NBA 2K26 Early Access Begins Today, Let's Get You Prepped

NBA 2K26 early access begins today at noon EST, and that’s bad luck for this newsletter since it misses both today and Wednesday’s editions. I did not receive an early code for NBA 2K26, so I can’t provide as much as I would like for you all in today’s newsletter, but I can still get you all prepped for early access since annual sports games provide context by being, well, annual sports games. Based on pre-release coverage and the last couple years of games, I feel pretty confident I can give you enough to prepare you for whether or not this year’s game might interest you.

A weekly reminder that I’d love to have even more of you pop in to the OS Discord as we just passed 1,000 members this week. We had our first watchalong last weekend in the Discord to celebrate the start of the college football season (we watched ISU beat KSU). This weekend, I won’t be around in Discord for college football’s first true Saturday since I’ll be at an actual college football game myself, but “unofficially” I’ll probably stream at least one of the big Sunday college football games on Discord. I’ll let you folks know in there if I do, and I hope to see some of you swing by if it does come together.

We’re also continuing to run the 30-day FREE trial here for anyone who wants to test the waters and receive the full extra newsletter on Wednesdays. Upon joining the Discord, DM either Rob S (thekernelpop) or ChaseB (chucklesbiscotti), letting us know you’ve signed up for the premium newsletter. Either one of us will add you to the extra Supporters area on Discord, and we have a snazzy role and badge to give you on Discord, too.

This also mean’s today’s newsletter should be a quick one because I think I can give you an NBA 2K26 rundown in a concise manner. But before jumping into that, I do want to give a couple quick updates on some other games.

Quick Hitter News

-MLB The Show 25 got a new patch yesterday, but it was a minor patch that you probably won’t notice unless you’re a big fan of Pat Murphy and the Brewers (and he won’t get his player model update until the content update hits at 3 p.m. EST today).

-College Football 26 does have a “free play” weekend going on if you have not purchased the game (or did not get it on sale in the last couple weeks). Since it’s opening weekend for college football, EA is banking on you getting that itch, so you can scope out the game if you want and see what it’s all about.

-Madden 26 got its first post-launch patch. I would quantify this one as a medium-sized patch that mostly focused on some gameplay issues. As is the case with most of Madden’s launches, zones were not performing as well as they could be (or should be), so the devs have buffed/fixed a bunch of zones. Elsewhere, the loading times should now be slightly lessened when opening player cards in franchise mode (but oddly enough not when closing them), and EDGE players now have access to player traits in franchise mode.

Three fixes the developers specifically mentioned being in a future patch are:

• Class Import Process incorrectly modifying Player Body Types, specifically Offensive Linemen.

• Players on IR unable to be peeled off the IR list.

• Nose Tackle archetypes displaying a different OVR in the front end.

Oh, and OS legend CM Hooe posted an image on Discord I have to share with you all:

Yep, Madden 26 does not approve of the Parsons trade even with ALL the picks included. It’s hard to replicate the, uh, choices Jerry Jones chooses to make these days so not too surprising there.

Let’s Get You Up To Speed On What’s Going On With NBA 2K26

I think the easiest way to fill you in on the game is just pretend some of you lovely people are in the room asking me about it — plus, it’s more entertaining for me.

Early access begins today but what does that mean?

It means you likely paid at least $100 to play the game early because the official release is not until September 4. You can go through the various “premium” editions to see if any speak to you. As usual, unless you care about MyTeam or getting points for your MyPlayer, the big thing is getting to play the game for almost a full week before the actual launch day.

2K is usually pretty good about having things in working order during this early access period (minus some of the usual bumps on the first day), and you’ll even have a lot of people claim the early access period is the best time to play NBA 2K. This is because it’s before all the “normies” make online MyPlayer stuff less fun, and it’s before “secret” tuners/patches mess up gameplay after the “bums” complain about certain things being too hard. The part about “secret” patches is a piece of discourse that springs up almost every year without fail, and there’s no question this game more than any other has some people believing they should not connect to the internet and download anything that messes with the “integrity” of the launch version of the game.

If you do get the urge to buy the game, you can still get one of those $100+ versions and play in early access even if you did not buy it ahead of time.

I haven’t played NBA 2K in a couple years, is this the one for me?

If you have not played since MyEras were introduced, I do think any version of NBA 2K since NBA 2K23 is worth scoping out, but that does not mean it needs to be this year’s version. I have not played this year’s game so I won’t make a true value judgment on it as of yet, but I think most fans of franchises modes and the NBA should at least scope out MyEras at some point. It’s a good twist on franchise mode, and if other sports games utilized it in their own way, I think it’s something that would add a lot to most sports games out there.

What are the big changes this year?

This is a tough one to answer. There’s no doubt 2K has fallen from its perch as the top sports game around in the last 3-5 years, and in part that’s because they have finally stopped overwhelming us with new stuff during some of these cycles. 2K’s “shtick” for many years was basically blowing away every other sports game out there by somehow cramming more into its new version every 12 months than any other development team out there. They still do more than most, but 2K now feels more like a “normal” sports game some years, and this seems to be one of those “normal” years.

