Dbltap Logo

NBA 2K22 Next Gen Black Screen Joining Friends Issue: How to Fix

By Ralston Dacanay

For those looking to spend less time on the endless loading screen and join up with their friends in the City, here's what you can do.
For those looking to spend less time on the endless loading screen and join up with their friends in the City, here's what you can do. / Photo courtesy of Ralston Dacanay, 2K

Ever since the Sept. 17 New Gen Patch 1.4 for NBA 2K22 on Next Gen, the game has been suffering from some major server instability issues, especially in MyCareer.

One such issue has been the black screen loading hang that prevents players from joining their friends' parks in the City. For those experiencing loading times much longer than should be expected of a premium next gen title, here's what you can do.

NBA 2K22 Next Gen Black Screen Joining Friends Issue: How to Fix

At the time of writing, it seems that the issue mainly arises for those who play NBA 2K22 Next Gen on Xbox Series X|S.

For some reason, ever since the aforementioned Sept. 17 patch, those on Xbox Series S who try to join their friends' parks — who also play on Xbox Series S — more often than not end up in an endless black loading screen.

Meanwhile, those on Xbox Series X seem to have no problem joining everyone else.

When this happens, it appears the only way to get out of it is by simply closing the app and restarting the game. Several of my Xbox Series S friends also tried restarting their consoles and accepting the invite, but to no avail.

While there appears to be no official fix out for this bug at the moment, there do appear to be some workarounds popping up on the r/NBA2K Subreddit.

One has been to join your friend through the Xbox Party Chat/Friend List. This one was worked for me several times in previous days. It still takes about up to 30 seconds to load overall, and it does fail to work sometimes, however.

The other method seems to be simply repeatedly loading into new cities until you match up with your friends on the same server.

Needless to say, along with the endless amounts of players unexpectedly getting kicked out of park and Rec games, this is an issue that 2K needs to address ASAP.

For more on NBA 2K, feel free to check out our guides on the Limitless Spot-Up and Chef Badges, as well as your weekly Gatorade workouts.

Home/Top Games