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Once known as The Golf Club series, 2K took over and rebranded as PGA Tour 2K back in 2021. The series has since released a new entry every other year that has gradually improved upon its predecessor, with the gameplay always being the standout feature. Fans have not had to wait quite as long this time, though, as the wait has only been about a year and a half for the newly released PGA Tour 2K25.

Straight Shooter

Developers HB Studios and 2K Sports have done a fantastic job building a strong foundation, so your experience feels just about as realistic as it can on the golf course without actually stepping foot on a real one. This is done through a mix of fantastic visuals and true-to-life gameplay that emulates real swings and putts throughout, the latter two of which can be done in one of two ways.

Like in the last entry, players have two swing options to choose between: Swing Stick and 3-Click Swing. The Swing Stick is the more traditional approach where you move the right analog stick backward and then push it forward as straight as possible. This is an option that I never really found myself enjoying in the past, which is why I was very happy to see the 3-Click Swing option get added in 2K23. With 3-Click Swing, you do just as it sounds like you would. You start by holding X down to fill a circular meter and then let go at just the right time for a max power shot based on your projected distance. Then, press X again two more times at specific spots to represent the swing path and club face angle right afterward to complete the 3-Click Swing. As someone who also prefers meter pitching in MLB The Show, this fits right at home for me and felt very natural. However, the game is built well for either style except for one area that will be discussed later.

Beyond the two control schemes, PGA Tour 2K25 implemented something new called EvoSwing. This new technology is meant to add additional layers of realism to every swing by playing off your player’s rhythm. This works together with your inputs to create perfect swings. For instance, when using the 3-Click Swing, you have to hold down X after the final click and then wait for a circular meter to fill and let go at the right time for perfect rhythm. Sometimes, this can be a detriment if you’re just missing the sweet spot on swings, but it can really help when you’re right on target. Once again, this felt similar to the timing mechanics in MLB The Show with hitting, with your goal trying to be to get a perfect each time. However, sometimes you may want to go for a 101% overswing to get a little more distance, so you have to acclimate to how that will affect the overall swing as well.

The playable golfer roster in PGA Tour 2K25 is pretty on par with PGA Tour 2K23, with one less golfer available in the base game. Tiger Woods was the big get in that game, and he returns once again this year alongside Tony Finau, Matt Fitzpatrick, Brooke Henderson, Lydia Ko, Collin Morikawa, Justin Thomas, and Will Zalatoris. In addition, this year’s game has added Max Homa, Tom Kim, and Rose Zhang as professional golfers. Also, the game has a very cool addition as DLC or in the Deluxe version of the game where you can play as Christopher McDonald, aka Shooter McGavin from the golf film classic, Happy Gilmore. If only we could have gotten Adam Sandler, too, it would have been even better, but it’s still fun to see in the game. While the roster of golfers may seem low and missing a lot of star power once again, the main focus in the game is always on the MyPlayer, and typically, you are only seeing the other golfers on the leaderboard or in quick gameplay segments if it’s a rivalry matchup.

Similar to golfers, PGA Tour 2K25 brings back a majority of the courses from 2K23 by offering more than 25 licensed courses at launch, with plans for more coming as free DLC down the road. Most importantly, three Major Championships are in the game for the very first time the U.S. Open Championship, The Open Championship, and the PGA Championship, which are located at Oakmont Country Club, Royal Portrush Golf Club, and Quail Hollow Club, respectively. Seeing all of these courses with even more improved visuals this year is a real sight and adds a lot to the overall experience. On top of the aforementioned future DLC, the possibilities for courses are near endless, with what people continue to come up with through the game’s course creator. This is never something I find myself diving into too much, but I greatly appreciate seeing what others build for me to try out in the game.

As always, PGA Tour 2K25 is very much built around the MyCareer experience. Within MyCareer, you can create a MyPlayer through a quick experience where you use already existing options or you can choose to take your time and go through the full customization experience. The good news is that you can start with the quick option just to get into the game and play and then go back to edit your golfer more thoroughly at a later time.

When creating a MyPlayer, you have the option between five different archetypes that decide not only your golfer’s ratings in each statistic, such as Power, Contact, Correction, and such but also what special skill they will have access to when they reach 85 OVR. The five archetypes include the putting-focused Greenskeeper, the distance-focused Powerhouse, the contact-focused Technician, the ball flight artist Sculptor, and the escape artist Magician. You have to be sure about your archetype before creating your golfer, though, as you cannot edit this like, unlike the appearance of your MyPlayer.

From the start, your MyPlayer has a very low rating that you have to work to improve upon by using a mix of AP and VC. Your player is given a set amount of AP (Attribute Points) at the start, and this is the maximum number of stats you will be able to increase for your golfer in My Player. When applying an AP to your golfer, it will increase one stat but also lower the potential of an opposite attribute, unfortunately. This would be great if that were it, but microtransactions have to come into play with the VC (Virtual Currency). For every AP you use on a stat, you have to spend a certain amount of VC that increases over time, meaning you either have to grind out playing to earn VC in the game, which is pretty minimal most of the time, or buy VC to use instead.

Thankfully, the player’s Attribute Skill Tree is not impacted by VC, where you earn SP (Skill Points) to use in various categories like Tee, Recovery, and Green. Within each, there are Core Skills and then Proficiency Skills that build off of the larger nodes in the skill tree. These SP can be spent in any way you like, with the only limitation being you have to reach certain OVR levels to get to certain paths on the skill tree. The only VC impact here is the ability to respec your skill points for 500 VC, but otherwise, you can place these as you wish without much worry.

