Cap Breakers in NBA 2K25, explained

C-C-Cap Breaker!

LeBron James with his back turned in a white Los Angeles Lakers jersey in NBA 2K25
Screenshot by Dot Esports

NBA 2K25 is shaking up a lot of the known core mechanics with the addition of new features that are opening up entirely new opportunities for players. Cap Breakers can aid your MyPLAYER immensely if taken into account during player creation.

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What are Cap Breakers in NBA 2K25

Cap Breakers can increase your MyPLAYER’s attributes beyond the cap you allocated to these attributes in the character creation screen. Cap Breakers cannot and do not increase attributes above the hard caps set by your player’s position, height, weight, and wingspan.

Each Cap Breaker raises the attribute cap by one level, but it does not raise the level itself. You still have to use VC to complete the upgrade. Furthermore, there is a maximum limit of +5 increase to a single attribute cap. You can’t use Cap Breakers to bump an attribute capped at 90 all the way up to 99.

For example, if you built a tall, strong center, and he has a hard cap of 70 agility, you can’t use Cap Breakers to increase his agility above 70. You can, however, set the soft cap to 65 while creating the build and then use Cap Breakers to boost his agility cap to 70 later on. If you set the soft cap lower than 65, it won’t be possible to reach the maximum of 70 that your build allows.

Cap Breakers work very similarly to Badge Elevators, another new feature that could dramatically improve your fortunes, although the former are much more useful on your first build, while Badge Elevators usually thrive the most on subsequent MyPLAYERs.

NBA 2K25 promo art, featuring Victor Wembenyama staring ahead while fans cheer in the background.
Your MyPLAYER’s position, height, weight, and wingspan determines your attributes’ hard cap. Image via 2K Games

How to get Cap Breakers in NBA 2K25

You can’t buy Cap Breakers. They can only be acquired by playing the game and playing it well. Cap Breakers are rewards for upgrading your Affiliation Level, which can only be done by accumulating REP, which in turn is awarded for playing in various online game modes.

You can get a total of 15 Cap Breakers, spread out in three separate packs of five. Each pack of five Cap Breakers is the reward for reaching a specific Affiliation level, namely Starter 3, Veteran 2, and Legend 1. This means you don’t win any Cap Breakers until you’ve leveled up eight times, from Rookie 1 to Starter 3. Then you need four levels for the second and four more for the third batch of Cap Breakers.

Unfortunately, players who don’t like engaging in online play are essentially locked out of Cap Breakers, as there’s no way to earn REP offline. You shouldn’t be too disheartened by this, however. Cap Breakers are far from necessary in offline MyCAREER, especially if you already have the best jumpshots in NBA 2K25 at your disposal.

Author
Image of Kiril Stoilov
Kiril Stoilov
Dot Esports general gaming writer. Loves writing, games, and writing about games. Began working in the industry in 2018 with esports.com, before moving to earlygame.com, and later joining the Dot Esports staff. Though a single player gamer at heart, he can be seen noobing around CS:GO lobbies.