MLB The Show 18 Will Remove Microtransactions From the Series, Kind Of

If last year's trend was microtransaction implementation, this year's trend very well could be microtransaction removal. The latest game to remove them? MLB The Show 18, well, kind of.

Like many genres steep with multiplayer and online modes, the sports genre is riddled with microtransactions at every corner. But as microtransactions become more and more controversial, we might start to see some developers and publishers breakaway from them, such as Sony, who appears to increasingly want to distance themselves from the practice, as we saw with God of War earlier this week, and now MLB The Show 18.

News of microtransaction removal from the popular baseball sim comes via the PlayStation Blog, where Steve Merka , a senior game designer at San Diego Studio (the developer responsible for the game), revealed that the team wants to remove the ability to makes purchases that progress your player, and rather just focus on the gameplay and a "more pure experience." Thus, starting with this installment, you will no longer be able to purchase Training Points. According to Merka, in their place, will be a new experience to progress your player.

What this also means is that you will no longer be able to heal injures through stubs, rather they will have to heal the natural spit and Band-Aid way.

However, while Sony San Diego is kicking microtransactions out of certain places of MLB The Show 18, other parts of the game will still feature them. For example, Diamond Dynasty will still be prominently be built around them. Nonetheless, less microtransactions, coming off 2017, is a substantial win.

For those interested, the above-linked PlayStation blogpost also talks about the game's new archetypes and attribute caps, the expansion of Pave your Path, customization improvements, on the field changes, and much more. If you're not the reading type, you can also check out a new video below that accompanied the news, and that also goes into details about the changes inbound.

MLB The Show 18 is scheduled to launch on March 27th. As always, it will be exclusive to the PlayStation 4.

In other microtransaction related news, Undead Labs recently revealed its upcoming Xbox One and PC release, State of Decay 2, won't feature any microtransactions.