MLB The Show 26 Review – Sacrifice Fly

Reviewed on:
PlayStation 5

Platform:
PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch

Publisher:
PlayStation Studios, MLB

Developer:
Sony Interactive Entertainment San Diego Studio

Most sports teams ebb and flow from season to season; a championship one year is often followed by a sharp downturn a few years later. However, some teams always seem to have a higher baseline of performance than others. For much of my life, my Orioles have floundered in mediocrity, with just a few standout years throughout the last few decades. Conversely, my least favorite team, the Yankees, haven’t had a losing season since the Super NES was the hottest console on the market. Similarly, fans of MLB The Show typically know that, even on a down year, they can expect a good game, which is exactly the case with MLB The Show 26.

As is usual, my best moments with MLB The Show 26 happened on the field. New batting and pitching options allow you to approach every at-bat how you want to from both the batter’s box and the mound; few feelings in gaming are matched by coming through for your team with a game-winning homerun or a clutch strikeout to get out of a jam. And the fluid fielding and baserunning controls have moved forward from MLB The Show 25. This is perhaps the best-playing sports game available today. Baseball is such a multifaceted sport, and I love how if something doesn’t feel right or you’re not a fan of playing certain aspects of a given game, you can easily tweak the feel or automation of those elements.

The excellent gameplay of MLB The Show 26 hits that baseline of quality; regardless of any changes made for better or worse, a mode can be buoyed by how good it feels to simply play through a game of baseball. Whether you want to enjoy a one-off exhibition game with live rosters or chart your own destiny with a more long-term mode, MLB The Show 26 offers a compelling suite of options.

I’ve always been drawn to the long-form modes since their proliferation in sports games. By expanding beyond just playing a single game, modern sports games allow you to forge your own emergent storylines and provide your own context amid the broader backdrop of history. MLB The Show has traditionally provided the best contextualization through its March to October mode, which plugged you into high-impact situations not only to determine how your team’s momentum would swing, but also help sow narrative seeds for the season. Sadly, March to October is no more in this year’s game, leaving Franchise feeling a bit more lifeless.

Instead, Franchise now offers highly customizable options for when you want to drop into a simulation. I love having full control over which scenarios I want to play through, and how early or late in the game it needs to be before it stops the simulation. However, the new interface is clunkier than that of March to October, and the whole mode feels much more sterile than its predecessor, even with the new trading hub. I enjoyed tracking league rumors before wheeling and dealing to try and bring my team the relief pitcher it desperately needed, but when that was over, I still missed the old format.

Road to the Show emerged as my favorite MLB The Show mode long ago, and that doesn’t change with this entry. The thrill of starting with a high school player and bringing them up through the minors and into the big leagues in an RPG-inspired mode never ceases to instill in me that “just one more game” feeling well into the night hours. And because you can level up your player by boosting their attributes, leveling up their situational perks, or using special equipment, you have a ton of ways to improve your player’s performance.

Much like last year, I was excited for the integration of the college path should you choose to wait longer to go pro, and also much like last year, I was disappointed. Though the college path is more robust than last year’s paltry offerings, I’m frustrated that you still skip years of your college career. I understand the desire to rush into the pro side of things, but if I choose to go to college, I want it to feel like a meaningful decision.

Outside of those multi-season modes, Diamond Dynasty is the other long-form offering, providing one of the better card-collection modes in any sports game. At a time when opening real packs of cards is as big a social-media phenomenon as ever, opening digital ones capitalizes on that excitement. Thanks to an impressive offering of sub-modes and an easy-to-use marketplace, I was able to build up my team to a satisfactory level without much frustration. However, there is frustration in how much great content is locked behind this microtransaction-driven mode.

If you want to play World Baseball Classic content, that is inexplicably housed in Diamond Dynasty. If you want to build a team of classic players, you can also primarily do that in Diamond Dynasty. NBA 2K allows you to play Franchise mode in entirely different eras, making the fact that other sports series lock classic players and teams behind card-collection modes unacceptable. And the fact that we just came off one of the most exciting and talked-about World Baseball Classic tournaments of all time, and you can’t just choose to play as those national teams – particularly when the WBC is so heavily featured in the marketing – is a monumental misstep.

The awesome Storylines mode rounds out the main offerings of MLB The Show 26, returning for its fourth season to highlight the underserved history of the Negro Leagues. Though this year’s players aren’t as iconic as the previous years, I somehow like that even more, as I was already familiar with the stories of players like Satchel Paige and Jackie Robinson, but far less so with Mule Suttles or Peanut Johnson. Learning about these players through short, objective-based gameplay chunks and informational videos is something I look forward to year after year.

The mode is so well done that I hope it continues to expand, offering these kinds of mini documentaries for other corners of baseball history. I’d love to hear a baseball historian talk about someone like Roberto Clemente as you play the greatest moments of his abbreviated career, or even themed Storylines like the homerun chase of ’98 or the historic Red Sox ALCS comeback of 2004. You can experience some historical content through the Moments mode, but it remains rigid and lacking in true context, creating a less memorable mode than Storylines.

Much like a consistently winning sports team, MLB The Show 26 didn’t change things too dramatically, but this entry almost feels like a soft-rebuilding year; so while many of these changes may elevate the overall package in future games, they aren’t quite there yet. But much like those perennial contenders, even when it’s not the best the franchise has looked, MLB The Show 26 is once again lined up for another winning season.