Voost Kain
Banned
It's official. Bryce Harper is signing with the Philadelphia Phillies, and he's wearing the team's uniform in the new and now final cover of MLB The Show 19. You can see it in the featured image above.
The reveal video was shown during Sony San Diego Studio's Twitchstream:
That piece of info was the biggest news but it was widely expected around the baseball world.
Thursday's stream also revealed four new legends, and as a Chicago Cubs fan, I was thrilled for two of them. Kerry Wood and Mark Prior will be included as legends in the game when it releases. Also, Cy Young and Rogers Hornsby are included as well.
Aside from the Harper reveal, the major focus of the stream was the new Moments mode. This new feature challenges you to relive some of the most iconic moments from the careers of legends like Babe Ruth, Ken Griffey Jr., and Willie Mays. There are also team Moments for the Chicago Cubs and some cool overlap with Diamond Dynasty, but I'll get to more of that in a second.
What I like about Moments in MLB The Show is that it is playable within and outside of Diamond Dynasty. I also like some of the presentation wrinkles added to the retro moments like the black-and-white TV filter for Ruth's sequences.
My major takeaway from Thursday's stream, as it pertains to Diamond Dynasty, is flexibility. Again this year, Sony is allowing you to progress through the mode playing the aspects of it that you enjoy. Unlike other collector's modes in the sports video game genre that pigeonhole you into certain aspects just to receive specific rewards, Diamond Dynasty will allow you to exclusively play any aspect of the feature without missing out on the benefits.
On the stream, the developers also announced the removal of souvenirs, immortal cards and the ticket counter for this year's game. They promised there would be more top-level players, so perhaps there was no longer a need to distinguish immortal players from the other legends.
A small tidbit seemed to have leaked during the stream, and that's the ability to have multiple Diamond Dynasty squads. It hadn't been mentioned previously in the earlier streams, though this was the first to put any major focus on Diamond Dynasty.
For those that are fans of the MLB, this is looking to be one of the biggest "MLB: The Show" games yet. With is nice to see, as usually when there's not much in the way of competition companies barely move the needle, but it seems Sony's MLB team has several new features and other cool stuff to make this a big treat for MLB fans.
Now if only EA would do something like this for Madden, you know, fix things, listen to fans, innovate, etc.