In the hours leading up to the early access release of MLB The Show 22, San Diego Studio held their final Feature Premiere live stream on their Twitch and YouTube channel. This stream, which was by far the longest of the Feature Premiere streams, showed off several updates to Diamond Dynasty, live content, and Esports.
MLB The Show 22 Updates
Mini Seasons
The first big update is a brand-new single player mode inside Diamond Dynasty called mini seasons. This mode features a 28-game mini season where players will take their DD squad up against 7 CPU teams. The top 4 teams in the league at the end of the 28 games will make the playoffs. The playoffs feature two rounds of best of 5 to decide who is the mini seasons champion. Players will be able choose their difficulty level in every game in mini seasons.
Players will be able to earn rewards by completing goals during their season. Some of these rewards will be repeatable, while others will be updated every month. Players who play on higher difficulties will also be able to earn extra rewards during their season.
Featured Programs
The next big reveal is that Inning Programs and Team Affinity programs have been combined and condensed into what is now called Featured Programs. These new Featured Programs will be available only for a limited time, similar to the Inning Programs from last year. Players will also have a variety of ways to progress these programs such as Showdown, MTO rewards, daily moments, etc. The main difference is the rewards that players can earn from these programs.
Last year, Inning Programs brought 3 main bosses, and players could choose one of the three. Team Affinity brought 30 bosses, one for each MLB team, and players could grind to earn all 30. In Featured Programs, there are 30 bosses again, one for each MLB team. However, players will only be able to earn 12 of them. The first six will be a random pack from each division that will not be sellable. The second six will be from a choice pack from each division that will be sellable. SDS did not clarify if players would be able to somehow earn the remaining 18 bosses through gameplay later in the year, but at least at launch the remaining bosses will have to be purchased off the marketplace.
Less Rewards?
This is a step in the Madden or 2k direction, limiting the rewards players can earn through gameplay. We went from being able to earn 31 of 33 (94%) available bosses in Inning Programs and Team Affinity, to now being able to earn only 40% of the bosses through gameplay in Featured Programs. Only time will tell if SDS provides a way for players to grind and get the remaining 18 bosses in the Faces of the Franchise Featured Program.
MLB The Show Quality-of-Life Updates
Several quality-of-life additions were made to the collective modes that make up Diamond Dynasty. In Battle Royale, players can now earn the 12-0 pack without having to go flawless in BR. This can be done by progressing the BR program. Progress this year will be expedited through custom draft rounds featuring the players needed to finish BR program missions. Ranked Seasons is now innings played based instead of wins based. This is a big improvement and addresses the problem of people quitting out of games early in MLB The Show 21. In Events, players will now be able to save their lineups between entries. The time to simulate games in Conquest mode has been cut in half.
Another new addition is the Chase pack. This pack is a topper for the 50 pack sets that can be purchased in the store, similar to the Ballin’ is a Habit packs from last year. However, this pack will hold very rare and valuable cards and items that will change throughout the year and will be exclusive to this pack. Chase packs can also be found in regular The Show packs.
Collection Rewards
The Live Series collection rewards were also revealed. The American League reward is 99 Frank Thomas, National League is 99 Roberto Clemente, and the MLB reward is 99 Randy Johnson.
MLB The Show 22 is available on April 5 for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and for the first time ever the Nintendo Switch.
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