You control a basketball team, dribbling, passing, and shooting in matches that try to look and feel like a real broadcast. You can build your own player and grind through a career mode, or take control of a franchise and manage trades and lineups over many seasons. The controls take a bit of practice to feel natural, but the animations make every shot and dunk feel weighty.
Gameplay video
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Screenshots & review notes
The short version
It remains the gold standard for basketball sims on a handheld, even as microtransactions creep further into every corner of the experience. The core game underneath is still terrific.
In the hands
Dribble moves and shot timing reward real practice, and difficulty scales smartly so blowouts become rare once you learn the rhythm. Menus, though, are a bloated maze.
Look and sound
Player likenesses and arena lighting are genuinely impressive for the hardware, even if load times remind you this is a demanding sim squeezed onto a tablet.
The long haul
MyCareer will eat your evenings, and couch co-op with a friend is a blast, but anyone allergic to VC nagging should brace for constant upsells.
Frames captured from the gameplay video above; notes are our own take on the game.
What it's like to play
The basketball sim on Switch delivers the full experience on paper: MyCareer's city to explore, MyTeam card collecting, and franchise modes with real depth. The on-court gameplay is excellent, with pro play animations making stars move like their real counterparts. The Switch version includes cross-generation feature parity in most modes.
MyCareer builds your player from draft to legend with RPG-style progression, and the neighborhood is full of pickup games and events. MyNBA Eras lets you rewrite league history from different starting decades. The presentation remains best-in-class for sports games.
The aggressive virtual currency monetization is the well-known frustration, with meaningful MyCareer progress effectively pushing purchases. Performance on Switch trails other consoles noticeably in the city hub. Basketball fans get the deepest sim available anywhere, but expect the upsell.