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Backyard Baseball on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
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The arcade-style classic is back - and it's leveling up. With enhanced gameplay, new game modes, and all the humor & charm of the original, this is Backyard Baseball like it was always meant to be played. Are you ready to play like a kid again?
Backyard Baseball is a sports, baseball and pvp game
developed by Mega Cat Studios
and published by Playground Productions.
Released on July 09th 2026 is available in English on Windows and MacOS.
It has received 942 reviews of which 746 were positive and 196 were negative resulting in a rating of 7.6 out of 10. 😊
The game is currently priced at 38.99€ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified Backyard Baseball into these genres:
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System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- OS: Windows 10 - 64-Bit (Latest Update)
- Processor: Intel Core i5-6500 @3.2GHz
- Memory: 12 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 1060 6GB
- DirectX: Version 11
- Network: Broadband Internet connection
- Storage: 15 GB available space
MacOS
- OS: macOS 12.0
- Processor: Apple M1 or 7th Gen i5
- Memory: 12 GB RAM
- Graphics: Dedicated AMD for Intel Macs
- Network: Broadband Internet connection
- Storage: 15 GB available space
Steam Price & Best Deals
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
As someone who grew up on classic BYB and who still thinks BYB '01 is genuinely the best baseball game on Steam, I'm having a mixed but overall positive experience with this game. The marketing made it sound like it would be a one-to-one recreation of the original game so I was taken aback by just how much of it has been changed. And not all of these changes are bad, but if you're looking for an overly in-depth review of this game from someone who has literally hundreds of hours on the Steam versions of classic BYB, here you go: First, my thoughts on the changes that aren't necessarily good or bad but definitely make the experience different from classic BYB. -Holding for fielding instead of tapping a location/target makes fielding generally slower than it used to be, and this also means there is no buffering for double-plays anymore. On one hand, this makes double-plays harder and more satisfying when they happen but on the other hand, it can make the game frustrating at times because something that SHOULD be routine double-play is literally impossible because of the lack of buffer. -Hitting has been reworked to be more locational. On one hand, this makes the game feel more modern like a proper baseball game but on the other hand, it makes the game basically unplayable without pitch location assist, which was one of the most fun ways to play classic BYB. In classic BYB, the pitches came in slow enough for you to read and react without location assist but in new BYB, breaking balls break WAY more and much quicker than they used to, so playing without location assist is needlessly frustrating. And that's not necessarily a bad thing but in my opinion, the game isn't nearly as satisfying with pitch location turned on, so I feel like the game is punishing me for wanting something a little more skill-based. But also, this might be personal preference mixed with skill issue so I'll put it in this section. And then we have changes that are objectively bad and NEED to be fixed because they're just straight-up bad game design: -Pitcher juice means nothing. You can continue playing a pitcher at 0% juice with no significant consequence to your accuracy. In classic BYB, the pitcher would get noticeably less accurate as you ran out their juice and once you got below a certain point, they would literally become incapable of throwing a strike. But in this game, the "no juice" accuracy nerf is so minor that it doesn't even matter. -Special charge from the hitter's side is broken. I've had several games where it literally just doesn't charge. Haven't noticed this happening from the pitcher's side but batter's side Special charge is clearly bugged. Just bring back the old system where if you do something good, you're rewarded with a random Special. The charging-Special system breaks the flow, even if it was working as intended. -Certain Special hits don't do anything special. The Screaming Line Drive and Aluminum Power are literally just normal hits but slightly harder, and can lead to easy outs. The Under-Grounder frequently pops out of the ground directly in front of an outfielder and regularly gets you thrown out. The Crazy Bunt seems to work as intended but it moves so slowly that you rarely get more than a single out of it. It's gotten to the point that I don't even use special swings anymore because they're no more reliable than just swinging normally. -The strike zone means nothing. You can throw a ball that's not even CLOSE to the strike zone and it's still entirely hittable. In classic BYB (and in real baseball, for that matter), pitches outside the strike zone were literally not hittable, which was the whole point of throwing breaking balls. But now, you can still hit dingers off of pitches that are entirely out of the strike zone so why is the strike zone even there? Between this and the lack of buffer on defense (as mentioned earlier), it makes the game much more offensive-friendly than classic BYB (and real baseball, for that matter) and I don't think that's a good thing. If the defense is literally not capable of playing smart or precise, it's just not fun. -No switch-hitting? Really? BYB '03 had this and switch-hitting has only become more prominent in baseball over the last 20 years. -No option to make a character that doesn't hit with their dominant hand? This is an extremely common thing in real baseball, why can't I make a character that throws right-handed but bats lefty? And if you're looking for changes from the original that are objectively good, I really don't think I have any when it comes to gameplay, which is why I have such a weird taste in my mouth after 8 hours. The presentation is fantastic and all the new dialogue for Sunny and Vinnie are fantastic, the writers and voice actors killed it. Being able to have 3 custom players at a time is awesome as well, but these aren't gameplay improvements. They're just obvious updates to things that were already there. Overall, this is a very good game and I'm sure a lot of my frustrations are only felt because I love the originals so much BUT there is still a pretty lengthy list of issues that need to be fixed if they're going to insist on charging $40 for this. In its current state, I would grade it a B- and would NOT recommend paying more than $25 for it. I'm still giving it a thumbs up because a B- is still an above average game and despite all its flaws, this is still one of the better baseball games I've played (and certainly one of the best baseball games on Steam). If you're totally new to the series, I still recommend BYB '01 over this. It's 25 years old and somehow FAR more mechanically sound at a quarter of the price, and that's really what stings about the whole thing.
