Kobe Bryant receives NBA 2K21 cover athlete status

Kobe Bryant receives NBA 2K21 cover athlete status

Will join Zion Williamson and Damian Lillard for newest edition

It’s been a few months now since the NBA’s Kobe Bryant passed away, and yet 10 years since he’d been on the cover of a NBA video game. Now, his imagery will return to the NBA 2K series with the new Mamba Forever edition of NBA 2K21. The game, which is this year’s iteration, will launch on both current gen in the Fall, and next gen in the holiday season. Both games will receive unique versions of the cover.

The Mamba Forever edition joins the current gen regular edition cover star Damian Lillard and the next gen cover star Zion Williamson. Yes, there will be two cover athletes, based on which generation of gaming console, and two versions of the legendary/Mambda Edition of the games, based on which generation of gaming console.

However, what may be the first true sign of the development costs of next generation gaming, the price on the PS5/Xbox SEX versions of NBA 2K21’s regular editions will be $10 more than the current gen at $69.99 vs $59.99. While this may seem like a big jump, remember that games actually cost a lot more to make these days, and that licensing hardware and software and player imagery and music is hella expensive, so trying to recoup that in the more graphic and hardware intensive next gen versions seems like a no-brainer.

The last average price jump was at the dawn of the 360/PS3 era, so it’s been quite a long time coming.

Source: 2K