Play More in Less Time with New Feature in 'MLB The Show 26'

If you are one of the, well, everyone who would like to play more video games but just don’t have the time, the makers of MLB The Show 26 are here to help. 

"Smart sim" is just one feature the developers hope will make their venerable franchise more playable along with changes to batting mode, the addition of more than a dozen college baseball programs and more historical content centering on the Negro Leagues.

Be more efficient with smart simulations

One of the newest features in the latest edition of the baseball simulation is designed to let players have more control of their players and franchises in different modes of the game without feeling like they need to play every inning and take every at-bat. 

“We're very aware that people are so busy, so a new feature that we added this year in Road To The Show, which is our single player mode where you build your own character and you're trying to get to the Hall of Fame — people don't like to sim those games,” Ramone Russell, a member of the design team at San Diego Studios, told Men’s Journal in an interview.

“It's like, ‘Oh, I want to play, and when I sim I either start batting really bad, or I start giving up a lot of home runs and losing games,’” he said. “If I'm a pitcher, what we do now is, after you play a few games and you get a groove and you're doing well, we kind of lock in your performance. And you can do these smart sims where you can sim a few games and you'll continue to play kind of how you were playing. 

“Give people like a bridge between, ‘Oh, I want to play every game, but I can't play every game, but also don't want to sim, so I'm just not gonna play the game.’” 

This is a feature that was already part of the franchise mode, but Russell said it is expanding in that mode this year. 

“What we allow you to do is to set parameters to say if it's a close game in the seventh inning, or if it's a milestone game where somebody's about to break a record, or has has a streak going on, we'll stop the simulation and we'll allow you to jump in to continue to play,” he explained.

Revamped bating mode 

The newest edition of MLB The Show also features a revamped batting mode called Big Zone Hitting. 

“It's really fun — I think people are really going to enjoy it,” Russell said. 

Updating game play in that way is just one of the ways Russell said the developers strive to make sure fans feel like they really are getting a new game every year. 

“We’re trying to always add some love and add some development time to make it feels like a full meal,” he said. “Like we don't want you to feel like, ‘Oh, you know, MLB The Show 26 is just a roster update. I'll skip it.’ We want people to go, ‘Oh, wow. There's a lot here. There's a lot that you want. I have to get the game.’ And that's a challenge we take very, very seriously every year.”

What else is new in the game? 

MLB The Show 26 also features the World Baseball Classic, more college baseball teams to choose from during Road To The Show and another season of Negro Leagues content. 

The game first included Negro League Storylines in 2023. They introduced fans to some the all-time greats: Satchel Paige, Jackie Robinson, Andrew “Rube” Foster, Hilton Smith, Hank Thompson, John Donaldson, Martin Dihigo, and Buck O’Neil. 

The players to be featured this year have not been revealed, but Russell said the Storylines feature has changed the studio and how it is viewed by outsiders. 

"This game mode has had us presented to Congress in back-to-back years about video games being a new opportunity to teach kids because education is so important in this country, and educators are struggling to connect with the youth because we all have cell phones,” Russell said, “What we learned with ‘Storylines’ the first year was that, ‘Hey, if you make it fun, you make it engaging then kids, young adults and adults, they love to learn. So it's been an incredible journey.” 

Four players will be available at launch with more added every two weeks. 

“It's just been an incredible endeavor for us, and it's been really awesome to see so many people take trips to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City because they learned about a Pop Lloyd or maybe Peanut Johnson in a video game.”

MLB The Show 26 is available now for those with early access and set for a full release March 17. It is available for PS5, Xbox Series X and Nintendo Switch.