The NBA 2K26 dropped a new breakdown video on the Crews feature, with all the immeasurable excitement possible around the topic. Bashworld2K explained everything, how a bunch of people can come together and grind, collect rewards, and all other good stuff. Sounds good in theory, perhaps the park has at last become somewhat of a squad experience instead of chaotic free-for-all.
What really comes as a shock are the players, apparently not responding to these offers. The replies to the tweet have turned into a warzone of angry complaints, and many of those are not even related to the feature itself. It’s everything that surrounds it. First stab in the back: file size. Some random dude called SkipJaymz attacks this with full force like, how is the game 180 gigs. Like bro, that’s insane. He went, “What if I sign up for crews will it magically get rid of 100 gigs of storage space? Cause if not your game has zero appeal.” And honestly? He ain’t wrong. That is ridiculous storage for a basketball game. Football games half that! No excuse.
Then it all just shoots downhill. People getting frustrated over crossplay mostly not working right between Xbox and PS5. MrPhenom just “Fix crossplay Xbox and p5 users still can’t connect and play each other !” On serious note, maybe before pushing a social feature like Crews ensure that basic online infrastructure is working?? Just a thought.
Then back comes the whole cap breaker drama. One player named I DONT WEAR REPS is really heated. They’re talking about grinding for hours, getting top 5 in their crew, using cap breakers to get their player to 85 or 90, and then if you get kicked or leave the crew? You get NEGATIVE cap breakers. Like, you lost progress. That is brutal. Makes zero sense. Why would anyone wanna grind that hard just to have it potentially taken away? They’re yelling “MAKE CAP BREAKERS PERMANENTLY” and you can feel the frustration through the screen.
And then the servers get brought up constantly with error codes. $ixteenHunnit Pe$o just responds, “Fucc this crew shit fix you error code” with a picture of an error message. Can’t even get into the game to use the new feature! Then some other guy complains about theater mode being nothing but error codes. Rhythm shooting broken too. It’s like the game is held together with duct tape and hopes.
And then the VC. KobeSODMG has just had enough. Every year they want us to pay money to make builds; he’s no money spent, so he barely plays. Calls MyTeam and Play Now Online the only good modes now. “Vc ruined 2k n it ruined 26 one of the best 2K’s ever I’m really tired of the money begging.” Shared attitude among a great percentage of players. The grind is real, and it feels designed to push you into buying VC.
In the middle of that mess, some people try to use the feature, some recruiting: “join top prospect, it’s open🤞🏾,” “Anybody still looking for a crew to join add me FTOSXBANDO already at level 12.” But they’re most likely fighting against other issues.
So what are Crews then? They are basically a whole new way of making groups with friends to grind together for pool rewards, just that 2K decided to release it on a game so many of the players feel already bloated, buggy, and highly monetized. Reaction is not “wow cool new feature,” reaction is “fix the damn game first.” The storage size, the server issues, the crossplay problems, and those punishing progression systems—the new content is literally second to that.
Classic case: The developer promotes a new shiny thing while the community is screaming about how the foundation is crumbling. Players want a smooth, correctly working experience. They don’t want to download 180 gigs just to get error coded out of a match; they don’t want to risk losing hours of progress because someone kicked them from a crew; they just want to play basketball with their friends without any bullshit.
Until 2K sorts out these bigger issues, any feature introduced no matter how well meant will be met with such backlash. The players are shouting loud and clear. They’re not asking for more stuff; they’re asking for the existing stuff to work properly. Maybe 2K should listen to that.
