Everything we know about Super Mega Baseball 4
Metalhead and EA Sports have finally officially revealed Super Mega Baseball 4, a new entry in the fun-first baseball game series. Let’s break down the new info into bullet points:
- The game comes out on June 2nd, 2023.
- The game’s coming out on everything, basically: PC (Steam), Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.
- All versions of the game will launch at $50, with a special Ballpark Edition that includes stadium DLC now and in the future for $60.
- For the first time in the series, there will be a physical version of the game produced, for all consoles (not PC).
- The headline new feature: A roster of over 200 real former baseball players, alongside the fictional roster of silly names that series fans have grown fond of over the years. The real-life players are picked from all eras, from Babe Ruth to Bartolo Colon. You can play with a mix of real and fictional players, or all real, or all fictional.
- Six new stadiums.
- Cross-platform multiplayer across all platforms. Cross-platform matchmaking planned to arrive at a later date for users of the EA app (first I’m hearing of the EA app).
- This will be the first game in the series released in Japan.
There are a few more details on planned features along with some screenshots on the official site.
So no MLB license this time around, but there was always a risk of switching too far away from the fictional teams and players that series fans had come to enjoy. This sounds like a good mix.
There aren’t too many details shared around Franchise mode improvements so far. It sounds like those who were disappointed by the shallowness of the single-player content might have to stay disappointed. They’ll announce more in the month ahead, so maybe more to come.
It’s a little surprising that the first game under EA Sports is so similar in scope to the previous game, and after a three-year gap since the previous game. But if you’ve never played a Super Mega Baseball game, they make so many smart decisions with the core gameplay. Hitting and pitching both feel tough but fair. No other game gets the balance perfectly on both sides of the ball.
Here are the real-life players confirmed for Super Mega Baseball 4 so far
David Ortiz, Babe Ruth, Keith Hernandez, Bartolo Colon, Luis Tiant, Willie Randolph, Dave Parker, Ron Santo, Gene Tenace, Mike Timlin, Jeff Montgomery, John Franco, Ron Gant, Robin Yount. My personal hope is the R.B.I. Baseball National League All-Stars are quietly included all-together as a team of their own.
That’s only 14 names so far. So there’s only 180+ more to be announced!
Hey check out this magazine ad for Shin Best Play Pro Yakyuu
The sort of infamous ’90s-’00s era of smutty video game magazine ads rarely overlapped with baseball video games, but here’s one from 2003. I guess I would pay for a Shin Best Play Pro Yakyuu logo temporary tattoo if one were made available. Here’s my video of the game if you’re interested. It’s a baseball management sim with cartoon graphics. No babes, sorry ’bout it.