This morning, Sony made official some exciting announcements that we’ve already heard. First, that MLB The Show 21 has an official release date: April 20, 2021. Second, that this year’s installment would be the first major MLB game to drop on Xbox since 2013. Finally, we’ve got the official reveal of Fernando Tatis Jr. as the cover athlete of MLB The Show 21.
MLB The Show 21’s Cover Athlete: Fernando Tatis Jr.
“Apparently, I’ve been breaking the unwritten rules of baseball,” says Tatis in the reveal trailer, referencing his now infamous grand slam against the Rangers in last season. The trailer proudly shows Tatis as “the new face of baseball,” and for awhile in 2020, it seemed like he was. Though his voice acting in the trailer isn’t so convincing, his 2020 season was. Tatis earned himself a spot on 2020’s All-MLB First Team, and is this year’s Topps number 1 card. Above all, he looks real cool on the cover.
Then again, I guess we already knew that, didn’t we? This past weekend, a well-known and respected leaker in the Funko Pop! community dropped the MLB The Show 21 cover two days before it’s official reveal. The leaked cover showed Tatis on an Xbox One copy of the game as well, confirming MLB The Show 21’s release on Xbox consoles. Did this weekend’s leak force Sony’s hand on the reveal? They had announcements planned in February already, so it’s possible this is just when we were supposed get our first look either way.
New Features Coming to MLB The Show 21
A listing for MLB The Show 21 on GameStop’s website shows some additional details for the upcoming game. Included in these details is the confirmation of cross-play between players on PlayStation and Xbox. That’s huge, and I’m quite frankly surprised it wasn’t a bigger part of their messaging. The listing confirms that MLB The Show 21 on PlayStation 5 will take advantage of the DualSense’s haptic controls. It also reveals that new gameplay styles are coming to MLB The Show, which are described as follows:
Casual: An easier, fun, pick-up and play experience with an emphasis on learning the game
Simulation: Authentic MLB experience that plays true to player and team ratings
Competitive: User stick skills reign supreme. Our online head to head default.
Hopefully we’ll see more news on MLB The Show 21 in the coming weeks. April 20 is a few months later than last year’s release, but because the game is coming to a new console for the first time, and the Coronavirus pandemic, that delay is pretty reasonable. Either way, MLB The Show 21 will release on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, as well as the Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S, on April 20, 2020.
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