San Diego Studio’s MLB The Show franchise is often regarded as one of the better annualized sports sim franchises, and for good reason. The series authentically captures the ballpark atmosphere, the thrill of cracking a home run, and the challenge of going toe-to-toe with some of the league’s best hitters. The latest entry, MLB The Show 24, is far from a revolution, but is another great baseball sim with meaningful changes to its core modes.

Her story

First among MLB The Show 24’s big changes is the ability to play as a woman in Road to the Show, the game’s career mode. You’re given the choice between male or female when starting your career, and there are distinctly different narratives depending on which you choose. The woman ballplayer has a close friend (also a woman) who also gets invited to the MLB Combine. Your stories intertwine as you both set out to make MLB history.

Playing as a woman, you’ll hear commentators use proper she/her pronouns as you make plays and characters will often comment on your unique path to the league during cutscenes. I thought it was dope that MLB The Show 24 offers a large batch of feminine names that the commentators will actually say out loud during gameplay.

Outside of the narrative flair, playing as a woman in Road to the Show is identical to the traditional experience. That said, the decision to put more spotlight on the narrative (in the case of the female player) really highlights how outdated MLB The Show’s non-baseball technology is. Character models are stiff and unarticulated, every conversation is deeply awkward, and the sports show segments are incredibly generic as they’re designed to apply to everyone who plays the game. This can also be said about the male storyline, but there’s noticeably less story content overall when playing as a male player.

The message matters

Last year’s game introduced The Negro Leagues, a mode that spotlighted the lives and careers of Black baseball players during a time when professional baseball was segregated. It was one of the best addition in a sports game in years, and San Diego Studio has partnered with the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum once again for Storylines: The Negro Leagues Season 2.

Season 2 of The Negro Leagues adds 10 more legends to the game. Among them are legendary slugger Josh Gibson and Toni Stone, the first woman to play on an American professional baseball team. Like last year, each player has a mini documentary that provides backstory and details their journey to professional baseball. There are also gameplay segments where you get to relive iconic moments from these players’ often forgotten careers.

The Negro Leagues is the most important thing happening in sports video games right now. It wraps education and entertainment into a beautiful package, not only shining a light on some of baseball’s most important names, but offering a unique way to engage with history. It should be a mandatory experience for anyone who downloads the game. I hope that we’re far from the end of the collaboration between San Diego Studio and The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.

Latest at-bat

MLB The Show 24’s biggest gameplay change is the introduction of Impact Plays. These quick-time events slow down time during the most intense moment of a play as you try to make clutch defensive stops. This includes moving the glove and hitting a button in time in order to tag out a baserunning trying to get on plate or dive home. As a Shortstop in my RTTS, there were sequences where I had to hit a sequence of buttons to accurately deliver a ball to first or second base.

The gameplay in MLB The Show can feel monotonous once you’ve sunk a lot of hours into it, so Impact Plays are a welcome addition. They add a bit of spice to defense and make your actions feel more, well, impactful. A greater margin for error means more improbable plays and overall excitement.

Outside of that, it’s mostly MLB The Show as you know it. There’s a strong emphasis on Diamond Dynasty, this franchise’s team-building collectathon mode where Sony undoubtedly rakes in a heap of cash post-launch. The menus are essentially unchanged, save for a new coat of paint to make it feel distinct from last year.

Safe!

MLB The Show 24 is another very good baseball game from San Diego Studio. It suffers from a lot of the same pitfalls as other annual sports titles, but The Show is so clearly head-and-shoulders above those games. The Negro Leagues Season 2, inclusive additions to RTTS, and the introduction of Impact Plays show that this series hasn’t quite lost its fastball.