2K has also continued to evolve into this product serving two distinct user bases (if not more than two). It continues to provide more with its career modes and franchise modes than any other series out there, but “more” has not always been better in recent times as MyPlayer is a microtransaction disasterclass, and all forms of franchise mode have a lot of bugs that make playing multiple seasons somewhat tricky unless you’re really locked in with a community that explains how to avoid some of those issues (or you play a modded PC version).

But, depending on who you are, the big changes could be considered:

• Green releases are all that matter now, and you have to do them for everything from shots to layups. There is still real player FG% as a gameplay option, but “green or miss” applies to All-Star and above difficulty when you’re not using that option. This is a big change even if 2K has been headed in this direction for years. While I don’t like anything about “green” releases, I’m happy they’re at least trying this to finally see if going all the way with this concept is worth it or not.

• MyPlayer builds have a lot of the guardrails removed this year. This means bigs will be more versatile, so I would think you’ll see a lot more Wembys and Giannis types rather than LeBron or Harden types in this year’s online modes. That said, I always try to warn everyone who wants to use their MyPlayer online that NBA 2K does have the worst community around if you go it alone, and you will likely be miserable much of the time if you don’t have a good support group around you. It’s also ground zero for “meta” builds and a lot of the worst sorts of min-maxing that run rampant now in online games like Warzone. This means a lot of the creativity gets sucked out of the game because you end up being far too harshly judged for trying to be unique with your build since many people think you’re throwing by not using a build some content creator said is the “best” way to craft your MyPlayer. Regardless, while I’m crapping on the toxicity and lack of creativity within the community at large, I do think everyone should experience one year of playing MyPlayer online because it is like nothing else out there and there is a reason it hooks a lot of people.

• The big gameplay focuses are on shooting (rhythm shooting, no-dip jumpers, and the aforementioned all-green releases), making defense stronger (both on and off ball), and also giving you more tools to dominate in the post. I do think the gameplay does have a chance to surprise us this year. However, it takes a little longer than most other games for things to shake out when it comes to analyzing 2K’s gameplay because a lot of gameplay tuning does happen early on, and it’s sometimes a little less obvious where the issues are until you play with a lot of teams.

• Tim Legler is joining the broadcast crew, and 2K is trying to finally figure out some of its lighting issues. There is also more focus on late-game commentary and there should be more team-specific arena elements that hardcore fans should notice.

You didn’t mention anything about MyEras or MyNBA, why?

Yeah…yeah. You can find all the Courtside Reports here if you want to read the full 2K breakdowns for what’s coming to all portions of the game, and you can see the MyNBA/MyEras/MyGM one is light. The biggest additions appear to be “dynamic banners” and faster simulation speeds, so that’s pretty meh. I actually am excited to do Online Playoffs with some friends since we usually don’t stick with a full franchise for long enough to get through more than 1-2 seasons anyway, but that’s super specific to something I care about, so I wouldn’t put it as a “big” addition.

I don’t think the lack of additions would even be a problem since 2K’s franchise mode is already the deepest around, but the Courtside Report didn’t mention a lot of the bugs 2K could have attacked either. If 2K was just like “we spent all year fixing franchise mode bugs,” that would actually count as a massive addition that most of us would be stoked about. Instead, even some of the stuff mentioned in the Courtside Report about what the “community” cares about didn’t really ring true to me, so I’m a little worried we’ll basically get a lot of the same issues without a bunch of new features to distract us from those issues — that’s usually how 2K has operated in the past because they’ve always been terrible at bug-fixing their franchise modes.

What if I want to get a look at the game?

There are already plenty of people streaming and making content for the game, but since 80 percent of it is focused on playing online MyPlayer, I think Kevin Cruz is a good one to scope out if you just want some raw gameplay by someone who knows what they’re doing. He still cares about online play and explaining how to own people, but he also understands why so many of us fell in love with NBA 2K years ago and does that by showcasing a ton of the unique player animations.

If you just want to get a quick look at franchise mode, Kenny is very well known in the 2K community, and he’s an easy watch if you just want to get a quick look at what’s going on with MyNBA.

If I want to get the game, what should I do?

If you have a PC, I do highly recommend getting it on there if you really just care about MyNBA. The 2K modding community is a little more spread out than something like the Madden modding community so it’s a little harder to find everything you might want, and you do need to pay for many of the mods. That said, between presentation mods, graphics mods, and cleaning up some of the issues with MyNBA, it’s hard to find a cooler and more customizable sports game experience if you do invest some time and money into it. I do not think this will change for 2K26 — there’s no doubt Madden and NBA 2K benefit the most from being on PC.

Bottom Line

I’ll be back next week with some of my own opinions, and even if I’m a little lukewarm on what has been shown pre-release, I’m always excited to play the next 2K. As I’ve said before, this is the sports game I’ve played the most in my life, and basketball is also my favorite sport to watch, so I’m always hoping for the best.

Until next time y’all. And, as always, thanks for reading.

-Chase