After more than two decades, Playground Productions and Mega Cat Studios announced Humongous Entertainment’s Backyard Baseball 2001 is making a comeback on modern platforms as Backyard Baseball ’01. Backyard Baseball ’01 is an enhanced remaster for PC and mobile with the same content and officially licensed MLB athletes that players enjoyed in the original sequel to Backyard Baseball ’97 and Backyard Baseball ’98.
Although MLB The Show is the main officially licensed gaming series for MLB, Backyard Baseball captured the hearts of many young PC gamers well before the first MLB The Show game was released in 2006. Backyard Baseball lets players build a dream team of MLB athletes for a game or an entire season. Several MLB legends are “Backyardified” as young kids wanting to make a name for themselves, and it’s up to players to guide them with strategies in order to win the championship. To celebrate the game’s 25th anniversary, Backyard Baseball ’01 is making a comeback on PC and mobile devices.
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Playground Productions will release Backyard Baseball ’01 on July 8 as a remaster of the 2000 PC baseball game, noting that it’s been “enhanced” to run on PC and mobile. The classic Backyard Baseball game will feature 30 Backyard kids, 28 legendary MLB players, MLB Team Marks, bloopers, eight classic ballparks, nine pitching power-ups and four batting power-ups, and commentary from Sunny Day and Vinnie. Players can also choose a batter and face Mr. Clanky to get batting practice, allowing them to improve their skills before attempting to tackle a full season.
Backyard Baseball ’01 is Coming to PC and Mobile on July 8
Returning MLB players and legends for Backyard Baseball ’01 include Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Cal Ripken Jr., Sammy Sosa, Mike Piazza, Randy Johnson, Nomar Garciaparra, Jeff Bagwell, Jason Giambi, Chipper Jones, Jeromy Burnitz, Mark McGwire, Shawn Green, Vladimir Guerrero, Kenny Lofton, Jason Kendall, Barry Larkin, Marty Cordova, Mo Vaughn, Raul Mondesi, Curt Schilling, Alex Gonzalez, Juan Gonzalez, Larry Walker, Carlos Beltran, Tony Gwynn, Ivan Rodriguez, and Jose Canseco. These players are playable in a variety of modes, including Single Game, Random Pick-up, and Season. Seasons play out over 14 games in single-player, and the best two teams will advance to the BBL playoffs in a best of three series. Players who keep winning can compete in the Super Entire Nation Tournament and Ultra Grand Championship of the Universe Series.
According to Playground Productions, many fans have asked for accessible and legal methods for playing the original Backyard games. However, there were some limitations to consider, since the developers didn’t have access to the original source code. As a result, Backyard Baseball ’01 is not playable on modern macOS platforms, as the operating system can’t execute the game’s binaries. However, the PC version runs well on Windows and supports Steam achievements. Bonus features were also teased, but details on these features were not revealed yet. Fortunately, the possibility of console releases still remains, as previously shown with the release of Backyard Baseball ’97 on Switch and PS5.