PGA Tour 2K25: A Decade’s Best Golf Game Tainted by Greedy Tactics

I’ve always had a soft spot for digital golf. It’s a passion that runs deep enough for me to have a Golden Tee arcade machine right in my living room. Growing up, EA’s Tiger Woods games were my go-to comfort games, perfect for unwinding. Now, as an adult with a set of neglected golf clubs collecting dust in my garage—thanks to life’s relentless busyness—I’ve come to realize that a good golf simulation could fill this void in my life quite comfortably.

Given a little room in my gaming roster, I turned my eyes to the freshly minted PGA Tour 2K25. My previous experience with 2K’s initial dive into golf sims was decent, so I decided to give it another whirl, especially curious to see the evolution over the years compared to its EA counterparts. With a pang of excitement, I logged into Steam and splurged on the Premium Edition for that sweet early access. My initial impressions were all shades of positive.

While some years have passed since my hands last gripped a controller for the 2021 edition, the enhancements in the 2025 version were immediately apparent. It’s refined, with a slick and user-friendly interface that makes getting into gameplay a breeze. I’m particularly fond of the assists system, reminiscent of the ones in racing games like Forza Motorsport. It expertly balances a true-to-life golf sim experience with the fast-paced fun of arcade gameplay.

In essence, if you’re into arcade-style games harking back to those golden days of the PS2 Tiger Woods titles, this will suit your created character in career mode just fine. You gain 100% of Experience with every round, but here’s the kicker: the more assists you turn off, the more EXP you rack up beyond the standard rate.

The analogy to racing games is spot on. For instance, in Forza, I don’t rely much on the racing line, so turning it off scores me extra EXP. Similarly, in PGA Tour 2K25, I trust my ability to drive the ball, so I disable assists for crosswinds and errors in swinging. However, my putting is another story—I switch on all assists once it’s time to hit the green.

After adjusting my settings, I aimed for a 120% EXP gain above the norm, knowing full well that more seasoned players could milk even more from these tweaks.

Experience points (EXP) bear significance in this game, unlocking rewards and leveling up your golfer, which in turn earns you currency for equipment and other in-game luxuries. The gameplay remains enjoyable with the right amount of assists, though you can always dial up the difficulty for a more punishing, realistic outing if you’re in that mood.

This design aligns perfectly with the game’s career mode, where you’re not obligated to play through every single hole in a round. Default settings might have you manually tackle only four or five of them, while AI fills in the rest, easing you back into the groove. But for purists eager to savor every stroke, that option is just a menu away. Besides your time on the course, career mode offers diversions like training mini-games, press conferences, and player rivalries.

These elements capture the essence of what I cherished in older golf games. They blend sports simulation with genuine fun. Golf is an accessible sport—grab some borrowed clubs and couple of friends, and off you go. The thrill of virtual golf, at least for me, is the chance to emulate a high-level pro career, offering a relaxing retreat, rather than stressing me out like my real-life experiences sometimes do.

Yet, despite the charm, a weighty problem weighs down on PGA 2K25. For all its accessible to hardcore golf joy, there’s a troubling undercurrent that becomes glaringly obvious, especially after the game’s first update.

Here’s the catch: advancing your ‘myPLAYER’—your customized golfing avatar—is closely tied to a currency that can be earned through gameplay or, inevitably, bought outright. Eager for new clubs? That will cost you VC. Want fresh attire? More VC. Leveling up your golfer? You guessed it, VC again!

This setup isn’t unheard of—many games require you to earn and spend currency for progress. It’s somewhat similar to RPG experience points. Sure, selling this currency for real money might feel iffy, but it’s not new. However, 2K has taken this to another level.

As soon as the PGA 2K25 was released to early access, a small but influential change was made after committed fans had already logged time, adjusting the VC earning rate significantly. When the full game launched, a quiet update further shifted the economy, drastically reducing the reasonable VC gain present in the pre-release version.

In response, fans took to Reddit, calculating that the hours needed to reach level 99 rose from an already considerable 92 to a staggering 214. The VC cost for leveling up and acquiring essential tools shot up by 60% or more. Progression wasn’t exactly swift to start, but 2K seemed to deem it too rapid, deciding to pull the cash-grabbing levers not even a week into the release, akin to Augustus diving headfirst into a chocolate river.

Although I wasn’t heavily invested in the PGA 2K community, even I noticed the stark difference in earnings, prompting a dive into Reddit, unveiling the grim reality. Steam reviews have turned scathing; “greedy” is a word that reappears often, but “predatory” captures it best. From my perspective, it’s downright “disgusting.” I could use other, stronger words for the masterminds behind this scheme, but I’ll leave that to your imagination.

I was genuinely pleased with PGA Tour 2K25 initially, but this brewing storm swiftly doused my enthusiasm. My former trivial gripes about slow menus and flashy pop-ups pale against this greedy character progression system, akin to tactics found in free-to-play mobile games, where online competitiveness grinds to a halt unless… you open your wallet again. When progression now feels agonizingly slow, clearly aiming to squeeze more from players through microtransactions, my emotional investment wanes.

Frankly, this blatant behavior might fly in free-to-play gacha games, but here it’s a farce. Many shelled out over a hundred pounds for this. Even the standard edition is a hefty sixty quid. It’s a hard pill to swallow, overshadowing what is otherwise an outstanding golf simulator—the finest in a decade, in my opinion. Sadly, just like me missing putt after putt for a double bogey after driving the green, 2K crafted something splendid yet squandered it in the end. What a crying shame.