Playoff Modes Should Be In All Sports Games

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It feels like around this time each year I have to point out the fact that playoff modes are no longer a given in our sports video games, and that’s a major whoopsie by these companies.

Every big sports video game ratchets up the intensity for playoff games with added presentation and panache in our franchise modes, and yet we don’t always have an easy way to setup a bracket and let it rip from the main menu.

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What this means is some people might never see the best presentation these games have to offer because they might never get deep enough into a franchise mode to see a playoff series or finals.

A playoff mode is something that should be fundamental because it’s not challenging to implement. These games already have “live rosters” and even “play today” features, so just give us a bracket to play through as well!

If devs want to get a little saucy, then allow us to take the bracket online so we can play through it with friends like a mini online season, or even just play through the playoff games of that day online rather than a full series.

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It’s honestly sort of confounding why it doesn’t exist in every sports video game. I know sports game companies get a bad reputation for removing things and then re-implementing them later on, but they should take that little jab in stride and just do the wise thing here.

Sports games come out before or at the start of the “real” season for each major sport, so a playoff mode is one of those late-stage ways to get people back interested in your game once the real playoffs have rolled around.

By this time of year, yearly sports games are getting a little boring and a playoff mode is one way to get people to boot back up if they’re feeling super invested in what they’re watching on TV every night.

And, again, these playoff games also represent the best a lot of these sports games have to offer from a presentation standpoint. The audio and visuals will never come off better than they do during these big games, and so it’s only doing them a favor to have a mode like this to toy around with if you want to.

Anyway, I’m obviously watching a lot of playoff games right now, so I needed to get that off my chest. Let’s get to the news for the week.

MLB The Show Patch And Community Consternation

MLB The Show 26 got a patch yesterday. It added the Pirates and Rangers City Connect jerseys, and it also includes some updated player models. But the biggest changes from this patch will impact online play.

The strike zone has been altered so now it’s like the offline system where any part of the ball touching the strike zone leads to a strike call. In other words, it’s now like the real MLB system just without the ABS challenges since the online umpires are set to the “perfect calls” setting.

But beyond the patch, there’s been a lot of talk about sneaky rascals cheating in head-to-head games and what SDS is doing (or not doing) about it. YourFriendKyle is a well known Show streamer, and he detailed how complex and rampant some of these cheating networks are right now.

There are full-on Discords where these people are congregating to talk about how to use specific software to essentially get perfect-perfect swings and perfect pitch releases every at-bat.

It’s as pathetic as it sounds, but it’s also nothing new for an online sports game. The issue is that in recent years as some of these games go to “perfect” inputs, games like NBA 2K and now The Show are having to deal with hardware and software that can deliver those “perfect” inputs to players who are willing to pay to get access to stuff like Cronus devices or Patreon subscriptions to get access to specific software that can be used on your console.

Developers may have had the best intentions in mind by trying to make a “skill gap” matter, but if perfection is possible, then some losers will do anything they can to take a shortcut and remove all the fun from the game if it means easy wins.

Ultimate Team modes have been plagued by things like coin scammers and coin sellers in the past, but this is worse in that it’s not just impacting a “fake” marketplace of cards, it’s now hurting your actual games.

SDS is banning people, but they’re somewhat understandably keeping it quiet for now in terms of mentioning how many people have been banned, and then how they’re going about locating these individuals — or even the sources of these issues.

It’s important for people to feel like they’re not playing what’s essentially a bot — otherwise they’re eventually going to stop playing online — so SDS should obviously be aggressive here attacking the issue.

FC 26 Coming To PlayStation Plus

EA’s FC 26 will be on PlayStation Plus when the new month of games comes out for that service, which should be on May 5. This also means the game will likely hit EA Play soon enough, so you’ll have a chance to nab the game on Xbox and PC as well — if you have an EA Play subscription through those platforms.

As a side note, if you have a PlayStation Plus subscription, another game coming to Plus on May 5 is Nine Sols. As someone who played through it last year, I highly recommend it if you’re looking for a game that is sort of like a 2D Sekiro/Soulslike mixed with a Metroidvania.

It’s rad.

UFC 6 Is Coming Soon

We’re still waiting to see if we ever get another Fight Night, but in the meantime, EA does seem to be preparing UFC 6 for release on June 19. UFC 5 came out in 2023, so this is a long time coming for some folks.

There is 100 percent an announcement coming soon because, well, there is a closed beta you can sign-up for that will be happening on May 7-11. As of now, because this is a closed beta (and EA is handling the whole announcement in a very odd way by giving us no trailer or info for now), there’s no guarantee you will get into that beta if you sign-up.

I assume there might be more of an “open” beta at some point, but this is all coming together fast, and we don’t even know what’s going to be in UFC 6 as of yet, which is obviously a little concerning.

NBA The Run Beta And Steam Controller

I mentioned NBA The Run in Wednesday’s newsletter, but this 3-on-3 arcade game is also releasing in June and also has a beta starting TODAY.

You can sign-up for the closed beta, which will be on Steam at first. We might eventually get a beta on other platforms, but for now you need a PC/Steam to potentially be invited.

Lastly, the Steam Controller comes out on May 4. I will be purchasing one because I’m always curious to get a feel for another controller, so I might write a little bit about it in this space after I take it through its paces.