PGA Tour 2K25

Genre: Sports (Golf)

Players: 1-4 (Local Alternating), 2-20 (Online)

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Review:

WARNING: THIS GAME HEAVILY PUSHES MICROTRANSACTIONS

After Nintendo Switch received PGA Tour 2K21 in 2020, the Golf game series skipped Nintendo Switch with the next game in the series, PGA Tour 2K23, and it appeared that PGA Tour 2K25 would skip Nintendo platforms as well when it released in 2025 on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S with no Nintendo Switch or Switch 2 release in sight. Inexplicably, we wouldn’t see the game release on Nintendo Switch 2 until almost a full year later, in 2026.

Upon its initial release, it was reported that the Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game suffered from numerous bugs and crashes, and despite coming so late, it still sold for the same price as other versions at launch. In the time since, both of these major problems have been addressed – the game received a post-launch patch that stabilized the game and fixed issues, and a few months after launch the game received a discount to $40. So, how is the game on Nintendo Switch 2 now that its biggest problems have been addressed?

In terms of presentation, PGA Tour 2K25 looks good on Nintendo Switch 2, though perhaps not quite as good as one might hope. The grass textures look nice (though the fairway looks artificial), character models look good (though far from photo-realistic), and overall the courses look great, with some nice lighting effects (though the shadows are messy and low-resolution).

The sound overall is also nice, though you’ll quickly tire of the repetitive brass-heavy music between holes, and I found the spoken commentary to be incredibly inane, to the point where half the time they’re saying obvious stuff along the lines of “you don’t want to have a bad score, but having a good score would be better” (I’m paraphrasing, but it’s about that dumb).

When it comes to the gameplay, this game brings back the analog stick golf swing power/accuracy gameplay method, though it also adds a “3-click” method, which is misleading because the first actually has you holding the button for a measured amount of time. There’s no option for a traditional power/accuracy bar. That said, what’s here works well enough, though the game does a poor job conveying the consequence of a poorly-timed or poorly-executed shot.

That said, I have issues with the gameplay here, because it lacks multiple things other Golf games tend to have. There’s no clear way I can see to influence the ball’s spin mid-air, or to ensure it keeps rolling after the hit or stops in place. It still does these things sometimes, but the reason why is unclear – it’s not like the game shows me where on the ball I’m hitting. In addition, the game doesn’t indicate wind speed or direction, it just seems to automatically account for it.

In part because of these things, it feels impossible to consistently account for where the ball will ultimately end up after you hit it, even if you do so with perfectly-measured power and perfect accuracy. What’s more, putting inexplicably limits you to one use of its putt preview showing you the path the ball will take if you hit it with your current aim. This is not so big a deal if the hole is somewhat close or the terrain is relatively even, but the more distance and terrain irregularities there are on the green, the more unpredictable your pathing will be and the more this limited use will hurt you.

Despite these limitations, after I got a feel for the game I found myself pretty consistently getting birdies left and right. One part of this learning process involved the MyCareer (the game’s career mode) “Round length” option, which automatically skips most rounds of each golf game and just simulates what the game thinks you would have done. I was beyond frustrated that the game wasn’t letting me actually play and even had me getting bad scores in its “simulations” despite otherwise playing well in actual gameplay – thankfully, this option can be turned off.

While there are various other options and character customizations you can make here, the most noteworthy element I want to discuss is the course creator, which lets players custom-design and share courses with other players online, resulting in a potentially limitless selection of golf courses to play on. I found this course creator decent if a bit overly-complex, and menu navigation a bit stilted with brief loading times as you move through options or the courses auto-generate. Oh, on that note, the loading times in this game are a bit on the long side overall.

After all is said and done, PGA Tour 2K25 is far from a perfect Golf game, and it has numerous issues and omissions that make it less than ideal – the lack of information and control while hitting the ball, some poorly-explained elements and options, and the overall feeling that you can’t predict where the ball will end up even if you perfectly nail your shot. However, despite these issues, this is still a pretty satisfying Golf game, and certainly the best Simulation-style Golf game to appear on a Nintendo platform in a long while, if ever. If you enjoy your golf and want a game on your Nintendo Switch 2 that’s more realistic than Mario’s latest golf game, PGA Tour 2K25 should satisfy that craving.

tl;dr – PGA Tour 2K25 is a Simulation-style Golf game that delivers a solid game of golf… albeit with caveats. This game does a poor job conveying information to the player, and seems to provide them with fewer options when making their shot than most Golf games typically do. It also had multiple issues at launch, though most of those are now resolved. Overall, this is still a great game of Golf, but there are definitely numerous areas that could do with improvement.

Grade: B

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