TopSpin 2K25launches on all modern hardware in April, bringing the once-loved tennis franchise back to the forefront with the latest 2K2X branding. Built on and expanded fromTopSpin 4’s coding,TopSpin 2K25aims to modernize that experience without necessarily reinventing the wheel. To this day,TopSpin 4is often hailed as the best tennis gameout there, andTopSpin 2K25builds on everything that made it great. In other words,TopSpin 4might need to hand that crown over toTopSpin 2K25.
Game Rant was able to play a few hours ofTopSpin 2K25ahead of the annual Desert Smash charity celebrity tennis event. This preview focused entirely on core gameplay after getting through the tutorials. While we were not able to get hands-on with the character customization, a brief presentation did show us some interesting visual choices and unique audio customizations as well. It’s a very granular approach, with players able to adjust something as small as the sound and frequency of their grunts during a match. Publisher 2K and developer Hangar 13 will no doubt reveal more features and details about MyCareer ahead of launch, but the core gameplay is going to make any tennis fan happy.
This year, Desert Smash focused on supporting theCharlize Theron Africa Outreach Project(CTAOP). This charity focuses on investing in the youth of South Africa, ensuring their health, safety, and overall future.
TopSpin 2K25 Pairs Tense Gameplay with Strategic Thinking
TopSpin 2K25does an impressive job of ensuring there’s plenty of engagement wherever the tennis ball is on the court. We didn’t get into many advanced moves, but just the basics require constant consideration of aim, timing, and positioning. Players will want to move to center court between hits, yet remain quick enough to hit the ball wherever it lands. While positioning and moving their player around the court, they must also time their hits accurately. An errant hit could put players in a bad position, while a perfectly-timed hit could do the opposite. And if players want to keep the pressure on their opponent, they must always ensure they aim the ball and get it where they want to go. All at once, really, players must manage their positioning on their court and do so swiftly enough to time and aim their hit.
Regardless of whether it was a singles or doubles tennis match, we had to focus on these key gameplay pillars to keep up with the competition. Doubles adds the complication of more court coverage and needing to rely on a player 2/AI to do their part, and it helps keep that pressure up. If we were distracted even for a moment, it meant losing the point.TopSpin 2K25requires constant engagement and input, ensuring that the gameplay is tense and challenging—but not unfair.
Every Player Confirmed for TopSpin 2K25 So Far
The goal with playable characters is to bridge the past and present of tennis.
A key component ofTopSpin 2K25is strategy and planning how to take advantage of an opponent’s weakness. This is important because, in a lot of sports games, it’s usually pretty simple to brute force a win.Royal Rumbles inWWE 2Kgames, for example, can easily be won from first place by tossing enemies out as they come in/before others do, while hail mary plays work a little often inMadden NFLgames. We’re not saying that there’s not one strategy that can trivialize a whole rally and match, but it’s not obvious if there is. We spent a good chunk of time testing strategies against NPCs, and as Hangar 13 devs and 2K told us, each NPC plays differently.
Against Serena Williams, our winning strategy was closer hits to lure her to the net followed by harder hits closer to the baseline. While not simple, it worked and was a winning strategy. However, that didn’t work so well against our second opponent. Iga Swiatek was not as easily goaded and performed better than Williams when closer to the net, forcing us to change up our strategy. For Swiatek, we found that pressuring another spot on the court would cause her to constantly drop the ball, so to speak, and get us a point. However, even that strategy and location didn’t work against other NPCs, ensuring that no two matches played the same.
TopSpin 2K25 Might Just Have the Best Crowd Immersion of Any Sports Game
One unassuming feature that caught us off-guard was the crowds inTopSpin 2K25. The camera would consistently pan around them at the opening of a match, between rallies, and thereafter, and we were hard-pressed to spot duplicate NPCs out there. That’s understandably a common thing in manysports games, but they were just not popping out to us. We’re sure they are there, but between the assets used, the panning of the camera, and the exact views of the arena, it was something we’d have to look hard to see instead of trying to phase out during gameplay. As game director Remi Ercolani told us, they use similar subsets of assets like any game with a crowd, but these assets are changed not only by the venue, but the time of day (day, afternoon, night).
This variety and immersion in the crowd, in conjunction with the graphics and overall design of the stadiums and courts, ensured we were fully immersed in each match. It’s a subtle feature, but it’s still quite the quality-of-life improvement. It’s something othersports games likeWWE 2K24would be wise to adopt, for example.
Every Arena Confirmed in TopSpin 2K25 So Far
At the end of the day,TopSpin 2K25is atennis game—and that’s going to determine its audience. If someone is not a tennis fan, there’s still plenty of fun to be had here, but they may understandably elect to pursue that fun elsewhere. For tennis fans, though,TopSpin 2K25is going to at least challenge the notion thatTopSpin 4is still the best tennis game out there.
Game Rant was provided travel and lodging for the purposes of this preview.TopSpin 2K25releases April 26 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
