Last year, 2K Sports made a huge splash by introducing eight licensed colleges to NBA 2K16 and giving them a place in the game's MyCareer story mode. It was the first sign of college basketball in the six years following the cancellation of the standalone video games due to low sales and ongoing litigation.
With "NBA 2K17," there will be 10 licensed universities, and their involvement is expanding. Once again they'll play a role in the story mode, but 2K will also be selling "All-Time Great" rosters for those teams to use in Play Now mode. The players will be found in the MyTeam card-collecting/team-building mode.
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This year the licensed colleges are Arizona, Georgetown, Georgia Tech, Illinois, Kansas, Louisville, Michigan State, Oklahoma, UConn and Wake Forest. Five are returning from "2K16," and the other five are new additions. Current players — or even representations of them minus the names — will not appear on their rosters.
The first opportunity to play the story mode with the colleges will come on Sept. 9 with the release of "The Prelude" that provides a jump start on the story mode for free — a full week in advance of the game's release. It will be downloadable for free on both Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
Additionally, the trailer for "The Prelude" teases the involvement of the Olympics in the mode as the character receives a phone call from coach Mike Krzyzewski. He's in the game this year along with Team USA and also heads up the new tutorial mode that will be featured in the downloadable offering.
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"NBA 2K17" will be the second-earliest release for an NBA-licensed game (Sept. 16). Paul George is on the cover of the standard edition, and Kobe Bryant is celebrated with the Legend Edition. The game will have a new feature allowing for league expansion in the Franchise modes. Amazon Prime members can pre-order any version of 2K17 for 20 percent off.
Bryan Wiedey posts sports gaming news and analysis daily at Pastapadre.com, is co-founder of the sports gaming site HitThePass.com, hosts the Press Row Podcast, and be reached on Twitter @Pastapadre.