MLB The Show 24 Gameplay Adds Pitching Difficulty, Hitting “Largely Unchanged”

This week, the new gameplay changes coming to MLB The Show 24 were announced in a blog post on the MLB The Show website. This year, the changes to gameplay seem to be rather minor in terms of impact. Some changes have been made to pitching, specifically Pinpoint Pitching. However, other areas of the game appear to be mostly unchanged.

Pitching Changes

The biggest gameplay change coming to MLB The Show 24 is increased difficulty for Pinpoint Pitching. Ever since Pinpoint Pitching was introduced in MLB The Show 21, SDS has been trying to increase the difficulty of the feature. That continues this year, as new motions have been added for popular pitches. The Knuckle Curve, Sinker, Slurve, and Sweeping Curve all have new pitching motions, which are much more challenging to complete. Along with this change, left handed pitchers will now have mirrored motions compared to right handed pitchers. This means players will have to learn how to complete these motions for both types of pitchers in order to be effective.

For players that are able to master these new changes, they will be well rewarded. SDS made updates to the PAR, or Perfect Accuracy Region, for pitchers this year. Now, perfect execution of breaking pitches like curveballs will be guaranteed to be within the PAR, instead of just touching the zone.

New Animations

On top of pitching changes, new animations have been added to address the need for more defensive urgency. About 400 new animations have been added into the game, including new 1B throws from the ground to all bases to make 1B most effective in the field.

New pickoff animations have also been added into the game. SDS says this was done to “combat the new disengagement rule.” However, that rule change was not in MLB The Show 23. This makes it sound like the new disengagement rule is finally making its way into the game.

Another new rule finally coming to MLB The Show is the larger bases. However, this goes beyond just a visual change. New logic and animations have been added to account for the additional size.

What About Hitting?

While defense and pitching got some improvements this year, that may leave you wondering what hitting changes were made. Well, it doesn’t look like much. According to the blog post, SDS received positive feedback around most of the gameplay for MLB The Show 23. They agreed with the feedback that hitting felt very good in last year’s game. Because of that, they say that in MLB The Show 24 “hitting balance remains largely unchanged.”