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MLB The Show 17 will introduce another feature to help players realistically manage the 162-game season of Major League Baseball — the longest in professional sports — without missing out on big moments.
Coming in MLB The Show 17’s Franchise mode is something called Critical Situations, announced today on the PlayStation Blog. It sounds a lot like Madden NFL 17’s “Play the Moments” feature, in that MLB 17 will simulate in the background the more mundane parts of a ballgame and summon the user when a pivotal at-bat occurs.
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The mode, says Sony San Diego, won’t limit its focus just to winning or losing the game in hand. Users who have a player with a long batting streak going will be given a chance to prolong it even if the rest of the game is a blowout. Milestone events, like getting a shot at hitting three home runs in a game with one player, will also draw the user back in.
Another feature, Quick Manage, allows a user to make strategic decisions within a game only while skipping through play itself, seeing their outcome instantly in a text-based display. Users may still enter live play at any point from Quick Manage.
Finally, MLB The Show 17 will introduce a new variable to its players called Quirks, in which a player is buffed for certain situations, or against certain pitch or batter types. Anthony Rizzo of the World Champion Chicago Cubs was given as an example, in that he's good against breaking balls. So, thrown that kind of a pitch, Rizzo will have an advantage both in making contact and driving it for distance.
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“In addition to changing the way you go about at-bats, we think they’ll also change the way you construct your roster,” Sony San Diego said. It’s not clear if or how a player’s Quirks will be surfaced to the opposition during a game, though.
MLB The Show 17 launches exclusively on PlayStation 4 on March 28. For more details, read our article on its new fielding AI.
