Allow us to rewind the clocks back to a “golden age” of PC gaming known as the 1990s. This was the period when PC gaming was both great and basic at the same time. You had discs that contained some of the greatest gaming titles around long before consoles got into that style. For both adults, teens, and kids, there was something for you to play and spend hours on. If you were a sports kid, then games like Backyard Baseball were your jam. It lets you play baseball with ease and with MLB players on your side! Well, guess what? It’s about to come onto Steam.
It’s true! There’s an official Steam page for Backyard Baseball ’97, and it’s an upgraded version of the PC classic. As the team notes on the page, it’ll arrive on October 10th, feature improved visuals and framerates, and give you everything that the original game had while also letting you play things globally via the leaderboards. You can see who can get the most home runs in a season or attempt to strike everyone out to showcase how you’re the ace of the world.
Plus, yes, Pablo Sanchez is here in all his 2D glory. He’s not called the “Secret Weapon” for no reason! This was the ace of every league he was in! As noted by the team on the Steam page, they’re fans of this series and wanted nothing more than to give the fans what they want:
“At our core, we are fans first–not just of video games but of the Backyard Sports franchise. Fans have asked for accessible and legal ways to play their original Backyard titles for years, and we are excited to deliver.”
Now, while this is an incredible thing, and we should all be in awe that they’re pulling this off, there are some small restrictions you should be aware of. For example, while there are global leaderboards, you can’t go and play against friends in head-to-head matches, as the game wasn’t designed that way. Second, the team doesn’t have the title’s source code, so they can’t port it to things like the Steam Deck or MacOS.
That being said, they promise this will be the best version of Backyard Baseball you can get, and playing it on Steam will feel great. So, if this does well, you might see some of the other titles like football, basketball and even hockey get a Steam port! Batter up!
