The biggest downer about MLB The Show‘s transition to next-gen consoles last year had to do with the loss of some classic legacy features that made The Show unique. With year-to-year saves and Sounds of the Show both being left on last-gen consoles, it meant some franchise users got hosed. Coming into this year, there was a hope that year-to-year saves would return in some capacity. I don’t think anyone reasonably expected to be able to port saves from MLB The Show 20 to MLB The Show 22, but there was a hope that MLB The Show 21 saves would begin to transfer, and we would move them now to MLB The Show 22. It appears this will not be the case.
MLB The Show 22 Missing Elements
Year To Year Saves Are Important For Several Reasons
Without Sounds of the Show and year-to-year saves, we’re still hoping for major franchise upgrades this year, but it’s harder to get excited about theoretical franchise mode improvements when you know you’re not getting back elements you previously loved. We can continue to use Sounds of the Show on PS4 consoles only, so this portion does seem to be more on the console makers than SDS, but year-to-year saves being out hurts. It may only be a small portion of the users who use year-to-year saves — albeit it’s probably much larger than the group who uses Sounds of the Show — but it hurts the community content as well.
We have some great roster makers who are simply sticking with MLB The Show 20 and creating stuff there rather than moving to next-gen consoles and making fresh content on new consoles. Again, it’s maybe a small drop in the bucket, but it does hurt the general aura that surrounds a series that for years staked itself on being for the consumer in some really logical ways. Bringing back year-to-year saves, being on Game Pass, and tying it with the fact that Diamond Dynasty is the least offensive card-collecting mode when it comes to microtransactions would easily make MLB The Show the most consumer friendly major sports game out there.
From a PR and even marketing standpoint, this triumvirate would be an easy way to sell people on sticking with the game every year, and it would appeal to just about all facets of the player base as well. Again, I don’t think this move was ever made out of malice, and I’m sure there are developmental or technical priorities that put this out of scope for whatever reasons, but it’s going to keep getting asked every year. You don’t have a feature in a game for a whole generation and then pull it out without it becoming a talking point every year.
Created Stadiums Won’t Transfer Year To Year Either
The other thing that came out of the FAQ today that stings a bit relates to created stadiums. The Stadium Creator was arguably the biggest addition to MLB The Show 21, and many of these stadiums take a ton of time to create. However, we will not have access to the stadiums from year to year like we do logos and so forth.
My best guess is due to the size of the stadiums and the number of assets included — plus the fact that new assets were probably added to the creator for ’22 — means these files were just too big a hassle to include in the normal Vault. How you accessed the Vault in ’21 was already different from the other “share” features, so maybe that was the hint it would not work like other elements and transfer year to year. I can imagine if you tried to take an “old” stadium from ’21 and then import it into the ’22 creator, a mismatch of assets or different resolutions on certain assets could create a mess.
Either way, again, what made The Show so great was that it was unique in that we didn’t need to make rosters, logos, etc. every season on a new console because the Vault carried things over. Having to make stadiums every year will be fun for some folks, but there’s no question it will be a hassle for others. The concept of the Vault is that we should always be growing the amount of user-generated content so we’re always making The Show deeper, and that is impacted here.
Bottom Line
Cross progression, cross play, cross saves and so on are all great things. The Show being on Xbox consoles and the Switch now is fantastic because as many people as possible should be able to play this series. That being said, as much as we’re now connecting one console to the next, the next step now is for game developers to make sure every year does not serve as a reset of our time.
If game companies want to keep folks buying sports games every season, it’s one thing to now keep the audiences large and cross pollinating with things like cross play. But to truly avoid the stigma of being “just a roster update” — or perhaps even embracing it in a way — is to now make sure community content and old single-player saves can go from game to game.
If we now live in a future where everyone can play with everyone, it’s now time for everyone to be able to use everything they already created before.
