As I take the field in Vanderbilt’s iconic gold, I know the pressure is on. Scouts are watching, and this is my shot to fly up their draft boards. I take my place at third base, locked in and ready. There’s a runner on first, one away, as the pitcher deals from the mound. The batter jumps on the first-pitch fastball; the loud ping of his metal bat pierces the air. The ball rockets up the third-base line, far too fast for me to get a glove on. As the left-fielder chases the ball in the corner, the runner from first is passing second. I take my position, lined up between the left-fielder and catcher. The runner rounds third as the outfielder launches the ball. I cut it off, turn, and take aim at the catcher’s glove just past the runner and fire…
It’s these high drama moments that stood out when GameSpot was invited to visit Sony’s San Diego studio to meet with the team behind MLB The Show 25. While there, we were treated to a deep dive and hands-on time with all the new additions coming to the latest iteration of the long-running baseball sim. With fresh gameplay wrinkles, new single- and multiplayer options for Diamond Dynasty, revamped free agency, and more, there’s a lot happening on and off the field. Let’s play ball.
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On the diamond
This year’s updates begin on the field. Ambush hitting brings yet another real-world strategic element to batting. As Chris Gill–Gameplay Director at Sony Diego and a former pro ball player in the Cincinnati Reds’ system–describes, good hitters take advantage of scouting and observing tendencies, adjusting to sit on certain pitches. In game, that translates to optionally focusing on pitches inside or outside of the center of the plate. The side you focus on gets a bump to the size of both your good contact area and timing window, while the side you don’t choose is shrunk. That means a pitcher with a go-to finisher (like my favorite, a fastball up and in) may want to try another strategy against a hitter who has experienced their MO. Conversely, if a pitcher has been pounding the inside of the plate, they might be able to surprise the batter with an unexpected pitch away. It’s the sort of cat-and-mouse game that makes an at-bat feel like a contest of strategy as much as stick skill.
Defense is seeing its own slate of updates. According to Gill, the goal was to make defense matter more. Last year, the focus was on how outfielders react to balls in the air. This year, the focus is on infielders and their start transitions. They’ve long had a stat to determine reaction speed, but often the true difference between a mediocre and great defender is in the first step. Are they fast and smooth, going right to where they need to be? Or do they hesitate, stutter-step, and lose crucial fractions of seconds? It can be the difference between a play looking routine for one fielder and hard or impossible for another–potentially turning a would-be out into a hit. That, in turn, opens up the possibility of building a team around preventing runs, rather than just loading a lineup with power bats.
When playing as one specific ballplayer, like in Road to the Show, you will now find even more quick-time events to simulate key moments in the game. Impact plays like a ball in the dirt with runners on base give catchers a chance to be the hero or let the game slip through their fingers, while corner infielders now have to contend with cleanly fielding hard-hit line drives or properly cutting off throws. One new addition that could prove to be a big difference-maker is the swim move for baserunners. Close plays when you are diving for a base now trigger a small opportunity to reach out with one hand, then quickly pull it back to avoid the tag and slide in safely, Fernando Tatis Jr.-style. It looks slick in action, though it isn’t clear yet how often it will come up, or how difficult it will be to pull off at harder difficulties.
Return of the Negro Leagues
One of The Show’s signature features is Storylines mode, featuring the Negro Leagues. Equal parts mini-documentary and gameplay challenge, this mode features Bob Kendrick, charismatic president of the Negro Leagues museum, regaling players with stories of legends and athletes from the past.
Ramon Russell is the Director in charge of Storylines, and he tells us this year the headliners are James “Cool Papa” Bell and Wilbur “Bullet Joe” Rogan. Bell is famously one of–if not the– fastest player to ever play pro ball. Rogan, meanwhile, was Shohei Ohtani before there was a Shohei Ohtani, mixing elite pitching with a dynamite bat. Cool Papa Bell and Bullet Joe Rogan are some of the biggest stars from the Negro Leagues, and Ramon tells us that, as in previous seasons of the Negro Leagues, the intention is to mix in the most famous players people know, with the great players that they should. The full roster this year will be eight players, with a few available at launch, more added two weeks later, and the rest added two weeks after that.
As before, each player will have vignettes narrated by Kendrick mixed with gameplay of key moments from their careers. What we saw looked as fascinating and exciting as the last two iterations, and the appeal of leaning more and more into the history of baseball is easy to see. More era-accurate uniforms, equipment, stadiums, and crowds continue to enhance the authenticity of the mode. According to Russell, sometimes the dev team can obtain the actual equipment to recreate it in-game. Other times, they need to do a lot of research, studying faded or colorless photographs , flyers, and even bobbleheads to get the details just right.
Franchise focus
Baseball has one of the densest offseasons in sports, with sprawling farm systems, layered rules around player finances and team control, and a very, very long draft. While last year’s game focused a lot on scouting and the draft, this year, Free Agency is a big emphasis. Whereas the previous iterations of The Show involved day after day of going through your list of needs, now you highlight three targets on your Big Board to pursue. The idea is to create scenarios like we see in MLB, where the Juan Soto sweepstakes dominates the early going, and teams determine whether they are in on it or pivoting straight to plan B.
All teams aren’t equal in MLB, and it will take more than just making offers to attract a free agent. That’s represented in Motivation, a stat that reflects how interested a player is in signing with you. Factors like competition at a player’s position can decrease their motivation, while playing for a contender can increase it. Your three targets are ranked first, second, or third in priority. They will increase in Motivation each week, with larger gains going to the higher-priority players. Once they are above 50%, you can offer them a contract. You could wait until their motivation is even higher, which gives you a better chance to win the free-agent sweepstakes at a lower cost, but that runs the risk of another team scooping them up in the meantime. You also need to be thoughtful not to come in with a lowball offer that could offend a player, and suppress their Motivation quickly.
