NBA 2K21 joins the Xbox Game Pass series on March 4, and makes a rare appearance in the season of a current sports video game in one of the consoles’ streaming services or free games on offer.
Usually the best that players can get for free while a sports league is going on is the previous year’s game; publishers usually waited until after the playoffs to present a sports game on Game Pass or PlayStation Plus.
The game’s popular MyTeam mode – a map collection / multiplayer suite – is currently in season 5’s cartoon theme “Age of Heroes”. Age of Heroes has a recall to the groundbreaking “Jordan Challenge” mode of the series from NBA 2K11. In it, players have the task of recreating Michael Jordan’s final game with the Chicago Bulls, and pushing Bryon Russell down to drop the championship shot in the 1998 NBA Finals (pictured above).
Players will need MJ in their team to tackle the challenge, but if they do not have him yet, they can pick him up with the lock code JORDAN LAST SHOT in the game.
This is a strong offering to Game Pass subscribers; NBA 2K21 also offers MyCareer, an integrated single player / cooperative and competitive multiplayer mode with all kinds of lifestyle and role-playing features. MyGM is its peer for managing an entire franchise through several seasons. And the WNBA gets The W, a mode that introduces for the first time an appeal to singles and franchise control for the league.
Madden NFL 21for example, was just added to EA Play’s library on March 2 (and is also available to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers), a month after the Super Bowl. But NHL 21 will join EA Play sometime in April, about a month before the Stanley Cup playoffs are scheduled.