MLB: The Show 20 – The RPG You Didn’t Know You Needed

After 23 years of being a PlayStation exclusive, baseball fans outside the Sony ecosystem will finally be able to enjoy one of the highest quality sports sims in modern gaming. Late last year, Sony San Diego announced it would be releasing the 2021 version of MLB: The Show concurrently on Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo consoles.

While other sports sims from Electronic Arts and 2K have fallen into the micro-transaction and ‘minor annual update’ trap, San Diego Studio has consistently given gamers numerous reasons to dive back into The Show year after year. While a true to life and near perfect baseball experience has become an expectation with this series, there is something else bundled within this magnificent package that might surprise those new to the franchise – a unexpectedly deep and intricate role playing experience.

Create a Player, Be a Pro, The Journey – these are game modes that have been synonymous with sports sims for as long as we can remember. It started out as a simple premise of being able to create your own player usually named after yourself and bearing a cheap passing resemblance to that guy in the mirror. The novelty was being able to control them skating, dribbling, batting or tackling alongside the biggest virtual pros in major sports. Seeing your own name at the top of the NFL’s passing yards charts, EPL scoring leaders, or NBA’s average points per game helped build the sporting fantasy we’d all dreamed of.

In 2007, MLB: The Show introduced its current version of this mode and dubbed it “Road to the Show”. Much like the creator mode in others sims, you create your own player, put them at any position you want, and play your way from double-A ball all the way to the World Series. In recent iterations however, the RTTS mode has taken on monumental levels of customization. The game’s system reacts to everything you do to create the most unique and ever evolving representation of your player possible. This ranges from on field performance to your relationship with other players in the clubhouse and even the way you interact with your coach or agent.

RTTS uses a series of perks and abilities in the form of a Personality System. By specializing in one of four categories, you can greatly impact both your own and your teammates on field performance. The four categories – Lightning Rod, Heart & Soul, Maverick, and Captain – reflect the general archetypes that you’d find in any locker room. The Lightning Rod has the infectious ability to make that electrifying play and take the rest of his team’s performance to a whole new level. Perks in this tree include use of slo-mo in batting once per game or improved ability to hit pitches outside of the zone. Captain has a profound influence on the rest of the team and provides temporary stat buffs to other players just by being on the base paths. Perks in this personality include improved base stealing ability by team mates when you’re at bat or better hitting during home games.

When you start out, you have the option to dump a bunch of points into your most desired Personality. From there, you can choose to max out that Personality, giving you access to all associated perks, or spread your skills evenly to the other three personality trees, creating key synergies along the way. These synergies between related personalities like Heart & Soul and Captain unlock enhanced versions of already unlocked perks. You progress through these trees by completing on and off field actions best associated with those Personalities. As an example, creating rivalries with opposing players or responding to fellow teammates in an antisocial manner will aid in progression through the Maverick Tree.

Relationships with teammates can also be heavily influenced for positive affects. The simplest way to take an on-field relationship from Unfamiliar to Bro is by positively impacting others’ play. Advancing a base runner, turning a double play, or tracking down a near home run helps improve and protect other players stats, thus improving the relationship. Conversely, failing to execute one of the aforementioned tasks has the ability to negatively impact a relationship. Put simply, the better you play, the better you make those around you and the more people like playing with you. Off the field you’ll occasionally have the opportunity to engage in locker room chat with a small set of players. You can chose to interact with one player at a time, whether that be someone you already have a strong relationship with or a rookie new to the squad. Conversations play out like text chats and all you to select between different responses, each relating to one of the four personalities.

At certain moments when you’re at bat, a random challenge will present itself. This will give you the option to choose between successful outcomes for different stat or personality awards. For example, hitting a home run will provide stat bonuses to power hitting and Lightning Rod. Conversely driving in a lone run or advancing a base runner would add to contact hitting or clutch stats as well as Heart & Soul. The way the game responds to your in-game performance is astonishing, specifically as it relates to stats. Want to improve your field and reaction to win that elusive Gold Glove? The best way to accomplish that is get as many opportunities in game to effectively field that ball. Each interaction with the aspect of the game has the ability to positively influence that specific stat.

Hitting falls into two categories – Power and Contact. The ladder are softer and more targeted hits that are easier to handle by opposing fielders. The former lends itself well to home runs, extra base hits, and your slugging percentage – but also leads to more strikeouts and poor plate discipline. I specialized in contact hitting in my own Road to the Show as I wanted to get on base as much as possible. Despite early success at the plate, my manager soon approached me in the locker room asking me to focus on slugging and hitting the ball further. Improving a specific skill in RTTS is similar to Skyrim – if you want to get better at it, go do it as much as possible. And I loved that about The Show. By successfully hitting more power swings, you can pad the stat and enhance your ability to hit the ball further.

Adding to this is the ability to engage in different types of off field training activities. These include weight and agility training, batting, and fielding practice. Each of these optional activities are completed in simple mini-games that allow you to pad any one of your desired stats. This ability to focus on any one of seventeen in-game attributes create an unmatched level of customization. It’s a level of min-maxing that is rarely seen in sports sims.

MLB: The Show 20 was my first experience with the franchise. A close friend is a die hard and a day one purchaser for at least the last three years. I would watch him play and was blown away by the real time stat system that would react to his on field play. Little did I know how deep the Road to the Show mode really went. The level of customization created by the games’ Personality, Relationship, Attribute, and Stat based systems means your Major Leaguer will be truly yours. Those with any interest in hitting the diamond, or are just missing the action with the suspended season have a true to life and incredibly unique experience waiting for them with MLB: The Show 20 and specifically Road to the Show.