You do not need a bleeding-edge PCIe 4.0 drive. However, moving from a mechanical hard drive to even a cheap SATA SSD reduces the "Livin' Da Dream" loading times by 60%. Because NBA 2K16 streams texture data constantly during free throws and inbound passes, an HDD causes the famous "stutter step" lag. An SSD completely eliminates this.
Over the course of the NBA 2015-2016 season, 2K released numerous roster updates, gameplay tuning patches, and bug fixes. While roster updates are small, the major title updates (addressing issues from the launch window) added extra data to the game’s archives. If you are downloading a "Game of the Year" style edition or simply installing the game today, you are downloading the fully patched version, which sits slightly heavier on your hard drive than the day-one disc version. nba 2k16 pc storage
NBA 2K16 requires contiguous free space. On an HDD, fragmentation can cause false errors. Run Defragment and Optimize Drives. On an SSD, this error indicates your Windows paging file is eating reserved space. You do not need a bleeding-edge PCIe 4
If you install the game from a physical disc or an early digital copy, you will need additional space for patches. Cumulative updates added roughly to the total footprint, primarily updating roster data, fixing the infamous "MyPLAYER" progression glitches, and updating shoe models. An SSD completely eliminates this
The most shocking revelation for players in 2015 was that NBA 2K16 required a staggering just for the base installation. To put that into perspective, that was larger than Grand Theft Auto V at the time of its PC release.