Baseball originates from England and draws from their traditional games such as rounders and cricket. However, after it gained popularity in the mid-19th century, it quickly grew t0 be considered the United States’ de facto national sport. In fact, it has the moniker of “the National Pastime” because of how many people are invested in it. Unfortunately, there’s a high barrier of entry to becoming a professional in the sport. Luckily, no such limitations exist for the digital version, which closely simulates both the exhilaration and tension. That’s one of many reasons you should turn to the best baseball games for PC.
1. Out of the Park Baseball 22
Out of the Park Baseball 22 is at the top of the list of baseball PC games for a good reason. It’s licensed by MLB, MiLB, and MLBPA, and the only game series to win the prestigious Metacritic’s “Game of the Year” award twice. The game offers a comprehensive strategy and simulation baseball experience, allowing you to micro-manage every aspect of your organization. This includes scouting, strategies, drafting, negotiations, trading, and managing pitching staff, lineups, and financials. You’ll also enjoy accurate data about teams, players, events, stadiums, and even MLB rules as they changed up until the 2021 season.
2. Super Mega Baseball 3
Super Mega Baseball 3 is surprisingly not MLB licensed, yet offers gorgeous graphics and a painstakingly created simulation of the baseball experience on and off the field. Additionally, nearly all game modes support offline or online gameplay. Notable examples include Season and Elimination, which feature 1vAI, 2vAI, 1v1, 1v2, 2v2, and AIvsAI matches. The other is Franchise mode, which follows the player’s career from day one to retirement. Some game modes are online-only, such as Online League (1v1 matches, cross-platform) and Pennant Race, which is identical but only permits controllers for fair cross-platform bouts.
3. R.B.I. Baseball 21
R.B.I. Baseball 21 is yet another officially licensed MLB video game, created to be fully immersive. This is obvious from the lavishly detailed create-a-player interface, play-by-play commentary, gradual night-day cycle, and difficulty slider. Furthermore, R.B.I. Baseball 21 has 3 primary game modes: Exhibition e.g., fast matches versus AI or via split-screen two-player mode, Franchise e.g., career mode, and Home Run Derby mode. Finally, there are 12 batting styles, 30 MLB clubs with lineups from season 2020, and over 165 other prominent clubs and players from throughout MLB’s history.
4. MVP Baseball 2005
It’s no coincidence that MVP Baseball 2005 is so high on the leading baseball PC games list. Even though it’s been over 15 years since its release, this EA-published game still astonishes us. Not only was it officially licensed by the Major League Baseball, but it also amassed over $29 million only 6 months after release. Moreover, it was named “Best Sports Video Game of 2005” by X-Play and took 4th spot on ESPN’s 2013 list of best sports video games. The game features 30 teams, all then-used stadiums, 1000+ then-active players, and multiple game modes: Exhibition, Dynasty, and Manager.
5. Digital Diamond Baseball V9
Digital Diamond Baseball V9 is an offline-only baseball simulator that is extremely precise with a wide array of stats, but also historically accurate. It allows you to play any game, season, tournament, or series between 1931 and 2020 with the exact player roster. But that’s not all – lineups, trades, schedules, transactions for the aforementioned period are correct to a tee. Even the left and right splits and player ratings are dead-on, albeit only for years between 1954 and 2020. You can play on any of the 40 ballparks, and create your own players, teams, seasons, series, tournaments, and more.
6. Diamond Mind Baseball: Version 12
The first version of Diamond Mind Baseball was released back in 1987. They even marketed it under the name of one of its competitors, Purse the Pennant, until 1995! This one, the 12th version, saw its release in 2020 and comes with a database of players, teams, events, seasons, tournaments, and even MLB rules up until the 2020 annual season. The game doesn’t feature a lot of actual gameplay, since it’s focused on strategy, stats, and statistics. In fact, it is so accurate in its predictions of various reports that ESPN, the leading sports network, used it to predict real baseball league results in 2000 and 2003.
7. MLB Home Run Derby VR
MLB Home Run Derby VR is the only Virtual Reality title among officially licensed MLB baseball games for PC. It’s a single-player-only game that, unsurprisingly, requires a VR headset but provides a realistic feeling of motion, swing, and power. The scenery is stadiums that hosted the Baseball All-Star Games 2017-2020. To remind you, those are Marlins Park in Miami, Progressive Field in Cleveland, Nationals Park in Washington, DC, and Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Finally, tagging multipliers and hitting deep lets you ascend to a higher position on the Home Run Derby leaderboard.
8. Major League Baseball 2K12
Major League Baseball 2K12 had some issues, which is why 2K Games canceled the franchise in 2014. But if you look past the camera, which wanders off uncomfortably sometimes, and AI, which isn’t the smartest when controlling your teammates and coach in offline mode, you’ll enjoy it fully. Franchise mode is amusing too and 3-person play-by-play commentary adds to the immersion. The highlight is its new pitching system, which, instead of 3-clicks, utilizes the right analog stick and a quick flick down for release. Sadly, the most enjoyable segment, online modes (Quick Play and Online Leagues) is now defunct.
9. Bottom of the 9th
Bottom of the 9th is a strategy baseball dice that, in online mode, lets you play with another player in co-op, via Steam friends list, or a random person online. The game revolves around a group of underdogs trying to score a run near the end of the game and win in extra innings. You can play as 6 pitches, nearly a dozen batters and 2 support characters, and earn as many as 11 available achievements. In contrast, you can play offline 1v1 against AI in 3 difficulty levels or engage in Manager’s Challenge. The latter has 4 difficulty levels and forces you to win 6 back-to-back games.
