The last few years of NBA 2K releases have seen a vast improvement in the storytelling feature of the game. On top of those developments, the graphics and the various packages and modes you can unlock off the court have combined to turn the yearly release into the most popular and immersive basketball video game of all time. It’s all anyone is talking about a couple months before the real season tips off, except this year’s release was a little different.

Rather than focus more energy on the peripheral nuance that goes into providing context and realistic narratives around the game, the 2K developers spent more time on how it feels to play a game of basketball with a standard XBOX or PlayStation controller. Lucky for us, we got a chance to try out NBA 2K17 during a demonstration of the game in New York last week with senior developer Rob Jones.

The emphasis on gameplay this year is not to say previous iterations of NBA 2K didn’t already feature impressive achievements on the court, especially last year’s introductions of “freelance offense” for certain big-name teams who play a certain style: high picks involving Steph Curry and Draymond Green, low-post isolations for LeBron James, “Hammer” sets with the Spurs, etc. all included the various off-the-ball movements of a player’s teammates during those plays. The realism was real, but while these on-court improvements have given basketball junkies one more thing to nerd out about when they’re playing the game, there’s always room for improvement. For NBA 2K17, those ad hoc movements now borrow plays and actions from every NBA team, not just the most popular ones. There’s a lot more than that in the new release, too.

Steph Curry’s streak to begin the 2015-16 season — when the Warriors started 24-0 and Steph had locked up his second consecutive MVP in February — had been a problem. The simple version of what happened: his scorching shooting broke the game. Multiple times throughout our demo, when both Rob and myself were playing with the Knicks, the computer would have Steph pull up from 30-plus feet after a high screen and rip twine. Sure, there were a couple of misses, but with Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant drawing attention, you couldn’t do anything about it. This was a video game that felt like a video game, but mirrored real life. That might sound like a metaphysical head-scratcher, but that’s what happens when you’re attempting verisimilitude in the epoch of Steph.

This year, the on-court development isn’t limited to updated player ratings or Steph’s aforementioned outrageous range — that’s, ironically, a more realistic look at his shooting ability. No, NBA 2K17 is more about how well you can manipulate your player with the joystick. You’re not just moving your player into the general vicinity of the basket, but you’re actually controlling how they finish a play.

“One of the things that we started talking about was giving control back and really putting the measure of your success under your control,” Rob told us before we started to play. “Like, literally under your stick skill decisions that you’re actually making.”

Let’s get a little more granular as a way to explain. Back in NBA 2K7, they introduced signature jump shots. After that, every player got a signature attribute that was specific to their play. Only certain guys could do certain moves. I joked that they had to preprogrammed the 100 jab steps Carmelo Anthony does at the elbow before pulling up for his mid-range jumper.