The second MLB The Show 23 Feature Premiere was revealed earlier today, offering a more in-depth look at gameplay. With the Tech Test starting tomorrow it’s the perfect time to dig in.
Fielding has been to improved thanks to more efficient and quicker animations. The team also rebalanced the start transitions so players will see a ton of noticeable variations. Players will see 100’s of new and improved animations when robbing foul balls, catching or missing hot shots, fielding and throwing urgency, first base pick and stretch, diving and more.
The button throw accuracy meter has also made some improvements since most users felt it was too easy to hit the green sweet spot. This year that green section moves. To make things more realistic the outfield throw accuracy meter was also updated and it works in button or analog throwing. It’s based off the difficulty and distance of the throw. For those that aren’t aware, the green area on the meter is tied to the arm accuracy attribute. Another cool addition is the force throws to first in the yellow area of the meter. If you hit the yellow instead of the green, it will be totally up to the first baseman fielding attribute to make that dig.
There are four new Quirks in MLB The Show 23 and the team decided to remove all of the passive quirks since there were just too many of them.
A complete change was made to the clutch attribute making it more meaningful. They wanted to highlight the players that tend to make impactful hits or pitches in crucial situations. On the hitting side with runners in scoring position clutch is a direct replacement for contact. For pitchers, pitching clutch replaces hits per 9 with RISP.
On screen displays have received some love as well. Pitcher and batter overlays will highlight ratings and active perks. By hitting left on the D-Pad users can bring up Statcast which updates throughout the game based on situation with additional information.
The swing analysis has also been completely revamped along with the PCI placement. There’s a lot of other gameplay details including plenty of changes to the competitive mode gameplay style. Players will now be able to strike players out more instead of watching foul ball after foul ball. If you’re pitching well, you deserve to get the outs. No more seeing batters get a piece of the ball out and away with bad swing timing to keep at bats going. It was very frustrating, but not anymore.
What about rule changes? Well, the newly implemented MLB defensive shift rules are in and the team will watch the spring training games and adjust as needed. The pick off rule change is not implemented in the game because there would ultimately be too many balks.
Watch the embedded Feature Premiere at the beginning of this article for more details and let us know your thoughts!
MLB The Show 23 will release on March 28 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch. It’s also coming to Xbox Game Pass for the third consecutive year on Day One. For those of you getting either of the Collector’s Editions, you will get four days of early access starting on March 24.
