MLB The Show 26 Road To The Show: What’s New and Notable
In Road To The Show, your journey to greatness is more immersive than ever. Start from high school and rise to the top in your attempt to build a legacy that will be enshrined in baseball’s immortality. Set new goals throughout chapters in your career and leave your mark like never before.
Step Up Your Game With Expanded Amateur Years
Every journey begins somewhere, and now you have more control than ever to choose where yours starts. Expanded Amateur Years means more options for developing your skills from high school to college, then the majors. Big-time prospects have big-time decisions to make, like whether to take your best college offer or hold out for your dream school. Here’s a look at what’s new:
- Get recruited out of high school to one of 11 new colleges, 19 in total, with unique recruiting packages.
- Recruiting Packages include: increased Scouting Exposure, Skill Development, Equipment Packages, Tokens and more.
- Road To Omaha expands the college experience with full tournament play of the official NCAA Men’s College World Series.
- Every pitch and swing matters more than ever, with your draft slot impacted by your goals and pro potential rating.
Get More Control Over Your Pro Career
Once you’ve earned your spot in the majors, the power to call the shots and shape your career is in your hands. Not only can you request trades and chat with coaches about changing positions, you’ll also have more leverage to make big moves with mid-season alerts and updates on milestone awards you’re close to snagging.
With all the new perks in 26, how will you use them in your journey?
More Meaning in Every Game and a Stronger Payoff Every Season
This year, goal-setting plays a major role in how you shape your career journey. You can choose to chase short or long-term goals, like striking out ten batters in a game, raising your season batting average, or chasing prestige awards like Rookie of the Year. The more ambitious the goals you set, the greater the rewards. Pick the goals that inspire you to improve and will keep you locked in game-to-game, month-to-month, and season-to-season.
Put In The Work For The Perks
Perks now have specified requirements to unlock them so you can pursue what will benefit your ballplayer the most.
There is now more decision-making in your hands when building a Perk as each trigger timing can be individually selected to upgrade.
A new Perks menu makes it easier to learn what each one does and how to upgrade. For example:
- The “Heart Attack” gives you an exit velocity boost when your team is down and rallying back.
- You will be able to upgrade the strike count, runners on base, current score, and even the out count, as well as increase contact boost.
Additionally, there are new mastery effects, such as displaying a ball trail of the pitch, turning the ball red or blue based on whether it is a fastball or a non-fastball type pitch, and displaying where the pitch will cross the plate.
New Career Simulation and Re-Entry
We understand not everyone has the time to take every at-bat or pitch for every inning in a Hall of Fame length career. Because of that, we knew we needed to rework our simulation options. In MLB The Show 26, you have the option to sim sections of your career with that performance driven by your Overall Rating. But this isn’t the same old simming…
Your achievements like hitting streaks at the plate or scoreless-inning streaks on the mound will result in temporary boosts to your Overall (OVR), increasing performance in your simulated outcomes. We also know it’s hard to give up control for some…so, for the first time in MLB The Show, you’ll be alerted when big moments or achievements are approaching, allowing you to make the call to either keep simming or get back in the game to come through in the clutch.
Pre-Order MLB The Show 26 Now!
MLB The Show 26 is available to pre-order now in the Standard Edition and Digital Deluxe Edition. Want Early Access? Choose the Digital Deluxe Edition and start playing on March 13th, 2026 – four full days before the official release on March 17th.
Pre-order Loyalty Discount For Previous MLB The Show Owners!
We are also happy to announce a new loyalty discount. You will receive 10% off your Digital Deluxe Edition pre-order1 if you have purchased any digital version of MLB® The Show™ that’s been released since MLB® The Show™ 21². The pre-order loyalty discount expires when the game launches on March 17th.
UP NEXT: Feature Premiere
Get the scoop directly from SDS developers with a full breakdown of the new features in MLB The Show 26. Join us on Thursday, February 12 at 2 PM PT as the team takes you even deeper into what’s new in Road To The Show. Don’t miss a moment. Catch all the action on our Twitch and YouTube channels.
Stay Updated On Everything New In MLB The Show 26
We’ve got a lot more reveals, feature breakdowns and updates in store for you this year. Stay in the know on all things MLB The Show by signing up for The Scouting Reportand be sure to follow @MLBTheShow on social. Get ready to start your journey.
1Discount reflected in cart. Must be signed into your account. Only applies to same platform purchases.
2For Nintendo Switch, since MLB® The Show™ 22.
