In 1993, NBA Jam appealed to gamers who would have never otherwise picked up a sports title thanks to gravity-defying dunks and harsh, physical play. In 2001, EA Sports Big carried forward that legacy with NBA Street and its sequel, NBA Street Vol. 2, considered by many as one of the best sports games ever. However, since then, the arcade sports genre has faded considerably; EA now owns both NBA Street and NBA Jam, but hasn’t released a game since 2007 and 2010, respectively. If you’re like me, itching for a successor to those beloved titles, a new studio comprised of seasoned developers is hoping to deliver what you’ve been waiting for in NBA The Run.
Play by Play Studios, a studio consisting of several former developers at Electronic Arts, announced The Run: Got Next in 2024. The 3v3 online basketball title was set to feature fictional characters and pay homage to the arcade-style streetball games of yesteryear. The team behind it, including studio founder and CEO Scott Probst, who spent nearly a decade and a half at EA, working on franchises like Battlefield, Dead Space, Command & Conquer, and Medal of Honor, had a longtime passion for those casual basketball games. But it wasn’t until they announced The Run: Got Next that they learned they weren’t alone.
“We didn’t know; we were working in the shadows,” he says. “We were making The Run: Got Next before it was licensed, and we didn’t really know. We had this sense that players would love this and players would still want it, and I think the reaction that we got was bigger and better than we actually thought it was going to be.”
The reaction was so big, in fact, that it resulted in Probst receiving a message that would go on to change the game’s trajectory. “The very next day, I woke up to a LinkedIn message from someone at the NBA saying, ‘Hey, would you be interested in chatting?’ and I think, for us, that’s a dream come true,” he says. “Ultimately, to have the ability to operate on that stage and play with the greatest stars in the game and the greatest teams in the game… it just took us to a whole ‘nother level. It was such an easy decision for us to make.”
In the aftermath of securing the NBA license, Play by Play Studios largely went quiet on social media as it reworked The Run: Got Next to NBA The Run. The 3v3 online structure stayed in place, and the fictional streetballers the team created for its original vision remain in the game, but they’re now joined by some of the biggest stars in the modern NBA. The title is being overseen by creative director Mike Young, who worked for EA throughout much of the last 20 years, including serving as a creative director and writer on Madden and an artist on the NBA Street series.
Young brought that experience from the Street franchise forward, but don’t expect this to be just a modern version of NBA Street or even NBA Jam. “I wouldn’t say our game is like Street or Jam, but maybe we have the physicality of Jam, with the defense pushing under the basket and all that stuff,” he says. “Our tricks are about playing with flair, but they’re also about getting around people, whereas Street was kind of in place just doing cool tricks. We encourage players to risk it all and play for the crowd, and get people hyped up. We want to encourage people to pass it off the backboard to their teammate, and that person to maybe be able to pass out to a second alley ooper. Taking those big risks and having that pay off, and having it not just be about the score, but playing showmanship.”
Though Young wanted to draw inspiration from NBA Street and NBA Jam, it deviates from the formula in many ways. After all, those games came out in the era when couch co-op was king. Instead, Young and the rest of the team looked towards the playing habits of the average gamer this decade, as well as the less-successful attempts of their previous employer at attracting the casual audience to a more sim-based game.
“I was noticing while working on Madden every year, we tried to bring in a more casual sports fan that loved games, but it was very difficult: big barrier to entry, complicated controls, playcalling, all that stuff,” Young says. “But with Fortnite, I could have fun, play with friends, they could bring me along, and we could win, and it’s mostly because I’d be playing with my son. Those types of games allowed you to jump into something and play socially. […] We want to bring this type of experience for casual sports fans that just love hanging out with their buddies and having these quick experiences like in games like Fall Guys.”
With New York DJ Bob “Bobbito” Garcia, who was the voice of NBA Street: Vol. 2, joining NBA The Run, the nostalgia levels will run even hotter as these teams of three take the court. Unfortunately, if you’re like me, you might have been hoping for a single-player career mode like the one in the NBA Street series, but NBA The Run is a fully online title. However, thanks to rollback netcode and the ability to squad up with friends or join a matchmade team, it looks to recapture the excitement of balling with your friends in the now-legendary arcade-style hoops titles.