The Gravity Ball minigame introduced in NBA 2K25 called for a complete departure from traditional basketball court design. This mode isn’t just about scoring—it's about navigating dynamic, vertical, and often chaotic environments. The concept art phase focused on reimagining space as a gameplay tool, blending fantasy with competitive mechanics.
A defining trait of Gravity Ball is its multi-level design. Verticality wasn’t just visual—it changed how players approached positioning, passing, and defense. The environments had to:
Support vertical traversal without overwhelming players unfamiliar with 3D movement.
Provide clearly tiered structures—lower zones for control, mid-layers for traversal, and upper areas for power plays.
Include jump pads, ramps, and wall-runnable surfaces to promote fluid movement.
Concept art often explored layering gameplay space like an arena shooter, with chokepoints, sightlines, and flanking routes—recontextualized for basketball.
Concept art by Tony Weinstock
The core challenge in designing environments for Gravity Ball was balancing whimsy and functionality. Designers wanted each court to feel imaginative and playful, but still serve the needs of fast-paced, team-based competition. This meant asking key questions:
How can the space encourage vertical movement?
What kind of surfaces or structures could support wall-based traversal?
How can the environment communicate key play areas without overwhelming the player visually?
There was a consistent emphasis on readability, flow, and visual hierarchy, even in the most abstract environments.
Concept art by Tony Weinstock
The core challenge in designing environments for Gravity Ball was balancing whimsy and functionality. Designers wanted each court to feel imaginative and playful, but still serve the needs of fast-paced, team-based competition. This meant asking key questions:
How can the space encourage vertical movement?
What kind of surfaces or structures could support wall-based traversal?
How can the environment communicate key play areas without overwhelming the player visually?
There was a consistent emphasis on readability, flow, and visual hierarchy, even in the most abstract environments.
Concept art by Tony Weinstock
Walls played a dual role: movement utility and tactical element. From the start, designers asked, “What if walls weren’t just boundaries, but tools?”
Explorations included:
Wall-running surfaces that could be chained into jumps or passes.
Semi-transparent shields used to temporarily block shots or protect while charging up.
Breakable walls or floors that responded to player impact or power-ups.
This added a layer of spatial manipulation uncommon in sports games and pushed the environments closer to hybrid platformer/arena design.
Concept art by Tony Weinstock
Concept art by Tony Weinstock
The environment design for Gravity Ball was a playful but intentional exploration of how far a sports game could go when unshackled from realism. The process revolved around:
Experimenting with nontraditional spatial layouts
Reworking how players interact with the court
Ensuring visual clarity in a chaotic, vertical space
Concept art served as a sandbox for testing these ideas—balancing imagination with playability, and style with structure.
All Gravity Ball Arena concept art created by Tony Weinstock