As Major League Baseball returns to full swing, gamers who love the sport are continuing to live the interactive experience by way of MLB The Show 26.
The video game was released March 17, which has allowed three members of The Athletic’s staff roughly a month to dive in and enjoy what it has to offer. Jason Jones, Johnny Flores Jr. and Levi Weaver offered their takeaways on the latest installment of the baseball game series.
What was liked? What could be different? Check out their thoughts below.
Mode talk: Which is your favorite?
Jason Jones: Road to the Show has always been one of my favorite modes. I decided to attend Cal State Fullerton and improve my draft status instead of being an eighth-round pick of the Los Angeles Dodgers out of high school. It’s fun seeing the stadiums for the College World Series and minor-league parks in this mode. I’ve checked out the other modes, but this is my favorite thus far.
Johnny Flores Jr.: Diamond Dynasty is my go-to mode. I took a four-year break between MLB The Show 22 and today, so I was really excited to jump back in after dumping several hundred hours in the years prior. The good news? Diamond Dynasty is still one of the best ultimate team-like modes around. Whether it’s the intensity of Showdown or putting together odd teams for missions in Conquest, there’s enough variety to keep things fresh. It helps that The Show does a great job of rewarding players for every little action.
Levi Weaver: I’m not an every-year buyer, so with an average of two to three years between purchases, I eventually play every mode. This year, I’ve started with Diamond Dynasty, and I’m (still) a fan of Conquest mode, which allows you to build/improve your squad pretty quickly through discovered packs and rewards.
First impressions compared to previous versions?
Weaver: The players with long hair! Their hair looks like hair now instead of a plastic hair helmet. That might have happened in 2024 or 2025, but either way, it’s a nice touch.
Usually, I buy the game a little later in the year, so I suspect some bugs will be ironed out in the coming months — little things like my DD lineup showing a player from the other team or (weirdly) my Carson Benge card looking like the photo is made from a corrupted file. (Also, Benge is hitting like a corrupted player, but that’s more user error than anything.)
Flores: The user interface is really clunky, particularly on Diamond Dynasty. Whereas in past years, it felt very snappy, MLB The Show 26 has menus within menus, along with elongated “press-and-hold” actions. It creates a messy experience when you’re trying to quickly swap cards or check where your progress is.
Graphically, the game is largely the same. Even with the move to exclusively next-generation consoles, the graphics haven’t caught up to other sports titles.
At this point, it’s love it or hate it — at least until a new, overhauled engine arrives.
Jones: The graphics are better. There weren’t wholesale changes, but the look is definitely better.
A good day competing with the San Diego Padres could result in a walk-off home run from Manny Machado. (Courtesy of Sony Interactive Entertainment / San Diego Studio)
Any aspect of the game you’re still exploring?
Flores: I was surprised that March to October was removed in this year’s edition of the game. I thought the mode was great at doing what it set out to do: provide a quick and streamlined way to simulate a single season. I’m now experimenting with Franchise mode to try and recreate some of that magic.
Jones: I’m getting into the Negro Leagues storyline more this year. I love sports history and the way Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro League Baseball Museum is great in his role as a storyteller in this mode.
Weaver: I did my first stadium build in the 2023 version, and once I’ve built up my DD squad a bit, I’ll go back and see if I can make one that is even more absurd than 2023’s “Toilet Village Park” — which had the shortest right-field pole allowed, the deepest right-field gap allowed and the shortest straightaway center field allowed, along with multiple dinosaurs stuck halfway in and out of the 15 mega-sized scoreboards.
The crowd capacity is about 50 people, and their seats are 500 feet in the air. There are no stairs. At the end of the game, the camera’s view of the dugout is obscured by multiple statues that I somehow got glitched halfway into the dugout.
Anything you’d like to improve?
Weaver: This is such a specific gripe, but as someone who paid close attention to Ondřej Satoria’s miraculous WBC career with the Czech Republic team, it was really disappointing that so little effort was put into his DD card. Not only does it not look anything like him (could we not just put a big beard on a generic guy?), but literally not one thing about him is accurate … except the changeup. His changeup is great, and I’ve compiled an 0.11 ERA with him in about 50 innings.
Jones: I don’t have anything in particular. I like the different gameplay options that allow the user to go from ultracompetitive to just simply having fun.
Flores: Graphics are probably the biggest thing that could use some improvement. Other than that, there’s some weird hitting quirks, and the online infrastructure still remains quite buggy to this day. At this point, MLB The Show is a love-it-or-hate-it game. I don’t think any significant overhauls are incoming, so you really have to take the good with the bad.
The good thing is that the “good” is really strong.