Not only do you have your MyPlayer’s stats to worry about, but also the setup of your golf bag. In PGA Tour 2K25, you can earn equipment upgrades to better your club sets and golf ball attributes by earning XP. Each club can be upgraded through Fittings that go in slots that unlock the more you progress in level. These will each give you increases based on specific stats that help to upgrade your club. The Evo option at the end of the path for the club allows you to use a certain number of LVL Up Tokens to then have the option to use an Evo-Tool to evolve the club to the next level, with each subsequent level requiring even more LVL Up Tokens to evolve further. This is a cool idea, but it does get a little too convoluted with all of the clubs in your bag to where you have to really decide where to upgrade and where to leave it as is most of the time. The golf bag upgrades also play into microtransactions as well, with you being able to purchase limited amounts of LVL Up Tokens and Evo-Tools in the in-game shop each week by spending VC. However, you can earn these naturally by completing quests and the purchasable ones are pretty limited overall to where they don’t feel as predatory as they could.

As always, you have some options to choose from at the start of your MyCareer for where you want to start. The four options here are Q-School, Korn Ferry Tour, Korn Ferry Tour Championship, and PGA Tour. This allows you to choose how hard of a road you want to tackle. For veterans of the series or golf games in general, you may want to jump straight ahead to PGA Tour, while newer players may want to take another approach.

After you make it to the PGA Tour, whether you start there or get promoted there, you will get extra options to do between tournaments. Training is one of these, which can reward you with attributes and XP rate boosts for the next tournament. You are given different Training options to choose from each week with varying objectives, including making a certain number under par, under a certain number of points in numerous activities, and plenty of others. Another is the Pre-Tournaments events, where you can do promotional content for sponsors, participate in tournament-specific events, and even just try out the course in advance to prepare. These can always be skipped as well, but I found myself trying to do as much as I could each week to better my golfer.

PGA Tour 2K25 has a few important settings that can greatly affect your experience. Rather than just a straight-up difficulty level for the player, the game has a User Sim Difficulty setting that comes into play when simming events on top of the regular swing difficulty and such. Opponent difficulty can also be altered, which means how hard it is to make the cut in events as well. The difficulty of conditions is also an option that can really make an impact on an event.

As you play through your MyCareer, your Personality will change, which also can affect your public Popularity. The Personality trait is split into three types: Bold, Composed, and Reserved, which can change depending on how you communicate in conversations throughout your MyCareer. You have to make sure not to skip interviews or conversations, as you can find your Personality type becoming unknown. After sticking to the same Personality type for three weeks, it will then start to help you get a popularity boost while performing better, as you will earn more fans.

During your MyCareer, you will get challenged by Rivals to matchups, but once again, it feels undercooked like it did in the last iteration. It would be cool if there was much more to this rivalry system that builds up, but instead, they are just general challenges that you take on here and there instead of longstanding rivalries that matter. I was really hoping this is something that would be drastically improved on this year, but it’s pretty much the same as it was before.

Besides the Training, Pre-Tournament, and Tournament itself, there isn’t much to do each week besides an occasional interview session. This is a problem carried over from previous entries where things feel a bit too bare-bones in some areas. However, the gameplay is just so good that it helps to keep your mind off of it while playing and being ready to move to the next competition with little to do in between.

Those who want to take their talents online can do so through a few different options in PGA Tour 2K25. These include Ranked Matchmaking, 2K Ranked Tours, and Online Societies. Ranked Matchmaking is as basic as it sounds, where you can match up with random other players online easily. The major downside here, though, is that you are limited at this time to the Swing Stick style of gameplay. For someone like me who almost strictly uses a 3-Click style otherwise, this is a major disappointment and forces you to change the way you play when the entire rest of the game lets you do one or the other.

2K Ranked Tours are a different form of online competition, as the matches are not directly head-to-head online. Rather, you are competing in a leaderboard sense almost against others online by how well you do in the weekly matches that work in tandem with the usage of Seasons in the game. The only downside to 2K Ranked Tours is that you have to spend VC to enter any of these tournaments, which you likely would rather be using to improve your MyPlayer. Online Societies are the way for you to link up with friends online for more than just friendly matches here and there, which is also an option in the game but can be set in a more competition-friendly mode. Brand new this year with Societies too, is the ability to do crossplay, which is also available in regular online matches as before again this year. No longer limiting players to specific consoles with Societies is a huge step for allowing the growth of the game even further as the franchise moves forward.

While we’re not quite at a hole-in-one or eagle quality, 2K once again builds upon their previous outings to be in birdie territory with PGA Tour 2K25. The gameplay is phenomenal yet again by providing about as realistic representations of the sport as you’ll find in gaming, but the downside is that what surrounds it is still rather bare bones and has a very sluggish menu to navigate when doing so. Even with a few major flaws, the true-to-life gameplay that is even further enhanced via the EvoSwing system makes up for the issues to provide players with yet another fun golfing simulator in PGA Tour 2K25.

Score: 8/10

Pros:

• The gameplay is as realistic as ever.
• New Evoswing rhythm-based system makes an impact.
• Addition of three Majors for the first time.
• Crossplay with Societies.

Cons:

• Not much to do besides the golfing itself.
• MyPlayer progression system is still tied to VC.
• Slow menus.

PGA Tour 2K25 was provided by the publisher. You can read MP1st’s review and scoring policy right here.