Making realistic human faces in video games is hard. Doing so at the scale of 15 or so people for each of the NBA’s 30 teams is even harder. Still, NBA 2K21 developer Visual Concepts did it, almost. When fans booted up the game for the first time on launch day, they found something a little off about multi championship winning Golden State Warriors' small forward, Andrew Wiggins.
NBA 2K21 released yesterday, in both a Standard Edition and a Mamba Forever Edition honoring the late NBA all-star Kobe Bryant. The game has so far has been well-received, baring the controversial price hike the game will be receiving when it releases for PS5 and Xbox Series X later this year. The game looks great, as a game releasing right before the start of another generation of consoles releases should. Except for Andrew Wiggins, who has a decidedly last-gen looking facial feature.
When one sees him on the court in the game, perhaps they might not notice, but upon closer inspection Wiggins’ beard looks very unrealistic. This has led to dozens if not more tweets mocking his digital beard, with comments comparing it to a beard drawn with a felt-tip pen.
Developer Visual Concepts, publisher 2K, or victim to the low-res beard Andrew Wiggins have yet to comment on it on social media. There are a number of explanations of how the beard came to be, the simplest being that it was simply an oversight. Though it would be an odd one oversight, seeing as how Wiggins is a player on a team that has won 3 out of the last 5 NBA Championships.
When players have their faces scanned to be placed into a sports game, usually there is a lot of cleanup work that needs to be done by the developer’s 3D artists, particularly on the hair. Face scanning technology is not always capable of capturing individual 3D strands of hair. So it could be the developer just did not have time to get to it.
It could also just be a bug. Regardless, it will likely be fixed via a patch in the near future, hopefully before the Zion Williamson covered next-gen version comes out, where the bad beard will stand out even more among the improved graphics.
Until the issue of the blocky beard is fixed, hopefully fans can at least enjoy the rest of the game, perhaps while listening to current-gen cover athlete Damian Lillard’s two new songs that are exclusively in 2K21.
NBA 2K21 is available now on PC, PS4, Stadia, Switch, Xbox One, and mobile devices, followed by PS5 and Xbox Series X as the consoles launch.