NBA 2K17 is the newest game in the popular NBA2K series. While it's hardly any surprise that this is on the cards – a new NBA 2K game comes out every year – it's nevertheless one that has fans very excited and that in fact everyone should keep an eye on. And now we have a release date, September 2016, we can start to really get excited for it! Why We're Excited The NBA2K series is much loved by gamers and sports fans alike. While such a long running series is always going to get its fair share of complaints and criticisms – especially when there isn't that much variety from one year to the next – the general consensus was that NBA 2K16 was one of the very best entries yet. And in fact, it is widely regarded as one of the best sports games of all time. That's a pretty tough act to follow but with continual iterations and improvements coming each year, there's no reason to think this new version won't deliver on its promises. And at the very least, we can hope to see a major graphical overhaul. This has always been a pretty series, but this year we've seen some absolutely stunning titles with the likes of Uncharted 4 and with Mankind Divided and Watch Dogs 2 on the way. Let's see a similar level of polish come to our favorite NBA series now that the Xbox 360 and PS3 are finally being left behind. What We Hope to See Right at this very moment we don't have a lot of memorable details about the upcoming NBA 2K17, so let's instead take a look at some of the things we're expecting and some of the things we're hoping for in the next installment: 2K Collection Rewards - At the moment we're just getting ‘balls' for rewards, which is hardly all that exciting! We're putting in all that work, we need to feel like we're actually getting rewarded for that effort!

My Team Weekly Challenges – The My Team Weekly Challenges have started to become pretty samey and dull. For 2K17, we'd love to see some more inventiveness and variety here. Better Commentary: The interactions in the commentary are great fun but occasionally they do go wrong and come in at the wrong time. It's not a major gripe but polishing this would only improve the game further. Better AI – Last year saw a BIG AI update and that was one of the things that was widely praised. We'd love to see that happen again – each time the AI gets better it drastically improves the strategy. If nothing else, changes in the AI force players to use new tactics – and that keeps the games fresh. Rank Matchups in My Team – We need rank match ups for My Team and that should come with rankings and leaderboards. This would help keep things fairer and make matches a lot more fun for pretty much everyone! Storyline – The My Career story used to have great cut scenes that were actually pretty entertaining and created a bit more context and excitement for your games. Locker Codes – They were great before but we'd like to see more timed ones with some decent rewards. More MT – It was practically impossible to earn MT last year, would be good if we could see that fixed! Dynamic Cards – The Dynamic Cards were a great feature in 2K16 and brought all the fun of collecting cards to the game. But with that said, it would be great to have them updated frequently to stay up-to-date and relevant! The Dunk Contest – This was awesome and we have no idea why they got rid of it last year. So yeah, we'd love to see this come back! More Flexibility Spectating – It would be cool to gain more control over the camera when spectating. Friends in Pro M – We should have the ability to play friends and not have to play complete strangers! Saving Camera Angles – We shouldn't have to fiddle with this every time we start a new match! Better Pre-Order Bonuses – The My Team Michael Jordan card that pre-orders received last year was pretty lame and was practically useless a year in. We'd like to see something a little more exciting this time around! We just received word that NBA2k17 will be including a small set of 2k17 locker codes enabled for pre-orders only! Be sure to pre-order the game here on the NBA2k website. More Modes – We don't just want to see the existing modes upgraded, it would be great to see some entirely new modes and types of gameplay introduced! Graphical Upgrade – As mentioned, we'd love to see some real next-gen graphics to make the whole experience even more realistic.

Conclusions And there you have it – plenty of reasons to be getting super excited about September this year. We'll keep you posted as we get more news but until then, it might pay to book some sick leave for a couple of months' time!