I\u2019ve spent more hours than I\u2019d like to admit with MLB The Show over the last decade. As such, I\u2019ve sort of given up on expecting a baseball game to ever feel new again. At least, I did. But then eBaseball: Pro Spirit 2026 landed on my desk. I immediately had painful flashbacks to the early-2010s when I discovered Konami was hiding the best soccer game on the planet \u2013 Winning Eleven \u2013 from the Western world.<\/p>\n
Putting my PTSD aside, I fired eBaseball up with pure fervor, expecting Konami to once again blow me away with their take on simulation sports. And, you know something? They did. This isn\u2019t just the baseball game I\u2019ve been waiting for; it\u2019s the sports game I\u2019ve desperately wanted.<\/p>\n
For starters, eBaseball is gorgeous. It runs on Unreal Engine alongside the studio\u2019s proprietary eBaseball Engine, beautifully rendering players, turf, and crowds. Sweat beads on a pitcher\u2019s brow between deliveries. Dugout chatter animates in the background instead of coming from players who are frozen in place. Little touches like these permeate the eBaseball experience, making for one of the most fleshed-out visual presentations I\u2019ve ever seen. From the first pitch, you know you\u2019re not playing The Show, and that\u2019s a good thing.<\/p>\n
Though that depth doesn\u2019t necessarily extend everywhere. Pitching and hitting both currently lag behind the competition. There\u2019s essentially one way to throw a pitch and one way to swing the bat. None of the customizable visual aids or stick controls that MLB The Show built its reputation on made the trip over. Baserunning is the worst offender, utilizing an odd control setup that still doesn\u2019t make a ton of sense after dozens of hours. These issues are also compounded by eBaseball\u2019s steep learning curve. This is a tough game, even on the easier difficulties, and it\u2019s going to take most players time to get the hitting down. My first few hours with eBaseball saw more strikeouts than I\u2019ll ever admit. Push through, though, and the payoff is absolutely stellar. Once my timing and positioning clicked, squaring up a fastball turned into one of the more satisfying moments I\u2019ve had with a baseball game in years.<\/p>\n
But the satisfaction doesn\u2019t stop on the field. Star Player mode is what I\u2019ve been waiting a long, long time for. I talk about it all the time in my sports game reviews, but every single one of them these days lacks the feeling of actually living like a superstar. Making personal decisions away from the game, like which house to buy or where to invest your money, is what a career mode should be built upon. Yes, the actual games are important, too. But if I\u2019m focusing on building a single athlete, I want to develop every aspect of their life.<\/p>\n
eBaseball fixes this. I built a lanky, long-haired phenom who bears a striking resemblance to Tim Lincecum, and began working him through the farm system. The ups and downs of his career, the personal contemplations, and a lousy final few years complete with a decline phase that actually dented his velocity readings, had me feeling like a kid again.<\/p>\n
Hakkyu no Kiseki is my \u201ccomfort\u201d mode, though. This is where you develop an entire high school team from scratch. It\u2019s in-depth, well-paced, and tons of fun, with literally hundreds of things to discover. This year\u2019s version adds the DH rule, an option the mode has never had before. It sounds minor, but it reshaped how I draw a lineup around a pitcher who can\u2019t hit. I recruited underclassmen and managed grades and morale alongside batting practice. I spent an entire evening chasing a Koshien berth, one I didn\u2019t reach until my third simulated season. Grand Prix and Spirits round out the offline options with smaller time commitments for nights when you just want to swing a bat and throw a ball.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the depth of the single-player modes doesn\u2019t extend online. Multiplayer exists, but it skips the deep community franchises, diamond dynasties (no, I don\u2019t want microtransactions in eBaseball), and ranked seasons. Those features have kept MLB The Show\u2019s online scene alive for a long time. Roster variety compounds the issue. Only twelve teams are available in eBaseball, all sourced straight from the NPB. MLB clubs and international squads are nowhere to be found.<\/p>\n
But here\u2019s what by far stings the most about eBaseball. The World Baseball Classic. Naturally, it brings in international stars like Aaron Judge and Fernando Tatis Jr., rendered with the same scanning technology as the NPB rosters. Painfully, Konami has restricted the mode to Japan and a handful of Asian regions. North American players can only get access by changing their account region, and it isn\u2019t a workaround I\u2019d recommend to anyone without patience for import-account headaches. For a release clearly trying to court a Western audience, locking out one of its best modes from that exact audience is a bizarre, disappointing call.<\/p>\n
So does eBaseball: Pro Spirit 2026 knock The Show off its perch? That depends on what type of player you are. If you only care about a solid single-player experience, then yes, eBaseball is your new go-to baseball simulator. But if online multiplayer is where you tend to spend your time, then you\u2019re going to be feeling underwhelmed.<\/p>\n
Few sports titles have left the kind of mark on me that eBaseball: Pro Spirit 2026 has. Konami built something with real identity here, wrapped around the types of career modes I\u2019ve been dying to see in sports games. It certainly has issues, don\u2019t get me wrong. We\u2019ve gotta expand the online offerings. Lock down more team licenses. Give hitters and pitchers more room to work with. And for the love of God, let us Westerners play the WBC. Do all this, and it won\u2019t ever be a question of whether or not Konami is chasing MLB The Show. They\u2019ll have left it in the dust.<\/p>\n
***A PS5 code was provided for this review***<\/p>\n