Super Mega Baseball 3 gets mid-May release date

Super Mega Baseball fans will have to wait a bit longer for the next entry in the beloved sports series: Super Mega Baseball 3 is now scheduled to be released May 13, developer Metalhead Software announced Thursday.

That’s not too far beyond the game’s initial launch window — Metalhead revealed Super Mega Baseball 3 with a surprise announcement in March, and said at the time that it was on track for an April release. However, the Canadian indie studio warned fans earlier this month that logistical issues caused by “industry-wide changes due to COVID-19” might force the company to push back the launch, and now a delay has come to pass.

Alongside the release date confirmation, Metalhead released a seven-minute developer diary on Thursday detailing its gameplay additions and upgrades for Super Mega Baseball 3. Among the new features are a number of plays that allow the game to more closely replicate the sport of baseball, such as pickoffs, wild pitches and passed balls, and dropped third strikes. In addition, players can now have up to two traits that give them certain positive or negative tendencies — for example, a hitter with “High Pitch” receives a boost to their contact and power attributes on pitches in the upper half of the strike zone.

Metalhead also worked to heighten the accuracy of Super Mega Baseball 3’s simulation of the sport in other ways. “You will see the [batting] AI be more patient when early or ahead in the count, and be more prone to striking out on breaking balls out of the zone,” said gameplay and AI developer Richard Gibson. And attributes will matter more for defense: A catcher with a low fielding rating will have more trouble corralling errant pitches, while players in the field won’t be able to regularly make diving or leaping catches unless they’re skilled defenders.

Super Mega Baseball 3 is coming to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows PC, and Xbox One for $44.99, with cross-platform play across all four versions. Fans will be able to try out the game — in both offline and online modes — in a demo that will be available around launch. Metalhead is already working on features for post-launch updates, such as the ability to import teams from Super Mega Baseball 2 into the game’s new Franchise mode.

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