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One of the ultimate goals for any baseball player is a career worthy of the Baseball Hall of Fame. MLB The Show 26 aims to put players on that path -- a Road to Cooperstown.
Road to Cooperstown Highlights RTTS Changes in MLB The Show 26
The single-player career simulator Road to the Show mode (RTTS) has been a venerable part of MLB The Show for decades now, allowing players to progress through a career at multiple levels of baseball. What seems to be most exciting about the new features implemented in the mode for MLB The Show 26, releasing in March, is the potential for veneration of those players' virtual avatars at the ultimate destination for legendary players: Cooperstown, New York, home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Sony San Diego's new trailer for what's new in Road to the Show, released Tuesday, spotlights a new focus on goals and achievements that play into a RTTS character's Hall of Fame candidacy. Players will be able to choose their own goals -- from statistical accomplishments to awards secured -- that will seemingly increase a Hall of Fame Score and also award Tokens used to improve their attributes. Dozens of different goals are displayed in the trailer, ranging from grandly ambitious ones leading the league in home runs or earning a Gold Glove to something as simple as stealing four bases over a stretch of 10 games.
The presentation for achievements also seems like it will be bumped up: The trailer shows a player accepting the Jackie Robinson Award -- the formal name for the Rookie of the Year honor -- and an on-field interview in which an unspecified "historical achievement" is being acknowledged. Combined with the cutscenes from a Hall of Fame induction that have dotted both this and the previous gameplay reveal trailer, it's clear that making awards and achievements feel special is a priority for MLB The Show 26.
The other end of the RTTS journey is getting some love, too. MLB The Show 26 adds 11 collegiate teams -- six of them from the ACC, but also SEC powerhouses Florida and Arkansas, cover athlete Aaron Judge's alma mater of Fresno State, and an Oregon State program with three Men's College World Series titles in the last 20 years and a recent track record of churning out big leaguers -- as potential destinations for the aspiring pro to the mere eight that were available in MLB The Show 25, and the trailer promises that the colleges' offers to the player will be "unique." That surely translates largely to schools furnishing specific boosts, equipment, Tokens, and so forth rather than anything reflective of, say, Florida State's legacy of producing catchers Buster Posey and Cal Raleigh, though.
But the bigger addition to the collegiate level is the inclusion of the actual Men's College World Series, with licensed NCAA trademarks and an actual representation of Charles Schwab Field -- the home of the MCWS in Omaha -- lending an air of legitimacy to the proceedings that MLB The Show 25 lacked, with its RTTS featuring only a College Baseball Championship at a field that resembled but did not recreate the true venue for college baseball's concluding act. The trailer also promises that the format of the MCWS will be a part of the mode, including a bracket screen, which expands a bit upon a limited CBC presentation from last year's game.
Especially given that the MCWS branding did not appear in the first gameplay trailer, this is a massive get for Road to the Show for any players who care at all about college ball. And while there are still significant Omaha stalwarts missing -- the trio of pre-realignment Pac-Whatever powers USC, Arizona, and Arizona State and four-time champion Miami are most glaring -- this is obviously by far the best representation of college baseball in a video game since the death of EA's short-lived MVP NCAA Baseball series, and not merely by default. (Of course, the trailer also features a female pitcher, confirming that women are still playable in RTTS, hurling for Michigan in Omaha -- the sort of thing that would be a national storyline in reality, but is probably not accompanied by any specific fanfare in RTTS, perhaps making it a bit of a miss when it comes to immersion in that specific regard.)
In-career control is another theme of this trailer, with it stating that players will need to manage a Pro Potential rating that factors heavily into MLB Draft outcomes and can affect their careers with actions like asking for trades or position changes. Players will also have a clearer path to the Perks that enhance performance without visibly changing attributes in RTTS, with the trailer calling out both "more" Perks and displaying a menu that shows how to unlock and equip them.
If this sounds daunting in its depth or draining in its repeatability, it's probably because it is. But the trailer also touts simulation options that let players advance their careers without stepping into the box or onto the rubber for every at-bat, and suggests that the simulated results will be based on both attributes and "momentum," which could be a time-saving hack for players who don't want to grind out years of minor league games as a 55 OVR scrub. The trailer explicitly states that a player at 57 OVR might simulate games as a 67 OVR based on momentum, and also shows a screen with an "Adjusted OVR," which it says is based on "your performance over the last 10 simulated or played games" and "will never be lower than your current OVR."
Beyond that, players can also sim most of their careers but still drop in for big moments; the trailer offers up "chasing home run records or pitching in marquee matchups" as instances of those moments.
All told, this feels like a Road to the Show that does more to build a stage for those big moments -- from collegiate glory to staggering feats -- than most iterations of the mode that have come before. We'll see if that comes true beyond the trailer when MLB The Show 26 is released.
