Sony's baseball sim MLB: The Show made its jump to PlayStation 4 for the first time with the 2014 edition, and the developers are now gearing up for a second go at the new generation.
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MLB 15: The Show won't release until the spring (last year's title launched in April), but the team at Sony's San Diego studio is beginning to pull the curtain back on the details.
In a post on the PlayStation Blog, studio Community Manager Ramone Russell provided a list of features, upgrades, and changes that will be coming to the game this year. He also announced that the gameplay debut will be coming on February 5.
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Year-to-Year Saves (which we had heard about before) will be available in MLB 15, allowing you to transfer Franchise and Road to the Show progress on all platforms from MLB 14 into the new title. This is a huge boon for sports games, as losing the career you've put hours into is not an incentive to buy the newest game. Franchise Mode has been refreshed with new Ownership Expectations, performance-based Player Progression, and better trade and contract logic.
Sports equipment from real brands will be available for the first time, and 30 MLB legends will be available to collect for Dynasty, or you can use the whole pool in Franchise. There's also a new Directional Hitting interface, which allows you to influence the direction of your hits in real-time as you swing. Using the L-Stick, you can attempt to influence fly balls, ground balls, pushed hits, pulled hits, or any of those in combination.
These larger features come on top of a list of gameplay and (for PS4) graphical improvements, which are as follows:
Gameplay Improvements (PS4 & PS3)
- Advanced AI logic results in outfielders taking more realistic routes to the ball
- Upgraded motion system allows for dynamic speed matching from run to catch to throw
- User controlled cut offs
- All new slide and tag system
- New speed paradigm for fielders and base runners
- Enhanced ball physics for pop ups, fly balls, and shots into the gap
- Dynamic pitch breaks: allows for more realistic pitch recognition when batting
- Simplified Analog swing controls
- Dynamic Difficulty 2.0
- New situational base covering intelligence allows for new animations to play when a player has time or is in a hurry to get to his base
- More than 70 new situational third out fielding animations
- New Input Type option for hitting
Graphics Improvements (PS4)
- Real-time seasonal sun and shadows
- Player Skin tone realism. More variations of skin tones with gloss and specular improvements
- Revamped night lighting
- More accurate and photorealistic rendering system
- PS4 gets 10 more Minor League stadiums