ESPN NFL 2K5
2004 video game

ESPN NFL 2K5 is a 2004 American football video game developed by Visual Concepts and published by Global Star Software and Sega for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox. It is the sixth installment of Sega's NFL 2K series, and the last to use official National Football League licensing. Gameplay is presented as a live ESPN television broadcast and features the voices and digital likenesses of multiple ESPN on-air personalities.
The game was originally released on July 20, 2004. It was the last NFL 2K game to be released before Electronic Arts (EA) signed an exclusive rights agreement with the NFL to make 2K's rival Madden NFL series the only officially licensed NFL game. It was also the last game still being developed by Sega at the time.
ESPN NFL 2K5 received universal critical acclaim, with most critics praising the VIP system and the incorporation of the ESPN broadcast mechanics. It earned numerous end-of-year accolades and honors, and was nominated for several more. It has continued to earn praise retrospectively and is widely considered one of the greatest American football video games ever made.
Gameplay
The game features a franchise mode with a SportsCenter feature hosted by Chris Berman.
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This entry incorporates text from “ESPN NFL 2K5” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.