It helps, of course, that the on-the-field baseball is as solid as it has ever been, with tons of hitting and pitching options and difficulty settings that can please novices and veterans alike. Heavy customization options for stadiums and a great presentation complete with a podcast about your efforts give it a nice layer of charm, and a unified progression system means that if you want to get into a mode like Diamond Dynasty after only playing something else for weeks, you'll have the cards and currency you'll need to get off to a fast start. The Road to the Show mode now puts an emphasis on a Shohei Ohtani-style two-way player, complete with a better progression system that lets you create your ideal pitcher, hitter, or both.

MLB The Show 21 is the first game in the series released on Xbox systems, opening it up to a massive new audience, and that audience gets to play a game that makes some serious changes compared to previous titles in the series. I didn't expect a yearly baseball game to end up being one of my favorite games of the year so far, but after putting over 150 hours into MLB The Show 21 in just a few months, I suppose I don't really have a choice.

Top video games of 2015 so far