Last week, San Diego Studio gave MLB The Show players a look at some of the new gameplay features in MLB The Show 25. This week, Road to the Show — the game’s long-running career mode — is up to bat for this week’s gameplay reveal.
Previously, it was confirmed that both high school and college baseball would be playable in MLB The Show 25, albeit in a limited capacity. But how will this feature actually effect your Road to the Show journey, and what other new features has SDS introduced in MLB The Show 25 to breathe new life into a mode that seems to have been neglected in recent years?
Everything New Coming To Road To The Show In MLB The Show 25
High School And College Baseball
So let’s knock out the one most of you are probably curious about — high school and college baseball. We’ve touched upon it before, but players will be able to play at both the high school and college levels before making their way to the minor leagues. There will also be some choice to this process as well.
Unlike other North American sports, baseball is one of the only sports that allows players to go directly from high school into the MLB Draft (MLS allows players to sign pro contracts as teenagers should they be involved in a team’s academy system). Because of this, Road to the Show in MLB The Show 25 will allow players to either enter the draft directly from high school after competing for a state championship, or improve their skills/draft stock by attending a top-flight university.
Should you make the choice to go to college (which you probably will just to have the full RTTS experience), you will be given the choice of attending one of eight different universities:
- Tennessee Volunteers
- LSU Tigers
- UCLA Bruins
- Texas Longhorns
- TCU Horned Frogs
- Cal State Fullerton Titans
- Vanderbilt Commodores
- South Carolina Gamecocks
To greater help influence your decision, choosing which college to attend will be more than choosing what uniform you want to wear for the handful of games you’ll play. In fact, each college offers something unique in terms of how you develop. This feature isn’t shown too extensively in the Fielding Feedback video. But each school will have a different rating when it comes to exposure, skill development, perks, and “package.” For instance, the LSU Tigers is shown to have a 5-star rating in Exposure, but only a 3-star rating in skill development. How SDS came to this inclusion after the likes of Paul Skenes and Dylan Crews, who knows. But that’s the deal. With this in mind, it’s recommended you choose your college based on what kind of player you want to be right out of the gate.
Should you choose to go into college and improve your skills before declaring for the MLB Draft, you could theoretically be good enough to be chosen as the No. 1 overall pick.
Path To 99 Progression
In past titles, Road to the Show has kind of limited players in terms of how good you could ultimately become by the prime of your career. And honestly, that’s felt a bit cheap and off-putting considering you’ve got absolute GOATs such as Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge, Ronald Acuna Jr., and the aforementioned prodigious Skenes running around. SDS is attempting to remedy this in MLB The Show 25 by allowing players to progress to a 99 overall in Road to the Show through both attributes and perks.
While SDS has promised ultimate freedom, there does seem to be certain archetypes that will be prioritized, such as being a power hitter or a high-velocity pitcher. That said, upgrade tokens will be provided to players without restriction, so you should be able to balance this all out as your career goes on. I’m curious as to how this system will work late in your career when your player begins to deteriorate, but I guess we’ll be clued in on that as time goes on.
First Person Camera View
One of the more novel features SDS has been pushing for MLB The Show 25 is its first-person camera view. I’ll be completely honest — this one is definitely on the gimmicky side and isn’t likely to be a feature I use too much, if at all. Immersion in a sports game is one thing, but putting yourself at a disadvantage is another.
Is it cool that it’s there? Sure. And I don’t want to rain on the parade of anyone who might be excited to use it in Road to the Show. But I’d be lying if I said that this feature is anything that will be used to any serious degree after the first three times you misjudge the angle on a fly ball through the gap.
Improved Quicktime Events
Quicktime events (QTEs) in Road to the Show mode is nothing new. But SDS does seem to have changed some things about them in MLB The Show 25.
This year, it seems the defensive QTEs will be different dependent on the difficulty of the play. For instance, if you’re playing the hot corner and a high-velo hit is scorched in your direction, the QTE for making the actual stop will be more difficult to time. If it’s a slow roller that you have to track down, the throw to first will likely be made more difficult. QTEs for robbed foul balls will also be a thing.
On the offensive side, baserunning is among the features getting a revamp when it comes to QTEs. New this year is a QTE that will allow baserunners to read the pitch as it approaches the plate. So if you’re a good baserunner and don’t think the catcher is scooping a breaking ball in the dirt, you will have the opportunity to get a good jump to the next bag. This is definitely something I like as skilled baserunners have always used their instincts as part of their skill set, whereas stealing in past Show titles has been limited to either getting an incredible jump on the pitch, or guessing completely.
The ability to read pitches in the dirt before trying to steal isn’t the only new thing coming to Road to the Show as it pertains to baserunning. Tag-evading moves and and a new control scheme are also on tap.
The “Swim Move” is a common method used by baserunners to avoid tags in real life, but hasn’t really been a thing in MLB The Show. Sure, in past titles, players could control whether to slide head or feet-first, and to which side of the bag. But actively evading the tag has yet to be implemented, until now. The Swim Move is a QTE that good baserunners can use to evade a tag, even if it looks like they’re caught dead to rights. And the new analog control scheme will allow baserunners to run in a fashion that’s oriented to your camera.
Published: Feb 18, 2025 6:22 PM UTC