I love exactly two baseball games: Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball for the SNES, and Backyard Baseball ‘97. They came to me at an important time in my youth, when I was voracious for any sports game that included arcadey, approachable action and I still thought baseball was cool. In 2026, I’m happy to report that I have a great reason to find baseball cool again, and it’s the Backyard Baseball remake.
On the floor at PAX East 2026, I sat down for some brief hands-on time with its revamped Backyard Derby mode, where you have a limited amount of time to hit as many home runs as possible. Hitting dingers requires a little bit more work than the original game, though. Instead of simply swinging at the right time, you also need to line up an aiming reticle with a rapidly closing, sometimes moving target zone. It’s tricky at first, but I found it pretty intuitive after only a couple off pitches.
Getting a good hitting rhythm is only the beginning, of course. Good leaderboard-conquering performances come from hitting longer homers, which are worth more points. Hitting balls perfectly helps, even if the blink-and-you’ll miss it flashing signal doesn’t, but hitting several fence-clearing bombs in a row helps build momentum that adds a little buff to your swings, helping you build big scores. I fought my urge to glue myself to the chair on the show floor for the next several days in pursuit of perfection, but this easy-to-learn-and-hard-to-master formula was speaking to me in the same way I imagine Pete Rose’s bookie spoke to him.
There’s also another, more diabolical version of the Backyard Derby that was much more challenging. Instead of your normal fastball, curves, sliders, etc., the pitching robot threw balls that did gnarly things like change speed multiple times while traveling to home plate; take the longest, crazy straw-style path possible; or new takes on returning special pitches like the Big Freeze that turns the ball into an icecube mid-flight to throw your timing directly into the trash. Backyard Baseball might be filled with children, but it’s not strictly for children, if this spike in difficulty was any indication – a point Lindsay Barnett, CEO of publisher Playground Productions, made sure to call out when we chatted briefly about it. “Millennials that played the original are clearly a target for this game, so it’s important that we can provide a challenge appropriate for the 30- and 40-year-olds who’ve been gaming since.”
Other modes were promised, but besides the returning career mode, they remain under wraps for now. Though they were tight lipped on how the specifics of multiplayer will work in the final release, it is confirmed that this new Derby mode will be one of the ways to challenge your friends on the diamond. “We really plan to lean in on the competitive aspect in a way the series never did in the past.”
The modern 3D facelift looks great, but won’t change the gameplay, which is designed with an old school reverence in mind (simple, arcadey controls, no microtransactions, etc). Though inspired by the last 25 years of baseball games that have come since the last Backyard Baseball, the only notes developer Mega Cat has taken from a game like MLB The Show is in presentation and camera work. “With 3D, we can get cool shots of balls flying out of the stadium or better angles and animations of the kids in the outfield hustling for a catch and stuff like that,” Barnett said.
The limited selection of playable characters were straight from the old-school line up, but I chose to hit the plate with undisputed G.O.A.T. Pablo Sanchez, of course. The crew at Mega Cat didn’t get into specifics about who would make the final cut of the 30-kid roster, but the team promised lots of familiar faces from across the series. Most importantly, though, the charming, irreverent sense of humor that the old cast provided returns in the remake.
“There’s something special about that ‘90’s portrayal of school kids that the original Backyard Baseball got so right, and that we carry forward into this one,” Barnett told me as we reminisced about the kid-centric comedies of the past like Hey Arnold or The Sandlot. A former Chicago public school teacher herself, Barnett remembers her students being every bit as clever, funny, and capable as the little adult personas of those old-school shows.
Another important feature the original brought to the table that the remake plans to recapture is its effortless and effective levels of representation across all body types, level of able-bodiedness, and across cultures and races. For Barnett specifically, someone like Vicki Kawaguchi, a small but mighty baserunner and outfielder, was empowering for someone on the more diminutive size herself. An even bigger statement along those lines is made with her brother, Ken, who is wheelchair-bound but also head and shoulders the best pitcher in the game. I can’t wait to rekindle some more childhood memories when Backyard Baseball returns on Steam and consoles on July 9.
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