10. Baseball Mogul 2018
Baseball Mogul 2018 lets you play as a General Manager of any club from the 1900s to today or the one you created. The goal is winning the World Serie and you have to draft players, trade them, and decide who to sign and for how long, with other teams and their GMs breathing down your neck. To increase revenue, you must adjust the price of tickets and concessions, and even sell TV rights while ensuring everyone on the payroll is paid and satisfied. On top of everything, you must oversee your team’s training and provide suggestions, then decide whether to let AI handle matches or if you’ll step in.
11. Astonishing Baseball Manager 20
Astonishing Baseball Manager 20 puts you in charge of a manager of custom-created characters. Your goal is to draft rookies, form a lineup, analyze them, decide how many trainings per week they need, and adjust their salary based on performance. Simultaneously, fans are posting on social media, journalists are covering you and your team, and other players are complaining. Even more realistic is the fact that scouts you send to spot players can make disastrous decisions, costing you millions. Then there’s your private life – you can go to restaurants, travel abroad, meet your favorite author, and even marry.
12. Baseball Stars 2
Despite its old-school graphics and no official MLB license, Baseball Stars 2 remains one of the most-loved baseball PC games. It was released by the SNK Corporation back in 1992 for Neo Geo MVS. After it became an arcade-style sports cult classic, it saw ports to multiple platforms, including for PC in December 2015. The game features a single-player mode, where you pick a team and compete against AI in a 15-game tournament. While the solo play was obviously pivotal to its success, we enjoyed the co-op split-screen mode against a friend even more.
13. Fly Away Baseball
If we had to describe Fly Away Baseball, it would be: “baseball within Roblox”. One glance at the graphics, and you’ll see why. But unlike Roblox, the gameplay is reserved for offline playing against AI or, via split-screen, versus a friend. The first game mode it features is Quick Games, essentially a fast-paced match, while the second, Exhibition Mode, lets you choose between 5, 7, or 9-inning games. Season Mode currently contains 16, 32, or 64 games, and keeps tabs on your stats, while Home Run Contest and Postseason Mode are both awaiting release.
14. Home Plate Baseball
Home Plate Baseball is a Virtual Reality game title game whose cornerstone is a 3-inning game of baseball. In other words – score as many runs as possible with 3 strikes to an out, and 3 outs to an inning. There are also 4 more game modes, the first of which is Home Run Derby, letting you practice swinging at pitches. The second two are Catching Game, which forces you to catch as many pitches as you can, and Umpire Simulator, where you use a touchpad and trigger to call strikes and balls. Finally, Hard Mode features rapid pitches, the fastest being 100+ mph.
15. Triple Play Baseball
Triple Play Baseball is a 2001 EA Sports title that critics praised for graphical prowess, computer performance, and comprehensiveness. It features everything baseball aficionados want. That includes an exhaustive create-a-player section and both single-player and multiplayer mode. Triple Play Baseball has multiple game modes, too. Some examples: individual matches, playoffs, full seasons, Hume Run Derby, and Big League Challenge Mode. You also manage team selections and transfers but be wary – the AI isn’t too hard to beat, even at maximum difficulty.
16. Front Page Sports: Baseball Pro 98′
Front Page Sports: Baseball Pro 98′ is an older game that deserves its place here. It allows you to become GM of a team and either stay on the sidelines or get into the action. In the latter case, you must control both pitching or batting with precision. Plus, you’ll experience the unique CAMS system, which follows the ball after players hit it. Simulation mode lets you dodge real-time waiting. It does so by speeding up game replays by removing highlights or only showing the last pitching. Both player and ball physics also seem accurate, especially for a game nearly two and a half decades old.
17. Strat-O-Matic Baseball
Strat-O-Matic Baseball originated from a card-and-dice baseball game, and the digital version, created in partnership with Sporting News, is based on simulations. More specifically, 3 games per day, against the computer or online players. Once again, you take the role of a manager and select everything from line-ups to batting orders and instruct players to bat, steal, run, defend, or viciously attack the opponent. Moreover, you get to play 3 historically accurate seasons, 1986, 2004, and 2015, and on correct ballparks with day-and-night cycles.
18. Strategic Baseball Simulator
The inception of the Strategic Baseball Simulator dates back to 1981. However, it had a release on PC in 1987 and Windows in 2002. As you can guess, there isn’t a lot of graphics, sound, or movement. Instead, it focuses on hyper-accurate statistics about various aspects of the game but also historical accuracy, allowing you to hundreds of MLB teams against each other to see who would’ve won. The game is freeware, and text files orchestrate team configurations. In other words, you can create teams from scratch and see how they fare, too.
19. PureSim Baseball 2007
PureSim Baseball 2007 is a great representative of text-based simulation baseball games for PC. Like the title above, it’s a freeware that contains data about real MLB players, teams, and leagues (named “Associations”) downloaded from the Lahman Database. You’re also free to customize anything you wish. For example, set new Associations for between two and fifty teams, rename players and their physical prowess stats, and even their nicknames and cities. Finally, the game has a solo and online mode.
20. 2D Baseball Duel
We’re ending our rundown of the notable baseball PC games with a 2D game. While it doesn’t look like a masterpiece, you’ll regret not trying it, because it’s loads of fun. It allows you to play solo, against AI, as a pitcher or a batter, but also in local multiplayer, versus a buddy. Unlocking over 25 unique pitches depends on your in-game success. Also, you can compete in Home Run Derby if regular matches bore you. The game is ideal for low spec PCs, and we suggest wearing headphones to fully appreciate the original soundtrack.