NBA THE RUN Hands-On Preview: The Best Streetball Game In Years Has One Major Problem

We made it to the Semi-Finals. It felt genuinely earned and then genuinely humbling when a group of other journalists and content creators proceeded to end our run like we'd never picked up a basketball in our lives. I played the recent preview event for NBA THE RUN alongside GameDaily co-writer Itiel Estudillo and Donovan from another outlet, and the three of us had a genuinely good time getting bounced from a 16-team bracket by people who were better at this than we were.

NBA THE RUN is a fast-paced, online 3v3 street basketball game from Play by Play Studios, officially licensed by the NBA and NBPA. It's coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Steam in June 2026. The people making it are veterans from NBA Street and Madden, among others, and that pedigree is not subtle once you start playing. This game knows exactly what it is trying to be. Whether it can sustain itself once it's out in the wild is a different, more complicated question, and I'll get to that.

Before anything else: if you want to try this yourself, a closed beta is happening this Friday, May 1, from 12:00 PM to 3:00 PM PDT on Steam. Sign-ups are open right now. Go do that and come back.

The Run the World Tournament: 16-Team Bracket, Wacky Rules Every Round

At the preview event, we played a version of the game's signature mode: the Run the World Tournament, a four-round knockout format where teams of three go head-to-head on iconic streetball courts spanning the globe. Win, advance, repeat - until you don't. At the preview we were dropped into a 16-team bracket against other journalists and content creators, and the format had a twist I didn't see coming: each round of the bracket comes with its own set of rules that makes things more interesting.

In one round, three-pointers only count as one point. In another, dunks are worth three. The specific modifiers rotate, and the result is that you can't just lock into one strategy and coast on it. The way you played the previous game might be exactly wrong for the next one. Our crew leaned into the dunk-scoring round, which worked well given my player choice.

It stopped working when the rules shifted and we hadn't adjusted fast enough. That's roughly how we ended up losing in the Semi-Finals. Each tournament ends with a championship game on one of four specially designated finals courts, where you're playing for the Run the World trophy and the kind of bragging rights that a screenshot of a W can provide.

Three Game Modes at Launch, Including One with AI

NBA THE RUN launches with three modes:

• Knockout Squads puts you on a squad of three where you control one player and fill the rest with friends or matchmade players.
• Knockout Solos lets you build and control your own team of three and go head-to-head against other players doing the same.
• Knockout Friends is a private tournament format - and this is the one worth noting for anyone concerned about the game's online-only nature, because it lets you play against AI, crew up with friends against AI, or set up matches against anyone you invite, up to 48 players at launch. It's not a full single-player mode, but it does mean the game isn't completely unplayable if you just want to get reps in without the full competitive queue.

Anthony Davis Is a Problem, LaMelo Runs the Show, Kevin Durant Does Kevin Durant Things

I went with Anthony Davis and I'd make the same call again, although it still feels weird seeing him sport a Wizards jersey. His size and rim presence translate directly into the game's above-the-rim rhythm, and with blocks and dunks coming naturally from his kit, he fits the streetball format better than I expected a big man to. Itiel ran LaMelo Ball, who plays exactly how you'd want him to - flashy, creative, a natural at finding teammates and keeping the ball moving in a way that made our squad feel more coordinated than we probably were. Donovan took Kevin Durant, who is unsurprisingly just very good at basketball in video game form as well.

The game's roster at launch includes 30+ NBA stars alongside 5 fictional streetball legends, each with different playstyles and each handcrafted and stylized individually. Play by Play has made a point of making every player feel genuinely distinct from the others rather than just slightly different stat packages on shared animations. The three we chose felt meaningfully different in the hands, and that tracks with how different Anthony Davis's post presence felt from what Itiel was doing with LaMelo running point. More playable pros are planned post-launch, which gives the roster room to grow.

The Shoving and Diving Mechanics Will Throw Off Your NBA 2K Muscle Memory

Here's something I did not expect to trip me up: the shoving mechanic and the diving mechanic. I've been deep in NBA 2K for years, and I haven't gone back to NBA Street Vol. 2 or NBA Ballers in a long time. Those games had a looseness to them, a physical expressiveness that 2K doesn't allow for. NBA THE RUN has that same looseness, and my muscle memory kept fighting it. You can shove opponents, which changes how you think about spacing - and I'm using to holding the right stick when defending in 2K, which leads me to shoving the air in THE RUN. Diving lets you go for loose balls or bait contact in ways that are just not part of the 2K gameplay. Defense here isn't a concession you make while waiting to get back on offense - thunderous blocks, big steals, and all-out physicality on the defensive end can get you just as hyped as a posterizing dunk, and the game rewards it accordingly.

Once the mechanics clicked, I started seeing the actual depth underneath. The game also lets you switch to a layup mid-dunk to avoid a block, and throw up a lob out of a spin move for a game-winning alley-oop. It's fast and fluid in a way that rewards reading the moment rather than executing set plays. If you're coming in from years of 2K, give yourself a couple of games to shed the habits. It's a good kind of adjustment, and the game lets you do some ridiculous moves that you can never even dream of doing in MyPLAYER.

Bobbito Garcia Is Back

Bobbito Garcia is on the mic, and if that name means something to you, you already know why it's worth calling out. He was the announcer for NBA Street Vol. 2, and his voice was inseparable from what made that game feel like a genuine place rather than just a sports title. There's a reason fans are still modding NBA Street Vol. 2 on GameCube in 2026 - the game had a soul, and Bobbito's commentary was a big part of that. Having him back in NBA THE RUN is not just a nostalgia play. It's a signal that Play by Play understands where the emotional center of a game like this actually lives.

The Tenement in Taguig Is in This Game

The courts in NBA THE RUN are drawn from real-world streetball locations: Venice Beach, Rucker Park in New York City, and more across the globe. But the one that hit differently for me is The Tenement in Taguig. If you've played ball in the Philippines at any level, you know the name. It's one of the most iconic outdoor courts in the country, a cramped, electric space where the game carries a specific kind of weight. Play by Play put it in alongside the courts that any NBA fan would expect. The Tenement is not an obvious inclusion for a globally licensed NBA game, and someone made a deliberate call to put it there. That's a great call seeing how big the NBA is in the Philippines.

The Online-First Nature Of The Game Is Still a Real Concern

I have to be honest, because the concern is real even accounting for the AI mode in Knockout Friends: NBA THE RUN as an online-first game. The game is built around multiplayer. If the community doesn't reach and maintain a critical mass, matchmaking thins out and the experience suffers in a way that no AI mode fully compensates for. Especially since its target audience are folks who played NBA Street and NBA Ballers probably at home with no online multiplayer involved, that's a big risk, and it's one the developers are asking players to absorb alongside them at launch.

To their credit, Play by Play has made the right calls on the monetization side. No microtransactions, and everything is unlockable through gameplay. In a live-service landscape where that sentence has basically become a luxury, it means something. New playable pros rolling out post-launch gives the community a reason to stay engaged over time.

But the history of online-multiplayer games is full of titles that were genuinely good and still couldn't sustain the player base they needed to survive. NBA THE RUN needs people to show up, and then stay. I had a legitimately great time at the preview event, and I'm genuinely looking forward to getting back on the court when the full servers open in June (and during the Playtest this weekend!) I just hope enough people find this one before it launches, because the experience here is only as good as the community keeping it running.

Play by Play, I'm rooting for you. In the meantime, sign up for the May 1 beta on Steam and help make some noise for this game. It deserves the attention.

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This story was originally published April 29, 2026 at 12:00 PM.