PGA Tour 2K25 is the best golf game in a decade, ruined by dirty tricks and greedy nonsense

I like spherical of digital golf. I imply, I actually adore it: I’ve a Golden Tee arcade machine in my home. I’ve obtained fond reminiscences of EA’s Tiger Woods games being my consolation recreation as a youngster – one thing I’d hop onto after I wanted to decompress. As an grownup who has a set of actual life golf golf equipment within the storage that goes woefully underused (life’s so busy that it’s laborious to carve out a number of hours to hit the hyperlinks), I’m very conscious {that a} golf recreation might fill a bit hole in my life.

With a niche in my gaming schedule, I figured the latest launch of PGA Tour 2K25 may be the one for me. I favored 2K’s foray into the world of golf sims properly sufficient when it made its debut, so I made a decision to go along with that over EA’s providing – to see how a lot had improved over the past a number of years. I fired up Steam and, feeling assured, dropped a not insignificant amount of money on the Premium Version that’d get me in early. Initially, I used to be thrilled.

In comparison with my (admittedly a bit distant) reminiscence of the 2021 recreation, the 2025 providing from 2K has clearly been drastically refined. It’s slicker, it’s sleeker, and it’s cleaner and simpler to grasp and grapple with. I actually significantly benefit from the assists system, which reasonably jogs my memory of these deployed in racing video games like Forza Motorsport – it’s a intelligent resolution to providing up a satisfying simulation expertise and enjoyable rapid-fire arcade gameplay in the identical title.

Principally, enjoying an arcadey recreation that fairly intently resembles that golden period of PS2-era EA Tiger Woods video games will supply your {custom} created profession participant 100% of Expertise earned on every spherical of Golf. However the extra options you flick off, the extra EXP you’ll achieve over and above that customary quantity.

The racing comparability is apt. In Forza, I don’t really want the racing line, so I flip that off and get an EXP bonus. Right here, I feel I’m fairly apt at driving the ball, so I flip off assists that compensate for crosswinds and make the sport extra mechanically forgiving of scuffed swings. I’m a completely atrocious putter, nevertheless, so as soon as I get to dancing on the inexperienced, I need the entire assists on.

With my numerous settings tweaked, I used to be set to earn 120% of the ‘customary’ EXP achieve – and extra skilled and skillful gamers than me will be capable of earn a fantastic deal extra.

EXP is essential, because it unlocks rewards, ranges up your participant, and lets you achieve the foreign money required to realize tools and the like. However the breeziness of the sport with an affordable variety of assists is interesting to me, particularly after I know I can regulate settings for a extra realistically punishing expertise if I so want.

This pairs properly with how the profession mode doesn’t by default drive you to play each gap of a spherical – out of a full spherical, the default settings would possibly ask you to choose up 4 or 5 holes, whereas an AI will simulate the remainder. Once more, it takes the strain off – however if you wish to play each gap by hand, that’s only a menu flick away. While you’re not on the course, there’s different distractions like coaching mini-games, press conferences, inter-player rivalries, and so forth.

All of this speaks to what I favored concerning the older golf video games – they’re sports activities simulations, however they’re additionally enjoyable. Golf is a comparatively accessible sport – you may borrow some golf equipment or purchase some banged-up outdated ones and get on a course with some mates for not very a lot in any respect. The enjoyment of golf in video video games – to me, anyway – is to play at the next stage, simulate a profession, and expertise it as one thing extra enjoyable reasonably than a stage of difficult in order to be aggravating – which belief me, is the way it works for me in actual life.

And but… an anchor sits across the neck of this contender. For all the beautiful casual-or-hardcore golf motion, an insidious streak runs proper via PGA 2K25 – one which has solely been emphasised by the primary quietly-deployed replace to the sport.

You see, the evolution of your ‘myPLAYER’ – that’s to say your custom-created {golfing} hero – is tied to spending foreign money that’s both earned in-game or, sure, bought. Need some new golf equipment? That’s going to price some VC. Garments? VC. Need to stage up your character’s {golfing} attributes? Hand over the rattling VC!

This alone isn’t so uncommon, clearly. A great deal of video games have you ever incomes foreign money after which spending it to progress. What are expertise factors in RPGs if not this? Positive, promoting that foreign money for actual money is a bit scummy and arguably a shortcut to dishonest – however no matter. However then 2K… oh, they push their luck.

When the PGA 2K25 entered its early entry interval, when probably the most devoted followers performed, it had one setup of the quantity of VC that could possibly be earned. As soon as the sport hit ultimate launch, a delicate patch was quietly utilized to the financial system, primarily nerfing the fairly affordable charge of VC achieve I noticed pre-release to one thing a lot, a lot worse.

Rightfully offended of us on Reddit have been crunching the numbers, and recommend that the variety of hours to achieve stage 99 along with your participant character has primarily risen from 92 hours – quite a bit, to be honest – to a whopping 214. The quantity of VC it prices to stage up or afford very important instruments wanted for development has rocketed by as a lot as 60%. The preliminary development wasn’t precisely speedy, however 2K clearly got here to the conclusion that it additionally wasn’t sluggish sufficient to immediate sufficient extra spending. Thus the choice was made to drag a number of grasping levers – not even ready a number of weeks, dashing to them at launch like Augustus Gloop to the chocolate river.

I wasn’t remotely clued into the PGA 2K neighborhood, however even my informal ass observed the distinction in my earnings earlier than and after this variation – which despatched me to reddit, which in flip revealed the horrible fact. Steam critiques have grow to be scathing. The phrase “grasping” pops up in these person critiques typically, however the perfect phrase might be this: “Predatory”. That it’s. Right here’s one other phrase for you, and this one is from me: Disgusting. I’ve obtained another phrases for the folks behind this method, however they’re not match to print. Use your creativeness, yeah?

I used to be actually actually pleased with PGA Tour 2K25 – however this has correctly taken the wind out of the sails of my enjoyment. My solely minor quibble with the sport earlier than – sluggish menu navigation with over-wrought transition screens and annoying pop-ups – is now dwarfed by a grasping money seize of a personality development system. A system that feels prefer it belongs in a free-to-play cell recreation, the place competing on-line is inexorably tied to a grind a whole bunch of hours lengthy or… y’know, opening your pockets once more. When progressing now feels a lot extra painfully sluggish – and crucially, so correctly geared in direction of extracting extra cash from me within the type of microtransactions – I’m emotionally trying out.

Bluntly, this form of complete bollocks might be argued for in a free-to-play gacha recreation, however this ain’t that. Some folks have paid over 100 kilos for this recreation. Even the usual version is sixty quid. Bluntly, it’s a nasty joke. And it undermines an in any other case beautiful expertise – arguably the perfect golf recreation I’ve performed in a decade. Like me lacking my fourth putt in a row for a double bogey after hitting the inexperienced in regulation, 2K has crafted one thing magical and ruined it on the final. What a disgrace.