While San Diego Studio and Sony have been quiet about MLB The Show 26 since the baseball game was first announced in November, the studio has posted a new statement revealing that it won’t feature “any new athletes” on the upcoming title’s cover.
“We know that you are all just as excited as we are for the release of MLB The Show ’26, so we wanted to let everyone know that this year we have decided that we will not have a new cover athlete,” San Diego Studio wrote on social media. The wording in its statement was likely a deliberate choice, and has led to quite a bit of speculation of what the game’s cover will feature if not a new athlete.
Responses to the statement have included fans of the MLB The Show series speculating whether the next iteration of the game will simply feature a picture of a stadium, or whether San Diego Studio will instead focus on a non-athlete member of the sport to highlight this time around.
According to a report by Dealabs’ Billbill-kun, however, it looks like New York Yankees player Aaron Judge might end up gracing the cover of MLB The Show 26. Fans of the series will recall that this would be far from the first time that Judge is on the cover of the game, with him having also been the cover athlete for MLB The Show 18.
The report has also indicated that Sony and San Diego Studio are targeting a March 17 launch for MLB The Show 26, with the target platforms once again being PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. The release date of a Nintendo Switch 2 version, as well as whether there are any plans to bring it to PC are both unknown for now.
MLB The Show 26 has been confirmed to feature Road to the Show, this time featuring new high school and college journeys. New content has also been announced for the Weekend Classic and Diamond Quest in Diamond Dynasty. Hyping up the announcement, San Diego Studio had also released Now and Later packs which allow MLB The Show 26 players to open The Show Packs from MLB The Show 25. The Franchise mode is also getting an update with new storylines focusing on African-American legends of the sport and the addition of Negro Leagues Season 4.
As for long-suffering PC gamers, rumours had popped up back in October that San Diego Studio might be looking at finally porting MLB The Show over to the platform. A job listing was spotted for a Senior Graphics PC Programmer, whose main responsibility revolves around “writing and optimizing our PC engine, debugging performance issues, implementing new graphics features, and ensuring the game takes full advantage of platform specific technologies offered by Nvidia and AMD.”
While far from an official confirmation by itself, the job listing also noted that the work would focus on a AAA PC title without outright mentioning MLB The Show by name.
“We are seeking a Senior PC Graphics Programmer to join our team in advancing the visual and technical quality of a AAA PC title,” noted the job listing. “In this role, you will be responsible for developing and optimizing real-time graphics systems specifically for PC, ensuring robust performance and high visual fidelity across a wide range of hardware configurations.”
For more on MLB The Show, check out our review of last year’s iteration.
