billboard, and you get a pair of shoes.<\/p>\n