Obviously, your team won’t be the only one looking to load up on talent, and that’s where the rumors come into play. You’ll get some idea through the grapevine about who other teams might be looking at, and it’s up to you to decide if you trust the information and whether you’ll act on it. Is a big market team in the hunt for your free agent? Maybe it’s time to cut your losses and devote those resources elsewhere. Is your division rival making a push to bring in a star? It might be time to go all in and lock that player down for yourself.
Player value is getting a rebalance, too, which will affect both contracts and trades. A greater emphasis on defense comes with a higher value placed on great defenders. Meanwhile, true unicorns, like Shohei Ohtani, now command the record-setting deals and franchise-altering trade compensation reflected in reality. Similarly, elite players who reach free agency will reset the market for other players at their position, altering the deals that others are willing to take. The idea is to get the GM and player logic to more closely match the economics of baseball, bringing the simulation more in line with reality.
Diamond Dynasty
I will freely admit that the live-service focused Diamond Dynasty is far and away where I spend most of my time in MLB The Show. The introduction of the Sets and Seasons model, in which cards are available in some Diamond Dynasty modes for a fixed amount of time before becoming unusable for ranked play in favor of newly added cards, is something I have never been a fan of. That’s why, like many DD aficionados, I was glad when it was announced that Sets and Seasons were going away, and cards no longer came with an expiration date. That doesn’t mean they are simply rolling Diamond Dynasty back to an earlier form, as popular programs to earn cards over the last few years will remain, which will hopefully mean a happy middle ground between cards expiring and good rosters taking too long to build.
Diamond Quest is a new single-player experience somewhat adjacent to Conquest. While Conquest functions like a mix of baseball and a strategy board game like Risk, Diamond Quest is more in the vein of a deck builder/roguelite. Each run puts you on a board with a fixed shape, and a roll of a die sends you across to tiles that can randomly contain perks that make games easier, penalties that make them harder, and gameplay challenges like three-inning games or brief sink-or-swim “Gameplay Moments.” Boss battles offer a mix of risk and reward; winning can net you prizes like card packs, while losing will end your run, forcing you to restart with reshuffled tiles.
The ultimate goal is to get to the Stadium(s) on the board and win one final battle to have a shot at collecting one of the Exclusive Chance rewards. Playing at higher difficulties gives you a better chance at the top rewards, but you can also replay the map as much as you want in hopes of getting lucky with your drops. Over time, new maps will be added with different rewards, and some will have certain themes, requiring you to construct specific lineups. Examples given were an all-righties team or a cap on power hitters, which can lead to some interesting team builds.
Weekend Classic, meanwhile, is the new bite-sized competitive mode. Unlike Ranked Seasons, which unfold over multiple weeks, these contests play out over a few days. The idea is to create a faster experience anyone can jump into without necessarily being an all-in competitive player. Teams play six games, matchmade based on their rating, with better rewards for winning more games. After those six are over, you are put into a 100-team leaderboard that’ss also matched based on skill, giving you a chance to improve your standing and earn even more rewards. Ideally, that will give hardcore competitive players another event to circle on their calendars, and provide people who don’t traditionally play head-to-head an on-ramp to dip their toes in with a lower commitment. As always, it will depend a lot on how well balanced the PvP matches are, but it’s an interesting idea.
On the road again
The biggest change to Road to the Show (RTTS) is the addition of amateur baseball. According to Steve Merka, the Game Director for RTTS, your career now begins in high school, where you have a chance to showcase your talents and earn a place in one of eight different college programs, including LSU, TCU, and Texas. The attention to detail is very apparent when you see it in action, from each set of faithfully recreated uniforms up to the distinct PING of the aluminum bat squaring up a baseball. Merka tells us there are two tracks you can follow to reach your MLB dream. You can forego college, and work your way from the bottom up in the minors, or you can focus on developing your talents in college, try to win a championship, and aim to be the first pick in the draft.
Player progression is seeing a bit of an overhaul, as well. Previously, attribute increases were tied directly to your performance in games or related drills. You had to hit for power to become a better power hitter, and you had to steal bases to be better on the basepaths. Now, it’s shifting toward a token system, allowing you to invest upgrades in any attribute you want. You can also unlock permanent perks for performing in clutch moments, like adding to your exit velocity on batter balls in certain counts. I do have a little concern that progression will feel less like a baseball sim and more like an RPG, but I’m optimistic it will be worth it if I can take a player who excels at hitting for contact, for example, and invest the effort into turning them into a power bat.
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The one addition I’m not quite sold on is the optional first-person camera. At a touch of a button, you can switch from the standard third-person angle to a view from the eyes of your player. It’s quick and easy, which I appreciate, but any time I tried to field that way, it became much, much harder to see what was happening and get in front of the ball. More options are certainly a good thing, though it remains to be seen if this is an immersive new mechanic, or a largely superfluous gimmick.
Overall, the latest edition of MLB The Show is bringing a lot of new things to the table. Between new gameplay features, brand-new modes, and another chapter in the excellent Negro Leagues Storylines, it’s clear that this team is looking to take big swings. As for how many of those hit? We’ll have to wait a few more days to find out.
MLB The Show 25 releases on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch on March 18.
