It’s been a little over two years since HB Studios released their first golf title after the addition of 2K. Many players feared that the introduction of 2K would lead to a plague of microtransactions, but luckily that wasn’t the case with PGA Tour 2K21. Unfortunately, things are different with PGA Tour 2K23. The game is designed so that anyone who drops money can gain an advantage, especially early in the game. Fortunately, the project also has some positive aspects.
First and foremost is the new user interface in this version. It has been completely redesigned for the better. The location of some menu options is debatable, but overall it makes sense. The menus are just as responsive in the PC version as in the previous one, with the exception of the companies, which are incredibly slow and remind us of the previous game’s console version. On PlayStation 5, the menus are much faster than before and generate less frustration.
While PlayStation had some advantages in 2K21, this time the game seems more balanced across platforms. The Xbox version doesn’t appear to be that different than before, and its players have also pointed out that swinging a plane, which was a major disadvantage for them, is easier to execute in 2K23. There are still some tweaks that could be made, but hopefully they can be fixed in a future patch.
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On the golf course one can say that the game is impeccable. Everything feels a little better than its predecessor, and that’s partly because the difficulty makes it more rewarding to get a good shot. Just like a good shot on the real golf course (or so we’re told…).
The graphics and the sound have undergone some adjustments and improvements without being revolutionary. The new commentator talks where they give a lot of information about the actual courses are great to listen to when we play the course for the first few times but then gets a bit repetitive. We decided to turn off the commentators in the middle of our second season in career mode, but we highly recommend turning them on during season one. The sounds of golf clubs hitting balls are better than ever and you can easily tell the difference between hitting a Cobra driver and a Mizuno driver, again like in real life.
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Career mode also has some additions that we welcome with open arms. The ability to swap some of the courses for other official courses during the season makes it less boring to play multiple seasons as we are not forced to play the same courses over and over again. Some tournaments don’t offer exchangeable fields, but most are the big tournaments that we want to play anyway.
But the career mode isn’t the key to the game. Ever since The Golf Club returned in 2014 and brought in Greg Norman’s course designers, the title has thrived largely on the community creating their own courses, and this continues to be a huge factor in 2K23. Thousands of courses have already been transferred from the previous game, and more are to come, both transferred courses and new ones. This makes it possible to play on new courses practically every day. Some are good, some are bad, some are great, and some are just a meme, but mostly the community creates playable courses that we’ll enjoy.
HB Studios golf saga has always been known for being the best pure simulation games and it has always been the Canadian company’s desire for the user to grow as a player simply by playing again and again. They’ve strayed a bit from that philosophy in 2K21 by adding attributes to the various golf clubs, and this time they’re going even further. Adding attributes to each racket, ball, and character allows you to create a more unique experience based on your playstyle. Microtransactions also appear here.
The cost (virtual currency) of adding improvements to the golf clubs is there, but we must also open the virtual wallet to buy golf balls that will help us enormously on the course. For example, golf ball attributes can be purchased that allow the ball to fly longer in the air and roll less time on the green. We hope these attributes will be more balanced in the future, but for now they’re a huge asset on the golf course. Money can be made by playing, but since golf balls are consumable, we need to buy new ones faster than cash if we want to stay competitive.
Luckily, you don’t have to be competitive to enjoy PGA Tour 2K23. Depending on our preferences, there are options to play from the simplest settings to extreme levels. Playing golf with friends is always fun and the new Top Golf mode has also been introduced.
The downside is that this mode is more of a gimmick than anything else. Actually, Top Golf is a “party game mode” in which we often meet our friends for a drink while hitting targets placed at different distances in many different game modes. Unfortunately, there is only one mode in this game and it gets boring after a while. At the time of writing, not even leaderboards are available. It was announced that they will arrive in the future, but for now all we can do is remember our best score and compare ourselves to our friends. This mode had a lot of potential and we were really looking forward to it, so it’s really sad that it’s so disappointing.
A very successful part of the proposal, which many fans of the famous Tiger Woods games appreciate, is the opportunity to play like a pro. You can choose one of 14 pros including Tiger Woods himself, Justin Thomas, Lexi Thompson, Brooke Hendersen, Lydia Ko, Collin Morikawa and Xander Schauffele. Thanks to 2K’s natural connection with the NBA, some basketball players like Michael Jordan and Stephen Curry are also available. Unfortunately, players like Rory McIlroy and Viktor Hovland are missing from this lineup, both as playable pros and as names on the leaderboards during the Career Event. This makes us wonder if we can expect anything later.
Another thing that many players have been asking about is the 3-click swing for those who cannot rotate the joystick in a straight line for various reasons. HB Studios has added a new 3-click shot method instead of the traditional method we know from previous golf games. It may seem easier to use, but we assure you that it will take some getting used to and that it will demand just as much as the analogue swing.
2K has shown us in both the NBA and WWE that they are very good at character customization, but unfortunately the PGA series still lags behind in this regard. We can unlock or buy a series of outfits, but the changes to the base character are limited. For some strange reason you can’t even adjust the weight (!), only the height. We’re having a hard time understanding why this setting disappeared from the last game. The lack of opportunities to change our character to our liking makes it difficult to develop a personal relationship with him, which we think would have made the proposal even more enjoyable.
PGA Tour 2K23 is an improvement over the previous game, that’s for sure. And we can categorically say that if you like golf games, it’s worth the investment. When it comes to rating, this review will be lower than the previous game, but it’s actually a better game, although disappointing in several ways where they could have done a lot more. And yes, microtransactions are a major shortcoming for us. As we said in the last HB Studios release, this is the best golf game out there, see you next time.
