MLB The Show 25 Review

Naturally, you’d expect a veteran of the series to review the latest installment of the MLB The Show franchise, MLB The Show 2025, but I’m about as far removed from baseball as possible. In fact, baseball doesn’t even exist in my home country (Egypt). I am offering a perspective that I’d like to think is different on the whole sport and how it’s presented in game form. 

Twenty years ago, the America I thought I knew—filtered through the small screen of my third-world TV—was all about the “American Dream.” And for some reason, that dream felt synonymous with baseball. People around me seemed to love watching American baseball even more than football, which always puzzled me. Maybe it was because baseball embodied the ultimate underdog story—no matter how far behind you were, one good swing could turn everything around, and a single home run could change your fate.

MLB The Show 2025 surprised me at first because of how accessible it was and how deep the micromanaging of the experience goes. Every position—pitcher, hitter, fielder—has multiple control schemes, from analogue pitching to pulse metres, all of which can be adjusted or automated while still allowing player input. You can fine-tune nearly everything, from presentation styles to weather conditions, commentary, and even the era of broadcast graphics. It really felt like stepping into a live TV broadcast like the ones I used to watch back in the day.

Now, I won’t pretend to know every feature well enough to compare it to previous entries, but even as a newcomer, I could tell this game is meaty and packed with content. There’s Road to the Show, a career mode where you start in high school and work your way up—kind of like a baseball version of Captain Tsubasa. Then there’s Diamond Quest, which plays like a mix of Into the Breach and Mario Party with how it offers random challenges on a game board and collectable card rewards. 

I didn’t get as much enjoyment out of the aforementioned mode as I expected, but I can see it being a fresh change of pace for veterans. It’s playable both online and offline, though—like every sports game—you’ll probably have to spend real money to get the best cards. And to be honest, I’m not about to break the bank to test MLB’s monetization system, but I suspect the people who would be already knee-deep in something such as Pokémon TCG Mobile may be more likely to try their hand at this.

Beyond just being a baseball sim, MLB The Show 2025 also serves as an interactive history lesson. Modes like Moments let you relive and rewrite iconic plays featuring legends from the Negro Leagues and beyond—a “what-if” scenario for baseball. There are also competitive weekly challenges and custom practice modes that let you fine-tune your skills. But I don’t want to give the impression that it’s just about the sheer number of modes but also their depth. From player trades to budget management, down to the tiniest details like names on jerseys, I found that the game doesn’t leave much to be desired when it comes to letting you do what you want to do and how you prefer to do it in the way that suits you best.

For instance, Franchise Mode, where you manage all the behind-the-scenes decisions for a team, has lost its online feature from previous iterations. However, more complexity has been added to player signings, with certain players’ attitudes changing based on who’s already on the team or the state of the market. Additional metrics for predicting market trends have been introduced, such as a board for tracking priority targets and a system for spreading rumours about players—rumours that you’ll have to dispel through personal investigation (though this investigation may sometimes yield unpredictable or incorrect results). There are even people who will interfere with acquisitions and deals. The amount of detail in this is completely wild, in a good way, of course.

Standing on the mound, gripping the ball, and deciding how to throw it—with commentary running in the background—feels incredible.

Needless to say, all of this pales in comparison to the actual moment-to-moment experience. Standing on the mound, gripping the ball, and deciding how to throw it—with commentary running in the background—feels incredible. Pitching wasn’t just about throwing a ball; it felt like a mind game, a puzzle to solve. I never got tired of experimenting with angles and harassing the hitter by shooting in every corner I could think of. And from the batter’s side, every swing felt like a high-stakes decision. In part, that’s the new Ambush Hitting feature at work, which lets you guess where the ball is going to be hit so the hitter would add more force to his grip in that direction, but guessing wrong could cost you the hit.

Maybe I’m just enchanted because this is my first real exposure to baseball, but damn, if baseball in real life feels anything like this, I’d never get tired of playing it. Did I mention there’s a first-person perspective too? Adding total immersion like no other sports game I’ve played.

It’s also a bit funny when the broadcast lets you see if the players are dejected or tired after you hit your pitches constantly without letting them win once. Funny talk aside, I enjoyed that I can auto-simulate parts of the game until I’m ready to resume pitching/hitting. The game is really open about letting you enjoy the parts that matter to you, and you could even skip high school matches and go straight to college if you wanted to, though there are statistical consequences for doing that.

MLB The Show 25 has a Token system, which treats players like RPG characters. Basically, you earn tokens based on your in-game performance, which you can later convert into stats like throwing, baserunning, and fielding and if you play poorly, you lose points that contribute to earning these tokens, which means skipping matches or underperforming will slow the progression of your player. There are also random challenges that appear from time to time to give you a chance to earn extra tokens and keep the matches more exciting and dynamic.

MLB The Show 2025 is one of those games I feel neutral about going into it, mainly due to my limited familiarity with the sport, but I can appreciate its breadth as a video game. It’s well worth the price (and the massive SSD space) if you’re willing to invest time and money into building the best roster for competitive modes. That’s not to say there isn’t plenty of free content to enjoy—just something to keep in mind when approaching some of these modes.

A review code was provided by Sony Interactive Entertainment for PlayStation 5.