NBA 2K20 Commemorates Kobe Bryant With In-Game Tribute

On Sunday, January 26, Basketball player Kobe Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash. As tributes continue to go up 2K Games is using its NBA 2K series to honor the basketball player as well. An update has gone live that makes it so that when players start up NBA 2K20, they’ll be greeted with a somber memorial to Kobe Bryant. It’s a simple black and white photo of Bryant, his name, and the years 1978 - 2020. Bryant was a cover athlete for NBA 2K10 and has been a playable player for even longer. It’s unknown for how long the tribute will appear upon start-up, but fans are welcoming the tribute online. Elsewhere in NBA 2K20, fans are hosting their own tributes to Bryant. In the online social spaces for NBA 2K20, players are wearing Bryant’s Lakers gear and gathering around the space as if in a virtual vigil.

Will sit here all day till they release kobe gear #ripkobe #NBA2K20 #XboxShare pic.twitter.com/Ur4uaR7mZS

— NADE XT (@NadeGrinds) January 26, 2020

On January 26, Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna Maria, seven other individuals including the pilot, were killed in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, Los Angeles. The group was on the way to a youth basketball practice in Thousand Oaks. Bryant, a former professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers, retired in 2016. The Lakers retired Bryant’s number 8 and 24 jerseys. Since then there has been an outpour of tributes from fellow NBA players. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Kim is a reporter for IGN. You can reach him on Twitter.  (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images)