TopSpin 2K25 Review – Game, Set, Match

In the video gaming world, Tennis has a rather strange place in history. The sport has dipped in and out of the medium, taking different forms along the way. In the ancient times, we had the primitive-but-still-fun Pong, and as gaming hardware evolved, so did adaptations of the sport. We’ve seen a mix of simulation-styled tennis titles, as well as more arcade-y takes on the sport, ranging from the classic Top Spin and Virtua Tennis games, to the Mario Tennis series. The last few years, however, have been surprisingly disappointing when it came to adapting the sport for modern gaming sensibilities, and we haven’t really seen much outside of the AO Tennis and Mario Tennis franchises.

With the release of TopSpin 2K25, however, Take-Two Interactive seems to be dead set on expanding its offerings in the world of sport games. The title, developed by Hangar 13, is a revival of sorts of the classic Top Spin franchise, and as such, focuses more on the simulation side of things.

The gameplay in TopSpin 2K25 isn’t particularly complicated; you take part in either singles or doubles tennis matches, pick your athlete, and duke it out on the court of your choice. Things get more complex once you start diving deeper into the mechanics. Since there’s an emphasis on offering some level of simulation, the surface of your chosen tennis court will have an effect on the different shots you can play. And even the shots themselves have plenty of tactical options, depending on whether you want to hit hard or with precision.

"TopSpin 2K25 gives you five different shot types to use, depending on what button you press, and these range from simple fast shots, spin shots, slices, and a lob."

TopSpin 2K25 does a fantastic job of being an excellent casual game. You don’t really have to do much more than hitting the right shot button at the right time while you’re standing at the right place to start having fun. From a newcomer’s perspective, a typical tennis match in the game actually tends to bear a striking resemblance to the constant tug-and-pull format of a fighting game. Like in Street Fighter, both you and your opponent are often looking for openings to use fancier shot types like the eponymous top spin or the lob, and will often try and use positioning to try and bait the other player into the wrong position.

TopSpin 2K25 gives you five different shot types to use, depending on what button you press, and these range from simple fast shots, spin shots, slices, and a lob. Coupled with these shot types are two more modifiers that trigger depending on exactly when you hit the button; aimed shot and power shot. Press the button with more precise timings and you get a precision shot headed to exactly where you want, while holding the button down for longer before the ball gets to you gets you a faster power shot.

Playing TopSpin 2K25 in general exhibitions tends to be an incredibly fun time, and even just playing with the AI on progressively harder difficulties can be plenty of fun. However, as you start climbing up the ranks and facing harder opponents, some of the control scheme’s more frustrating aspects tend to show up. Since both precision shots and power shots are bound by how long you pressed the button, it gets really difficult to actually use the kind of shot you might have wanted. The game also has a strange tendency to sometimes ignore what you’re trying to do, and your chosen tennis star will sometimes just give up on a shot that they could have easily made.

"As you start climbing up the ranks and facing harder opponents, some of the control scheme’s more frustrating aspects tend to show up."

These issues tend to put a damper on trying to play TopSpin 2K25 with any amount of seriousness. For more casual play, however, TopSpin 2K25 easily takes the cake over its contemporaries. The only true tennis game that can really hold a candle to the amount of fun offered up by TopSpin 2K25 might be Mario Tennis Aces, and even that’s largely because the latter tends to have crazier gameplay. Pure tennis aficionados will have trouble finding anything better out there.

When it comes to game modes, TopSpin 2K25 comes with the usual modes you might expect: singles, doubles, a tutorial mode, the MyPlayer career mode, and an online mode. Of these, MyPlayer is the mode with the most meat to it when it comes to sheer amount of content. The mode has you create your very own tennis player who is kicking off their career, first by taking part in more local events before eventually hopping into major events like the Australian Open to go toe to toe with legends in the sport. The mode offers up a fair bit of variety by mixing in different training sessions and special events—each with unique victory conditions and modifiers—before letting you hop into proper matches. Along the way, your created tennis player will get experience to level up, allowing you to raise your various stats in an RPG-inspired system.

The MyCareer mode doesn’t really have much of a narrative to string you along from event to event. Unlike the MyRise mode in the WWE 2K games, MyCareer in TopSpin 2K25 is strictly there for players who love the sport. You won’t really be finding absurd storylines, or even something akin to a sports movie like you would in the F1 games.

"The MyCareer mode doesn’t really have much of a narrative to string you along from event to event."

The tutorial mode, dubbed the TopSpin Academy, is also a fantastic addition to TopSpin 2K25. The mode basically teaches you just about every gameplay mechanic there is in the game, all with the narration and guidance of tennis legend John McEnroe. The tutorial is split up into basic, intermediate, and advanced techniques, and even shows you gameplay videos of the techniques you’re meant to be learning throughout the mode.

Of course, all of the fun in playing TopSpin 2K25 comes across thanks in large part to the split-second accuracy afforded by the game running at a stable frame rate of 60FPS. While playing the title on the PS5, I never experienced any hitches to the frame rates, and inputs were never dropped. The flip side of the smooth frame rate is that TopSpin 2K25 isn’t exactly the prettiest sports game out there. That isn’t to say that it’s ugly by any stretch; it just doesn’t have the visual fidelity that is often associated with sports titles like Take-Two’s own NBA 2K and WWE 2K series. The models of the athletes feel rather flat, and while animations are phenomenal throughout, some of the finer details of the tennis stars you’re playing as, like free-flowing hair, aren’t really there.

All in all, TopSpin 2K25 feels like a rather return to the world of Tennis for Take-Two. While higher-level play tends to offer plenty of frustration, especially in how some of the controls are laid out, more casual players and tennis fans will find plenty to love. The game features a fantastic roster with a decent mix of legends and current players, as well as the ability to create your very own tennis superstar. Who doesn’t want to go toe-to-toe with legends in the sport like Roger Federer, Maria Sharapova, or Serena Williams, after all? All of this is paired with a career mode that, while a bit dull since it doesn’t really have a story to follow, is at least filled with quite a bit of content.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.