All the teams here at San Diego Studio have been hard at work adding and improving features in MLB The Show 24. We’re excited to highlight two notable additions that will enhance your experience this year: new defensive gameplay enhancements from the Gameplay Team and improvements to skin and eyes from the Graphics Team.

Defensive Impact Plays & Quick Time Events

Every year, the Gameplay Team on MLB The Show strives to find innovative ways to capture the essence of baseball for our fans. One area we’ve been eager to explore is defense and the impact it has on every game. Night after night during the MLB season, we watch incredible defensive plays, and we wanted to replicate that experience in MLB The Show 24’s Road to the Show mode.

In MLB The Show 24, players can now enable ‘Impact Plays,’ enhancing their ability to make game-changing defensive moves. Whether it’s a runner who tagged up and is trying to take 3rd or taking the ball off the wall and hitting the relay to get the runner about to cross home plate. Impact Plays allow you to leave your mark on the game with your defensive prowess. And yes, we’ve also increased the chances of scaling the wall to rob home runs!

But our defensive enhancements don’t end there. For fans who enjoy the journey in Road to the Show, we’ve introduced new Quick Time Events for each position. These events isolate your defensive impact even further, where your performance could be the difference between a win or a loss. Whether you’re a promising first baseman handling a short hop or a catcher facing a critical tag at the plate, your skills will determine the outcome of the game. These are just a couple of examples of how the new defensive Quick Time Events put control in your hands in Road to the Show from position you play you play in the field. For fans really wanting to look and analyze Impact Plays and just see more gameplay from MLB The Show 24, here is over 20 minutes of raw gameplay from MLB The Show 24 for you to download.

Updates to Skin & Eyes

Replicating the look of over 1,000 players has its challenges, and the Graphics and Character Team added some improvements to our skin and eye shaders to take advantage of updates to our updated lighting system that will appear in MLB The Show 24. Getting the specular highlights off the skin and eyes can really nail the look, it can be a subtle effect, but once it is right it can really be the change that takes a scene to the next level and the team really likes the results which are best seen on the player edit screen.

In the examples below you can really see the detail in both the dynamic range in the skin tones but also in the eyes. This allows for player of any complexion to look more accurate with the skin having more detail. Add the improvements to our eye shader giving off minor reflections from the light in the scene add that additional level of realism.

These are just some of the many additions and improvements coming to MLB The Show 24. For more on what is coming to MLB The Show 24, be sure to check out all our Feature Premieres over on YouTube as well as follow us on X, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and Tiktok and if you haven’t already sign-up for the Scouting Report for even more news and free monthly pack starting in April.