Dev Blog: Welcome to the WNBA

[ThePointForward]

https://www.facebook.com/notes/nba-2k/w ... 543897267/

• Improvement to player model tools were made to accommodate for WNBA models.
• Lots of art work on hairstyles are not captured during scanning. Several categories like buns, ponytails, braids, ...
• Hairstyles will be animated and moving in response to player movement.
• New playstyles coming with WNBA teams. Includes playbooks, defensive schemes, etc.
• Motion capture were done by Candace Parker, Breanna Stewart, Amaya Valdemoro Madariaga and Maite Cazorla plus bunch of former college level athletes. (so essentially similar to hwo they generally do it, bring in big names and complete with others).
• WNBA Season mode.

Thoughts:
No much to go on as would be expected. After all most of the mentioned stuff is what you'd expect from WNBA addition in NBA 2K20. No word on female characters in MyCareer, so I'm gonna go with a confident "nope" on that one for now. They'd definitely push it here.
However WNBA Season mode will be a thing and while it's not full on MyLeague I guess it's understandeable that they might not be ready with everything there.
Finally the hair movement seems like a nice addition that could propagate into the male hair too.

[Andrew]

Simply adding a season mode easily puts it ahead of NBA Live's efforts. The work that's gone into authenticity, not just from a likeness standpoint but also trying to replicate the WNBA style of play and make it distinct from NBA gameplay with unique animations and appropriate plays/AI, sounds impressive. I don't think we've seen this much effort go into the bonus content since NBA's Greatest.

[ThePointForward]

Yup, I think 2K is trying to tap the new demographics. We have yet to definitely rule out female MyPlayers (although I personally don't think that's in yet), but even adding WNBA gets press attention and possibly persuades some people to buy the game.

[Andrew]

I'm 50-50 on whether it'll happen this year. On one hand, the fact that they've gone all out suggests that it's possible, and we're obviously yet to hear details on MyCAREER and its connected modes. Even if there's no WNBA career mode, I could see them having female players in The Playground and Pro-Am, as NBA Live does with LIVE Run and The Streets. At the same time I don't think it's a given yet, and may well be coming next year instead of in NBA 2K20. Either way, like I said it's a big step just having the season mode in there as that's already more than NBA Live has done.

As with the franchise modes, it's not about who does it first, but who does it best. A lot of ideas have originated in NBA Live, but NBA 2K has done them better. Oddly, All-Star Weekend remains the exception. No one's done that as well as NBA Live did from 2005 through 09.