We’re in the homestretch of MLB The Show 24‘s pre-release schedule. The game goes into early access a week from now, so details have been trickling out more and more.
There were extra eyes on the feature premiere this week from offline players. MLB The Show’s core single-player modes, franchise and Road to the Show, have long been due for significant upgrades. There’s a passionate community that isn’t shy with feedback, so seeing what SDS cooks up each year for franchise and Road to the Show is always something to keep an eye on.
Franchise, Road to the Show, and presentation were the big topics this week. We got some additional tidbits pertaining to other areas of the game that we’ll cover as well.
MLB The Show 24 Franchise Mode
As a formerly franchise-exclusive player, I’ve avoided the mode for the last several years because it lacks depth and true innovation. SDS has slowly been tweaking areas of the mode, but overall we just haven’t seen many significant leaps in depth or features.
Unfortunately, that’s the case again in MLB The Show 24. The usual tweaks and adjustments were discussed, but beyond that there’s nothing revolutionary.
One new addition is the ability to set parameters for simulation in franchise. You can set various conditions that end your simulation and throw you into the heat of battle. Situational importance and inning choices are the major conditions that can be set. Situations will simply be if runners are in scoring position or other elements of that nature. You can also choose a range of innings that you’re interested in playing. Feasibly, you can trim down every game in franchise to a 3-inning game and play through the entire season that way if you desire.
We’ll also have the ability to enable/disable Player Highlight Moments, which might drop you in with runners in scoring position late in the game or give you the chance to finish a no-hitter.
It was revealed that SDS intends on supporting franchise with post-launch updates similar to last year. This was a marked change with some additions that might have previously been saved for a following release making their way into the game. No details were given on what these future updates could possibly be, but it’s still refreshing to know that franchise can see notable changes post-launch.
The annual tradition of “improved logic” continues with undrafted and unsigned players being called out specifically. Injured players also have improved logic, with this potentially affecting prospect draft stock in the Amateur Draft. The Prospect Promotion Incentive also makes its way into the game this year. This is the real-life MLB rule change that rewards teams for promoting prospects that end up performing well. This is a pretty big deal for those that want their franchises to mirror real-life as much as possible.
A few final details included awards appearing on player cards. This is a cool little visual addition that simply adds a sense of weight to players. There will also be a roster with real-life, updated injuries that can be loaded up when starting a franchise.
Road To The Show
The first major detail we learned about Road to the Show is that created players will not be usable in Diamond Dynasty this year. While this feature premiere was focused on offline modes, this is a major change affecting online DD. CAPs have long been dreaded by many in the online community for obvious reasons. Being able to max out a CAP’s attributes was one thing, but having to face submarine pitchers with 103 MPH fastballs and 69 MPH off-speed simply wasn’t fun.
Road to the Show and Diamond Dynasty are completely separate modes this year, which might bode well for future titles. If more focus is spent on the modes individually and not trying to tie them together, maybe some significant leaps will be made.
The big focus in RTTS this year is obviously the addition of female ballplayers for the first time. There’s a unique narrative for female ballplayers that can be played out with dynamic storytelling involved. There’s no specific storyline for male ballplayers this year, but overall the mode functions the same regardless of your ballplayer’s gender.
We’ll see new hairstyles and hair physics this year as well. This has been noticeable in the limited gameplay we’ve seen so far. Hair looks to be more volumetric with weight and bounce, which will certainly help on the graphical side of things. We also got a close look at updated player models and face scans, with the results being pretty positive. One big knock every year is that MLB The Show doesn’t ever seem to take a giant leap visually — something that was among its calling cards when we first came to next-gen consoles with PS3. Hair and hair physics are relatively small details that can go a long way.
There’s promise of new names and nicknames being recorded as well as new MLB Network personalities and integration for added realism and narrative depth.
The Draft Combine is also in the game this year. This acts as a “placement” of sorts for RTTS players, as you’ll participate in scout showcases as well as full games. Your performance will dictate your draft stock, which is dynamic and fluctuates with said performance. This will be visually represented in the game so you’ll be able to see how MLB organizations feel about you.
We learned about it previously, but there was a bit more discussion on defense and quick-time events on tough plays. This adds an extra layer of realism and difficulty, forcing you to display some legitimate stick skills to pull off flashy plays.
Presentation
A considerable focus was put on separating the feel of MiLB games from MLB games. There will be exclusive MiLB commentary, providing two separate commentary groups to separate the leagues.
An obvious addition is the new dialogue related to female ballplayers. SDS had to spend a ton of time recording lines to make female ballplayers feel organic. There’s also added focus on crowd sounds and reactions to bring a more realistic atmosphere to stadiums. On that note, there have been new stadium and team-specific sounds added for that extra layer of real-life flair.
We didn’t get a number but did get confirmation that more stadium exterior shots have been included. It was stated that SDS will continue working on this, meaning we still don’t have all current stadiums integrated with this feature yet. Stadium wise, there’s also new jumbotrons and other in-stadium additions to bring the virtual stadiums to life.
There’s also a “crowd sign” system in place that actually sounds pretty cool. It’s a dynamic system that can pull player names from the entire game, dropping signs into the crowd. Who knows what variety of signs we’ll see, but the fact that signs can dynamically pull player names in every game is neat. This also includes created players.
Finally, it was confirmed that there’s four era-specific themes included as well. With two different Storylines themes this year, there should be a pretty good set of themes to choose from.
Other Notables
At the beginning of the feature premiere, a few tidbits were discussed.
Regarding Diamond Dynasty, they again reiterated the seasonal structure change in DD this year. SDS really wants to capture the “new game” feel with the launch of each season. It was also stated that we can expect a big change in variety between the launch of each season and the final weeks.
The next major DD information will come during next week’s feature premiere leading into early access for the midnight launch.
MLB The Show 24 will be available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch on March 19. Available for pre-order now. Select pre-orders include Early Access beginning on March 15.
