A look at some of MLB The Show 24’s newest features

San Diego Studios recently released a developer blog post discussing some of the new updates and features being added to Diamond Dynasty in MLB The Show 24. The newest MLB The Show game releases later this month, and we are starting to get more and more info released about the upcoming baseball game.

Let’s first highlight some of the biggest additions and updates. Team Affinity will now be three chapters per season. Chapter one will release at launch, with Chapter Two coming out sometime during the middle of April, and Chapter Three releasing in May. They will release Team Affinity this way for each season. 

Another major change was to Wild Card. You can now have up to four Wild Card players on your team from Set Two onward. However, additional Wild Card slots will need to be unlocked. You will need to unlock more Wild Card spots via the XP reward path.

The Ranked program rewards will be sellable this year. Battle Royale rewards have also been reworked. You can get the Flawless pack after going 10-0, rather than 12-0. They will also now extend events from one week to two weeks to allow players to grind more for rewards in the event.

One of the biggest updates to content is that the power-creep is back. Last year, you could unlock a ton of 99 overall cards at launch if you grinded enough. However, many players did not like having no power creep. Once you grinded for a ton of 97+ cards, it felt like there was no reason to grind more until the next season was released. People had Godsquads after the first week last year and didn’t grind any further because there was no reason to. Sets will return, but the best cards at the start of each set will be around 91 overall, with them slowly releasing higher and higher cards until they reach the 97+ overall cards.

The blog post also showed off some new cards. Every player will receive a Cornerstone captain card at the beginning of each season. Season one will see Nolan Arenado, Kodai Senga, Byron Buxton, and Greg Maddux get Cornerstone Captain cards to choose from. Each is an 88 overall card.

Vlad Guerrero Sr.’s Takashi card from MLB The Show 22 will also make its return. This card has 93/88 contact and 78/72 power vs RHP/LHP. He also has 83 vision and 81 clutch. While Vlad has outstanding arm strength, as expected, at 97, his fielding is only at 60 with 63 speed.

Brian Dozier will be making his return to MLB The Show. He last appeared in MLB The Show 20 when he was still an active player. The card featured in the blog post is a 2016 Veteran series card. The hitting attributes are great. He has 72/81 contact and 89/101 power vs RHP/LHP. But there are some worrying attributes, including his 69 vision and 57 batting clutch. Dozier’s 81 fielding gives him a gold fielding badge at second base and has 63 speed. He also has 76 arm strength and 73 reaction.

The last card shown in the post did not display the attributes, but it’s a 91 overall Joe Mauer card. It’s unknown the attributes, or what series this card is. If I had to speculate what series this card is a part of, I would guess it’s the new Face of the Franchise card art. Mauer would make total sense as the FOTF for the Minnesota Twins.

This post also showed an updated player attribute wheel. The attribute wheel has been used since MLB The Show 16 with very little change since. In previous games, it showed nine different attributes for batters, including the player’s contact and power vs both sides, plate vision, fielding, arm strength, reaction, speed, and stealing. For pitchers, it showed their stamina, HR/9, K/9, hits/9, BB/9, velocity, break, control, and bunt.

However, this year, it looks like they’ll include a player’s clutch attribute on the attribute wheel. Clutch has become a very important attribute over the last few games, so it makes sense that this is a prominent attribute to display. However, stealing will no longer be part of a position player’s card attribute wheel. They have not displayed which attribute clutch will overtake on a pitcher’s attribute wheel. It will likely be bunting since that’s the position that clutch took over on the position player attribute wheel, and the fact that a pitcher’s bunting attribute now has almost no effect on gameplay with the DH spot implemented.

One final thing to note is that at the end of this blog post, SDS hints at a potential future Hall of Fame card series. The photo is blurred, but you can clearly make out a player’s Hall of Fame plaque. The player in the photo is impossible to make out, however. They’ll probably release a photo closer to the release date, but this might be the biggest new legend added into the game, akin to Babe Ruth for MLB The Show 18, Mickey Mantle in MLB The Show 20, and Randy Johnson to MLB The Show 22.

We shall see what more comes from San Diego Studios regarding the upcoming MLB The Show 24 game. I definitely like the fact that power creep is back. Some of the new cards look promising, and the changes to the Ranked season program are positive. I know that many players aren’t going to be too happy that BR Flawless is now 10-0 rather than 12-0 and that more Wild Card spots are locked until unlocked, however these are the only things I think you could gripe about from this post.