MLB The Show 23 PS5, PS4 further improves Sony’s flagship sports game

Sports games are developed on an annual cycle, and therefore tend to be more repetitive than you might experience in other titles. This means that improvements are made with each edition, but many of these can be minor underlying things, which optimize the experience – but don’t recreate it from scratch.

That seems to be the case once again with MLB The Show 23, which is stepping up to the plate on March 28 on PS5 and PS4. There a very much of the bases to cover in the developer San Diego Studio’s blog postBut we believe the title is the addition of 5,000 new animations, which will freshen up the gameplay – especially during fielding scenes.

In fact, the team has made some major underlying changes to Defense this year, putting more emphasis on fielding features and messing up the button’s accuracy feature by tweaking the position of the optimal green when throwing the ball. This means that players will need to pay attention to what they are doing, rather than relying on muscle memory.

Of course, the offense has also been tuned. One thing that comes across when runners are in scoring position is an emphasis on clutch stats. This will change the traditional contact characteristics, allowing the batter and the pitcher to face more organically in high pressure situations. All this is designed to create more dynamic match-ups and better reflect what is happening on the field.

There are plenty of other changes – including an emphasis on explaining what certain stats and features mean – but on the gameplay and presentation front, it’s a large amount of small content. A few user interface elements have been adjusted, for example, when runners are on base – it’s more of the same than anything really remarkable.

But when MLB The Show 23 Tech Test goes live in North America on February 21st, you’ll be able to test it out for yourself. Unlike previous years, where you needed to register to participate, everyone from the US and Canada will be invited to download the client and try it out – and it’s consistent across all consoles, including Xbox and Nintendo Switch.