Sony’s MLB: The Show baseball sim franchise will showcase a variety of engine improvements in its upcoming 2017 release, and players can expect more realistic animations and improved gameplay as a result.
Among other features, the latest entry in Sony’s long-running sports series promises refined ball physics, which will lead to more realistic hits and improved defensive player behavior.
After celebrating its 10-year anniversary in 2016, MLB The Show is preparing a physics overhaul for its next annual update. A trailer released Wednesday reveals that Sony plans to make the physics in MLB: The Show 17 more realistic by incorporating subtle factors like temperature and altitude alongside refined velocity and spin calculations.
“This year, we’ve greatly increased the variety of hits possible in The Show,” Sony explains. “There are curving and slicing grounders down the lines, bloops, Texas leaguers, and top-spin line drives, just to name a few, all generated by an accurate model of the ball spinning off of a bat. In previous versions of The Show, we were modeling the spin that would occur if the ball had hit a wall instead of a bat.”
“Our new accurate model is a game-changer,” Sony continues. “The location and spin of the pitch, angle of the bat, and launch velocity are all factored into the spin, allowing for more realistic and varied ball flight paths.”
In addition to “hundreds of thousands” of ball flight path possibilities, MLB: The Show 17 promises “more humanity” for its simulated players. Starting with this year’s upgrade, players will exhibit new behaviors with regard to baserunning in particular. AI-controlled players will now use a variety of different timings when stepping off of a base, and rundowns will be less predictable. with defensive players faking throws in order to psyche out the competition.
“The goal is to continue our pursuit in having the AI-controlled players react more lifelike, instead of seeming to know exactly what’s going to happen on any given play,” Sony summarizes.
MLB The Show 17 launches exclusively for the PlayStation 4 on March 28.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.