The past few weeks have been exciting for us at Play by Play and have marked a lot of firsts for us – our first gameplay trailer, first time we’ve been able to talk about a firmer launch window and capped off by our first public playtest where you all got to see the game in action for the first time (and hopefully play for yourselves).
Here’s a quick summary that might help answer some of your questions and helpful links if you’re just joining us now..
Game Modes
We are launching with three core game modes at launch, in addition to something we just recently added based on some early feedback:
Knockout Squads - The mode that was available in the beta, play on a Squad of 3. You control 1 player on the Squad, fill out your team with friends / other players and find the competition.
Knockout Solos - Build your own Team of 3. You control your Team of 3 and go head to head against other players and their Team(s) of 3.
Knockout Friends - Your own Private Tournament. Play alone against the AI, crew up w/ friends against the AI, or go head to head against anyone you want to invite in (up to 48 players at Launch).
We've also added Shootaround, a place to warm up, practice and to get comfortable with each player before hopping into tournaments. Get a sense of their jump shot timing, stamina, speed and more.
Launch Roster
After the recent additions of Kawhi Leonard and Damian Lillard, we’ll be launching with 32 NBA stars and 5 Street Legends including El Gigante, who players were able to try out during our last playtest.
To watch all player reveal videos, head to a YouTube playlist of our player reveals.
In addition to these players, we will be launching with Rookie Variants for five NBA stars, including Stephen Curry ‘09, Luka Dončić ‘18, Kevin Durant ‘07, LeBron James ‘03, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander ‘18. Each variant looks different, plays different, and can be played alongside their modern versions in your squad. You’ll earn them by playing the game and earning CRED (our in game currency).
Our plan is to continue to add more players after we launch – in fact our community recently voted on Kyrie Irving being the first and we’re hard at work modeling him right now.
Playtest #1 Has Concluded
Our first Closed Beta on Steam wrapped last week. To everyone who got in and played, thank you so much! There were so many nailbiters and some RUNs that lasted for multiple tournaments in a row! The streetball energy was at peak vibes and the support blew us away.
We know not everyone could make the timing. So rest assured we’re going to make the next playtest bigger with more players invited and more time. News on the next one will be shared on our Discord, social channels (@NBATHERUN), and here, so stay tuned for that.
We’ll let you know when it’s time to RUN it back with Playtest #2. And please keep providing feedback – we’re already working on tuning and tweaking parts of the game based on what we read and saw from last Friday.
Keep the feedback coming and stay tuned for more news soon.