I am giving this game a thumbs up, HOWEVER, I am still going to go over some issues this game has as they are important to go over. And I want to go over them in detail because I want to make sure that if a developer were to come across this review that my feedback can be as helpful as possible, because I believe in this game. But yes, for now, I am still pretty happy with how this game is turning out, and I truly honestly think the future is bright for this series moving forward. The animation and 3D designs are just about as charming as the original Humungous Entertainment games. And I think a lot of the new flair they gave to a lot of characters when selecting them on the bench, seeing them complete a home run, things like that, are really cool to see. I just really like the art direction in general, even if there are a decent amount of technical quirks that do come up with out the models and animations were implemented. And the gameplay, at least to it's core, remains pretty much in tact with upgrades here and there that help makes this game fit in to the modern day. State of the game at Launch: Now, with that all being said, there are issues to go over. I think the thing that'll be the biggest sticking point for most players right now is that this game feels like it's not fully finished. There's the obvious part of them announcing online multiplayer will not be included at launch, and they announced this only a few days before launch. Then of course there are a few glaring glitches that pop up every once in a while when playing. Some batters have glitched animation transitions, and there's some batters that have glitched swings, things like that. These things just indicate to me that this game really should've stayed in the oven a bit longer. It's really close to feeling final, but just didn't have time to get those finishing touches. GAMEPLAY: The core gameplay is an interesting part. For me, at least, the core of it I'm pretty okay with. It's still Backyard Baseball after all. And I think the added features to the gameplay like stamina, sprinting, diving, etc, are all perfectly valid things to add to the core gameplay in my opinion. There are a few things that I think weren't super well or fully thought out. Batting: The BIGGEST issue I think is how easy it is to hit the ball. With the pitch indicator, it's way too easy to aim your cursor and hit home runs with literally any batter, even the weakest power hitters. And then, on the flip side, this game does include a toggle to turn off this indicator, but that causes the exact opposite problem in not having the slightest clue on where to swing in the strikezone (especually for right and left hook pitches, YIKES those are impossible without indicators). The 3D baseball as it's being pitched alone doesn't indicate well enough at all where to swing, just due to lacking depth perception and all. The original game, it's important to remember that it had 3 different options for pitch indicators. It offered the two we already talked about, but the main option I believe most players are used to, including myself, is just the swing spot indicator. I'm not saying this new game as to do it exactly this way, but I think the main reason this option worked as well as it did is that it helped give the player a general idea of where the pitch was going to land, but not just say outright where in the circle swing spot indicator the pitch will be. While this solution has it's problems in the original game, the point of it was to not make it super easy to land perfect hits while batting. There NEEDS to be something for this new game that serves this same purpose. It probably shouldn't be exactly how it was in the originals, but it needs something. Because right now, it's way too easy to hit good swings, which I'm sure would in turn make pitching feel very frustrating if you were to pitch against human players, knowing that no matter how you pitch, they can easily hit perfect swings. Fielding: I know fielding is a common issue for people. I do think that some of that just comes down to the fielding mechanics having changed a lot since the original games that it's throwing off a lot of returning players on how to control it. I've been trying to adapt to the new method of control that I think is more optimal, which is using my movement keys (WASD) as much as I can to manually control a selected fielder. That has given me the most amount of reliable control so far I think. That being said, I do agree that, especially without using movement keys, fielding feels very clunky. I guess in my experience so far that I have the most problems with is not really being able to tell which fielder I have selected quickly enough. I often end up trying to get a fielder to a ball way in the outfield for example, not realizing that I was controlling a fielder I didn't intend to and forced them to run the wrong way. This is something I could probably still get used to with time, but probably worth noting that it's awkward to see who you are actively controlling. I also think that fielding in general can feel quite slow. As mentioned while talking about batting, it's already really easy to get really good hits (which I think is the main issue in regards to this), but also I think additionally, trying to get the ball back in the infield can feel really slow, and might be making it too easy to score runs. Not sure if a slight buff to throw speed from fielders in general is in order maybe? I do think the ease of batting is probably worth addressing first before jumping to conclusions here, but I think it's something to keep an eye on. PRICE: This is a bit of an elephant in the room, so I guess I should probably mention this. But yeah, the price is pretty steep right now ($40 USD at launch). Especially considering that yes, this game does feel like it's not fully finished yet. I do think that people are rightfully pretty concerned about why this game launched at this price, while also not launching as a fully complete product. Maybe this is just a ModernGaming™ moment, sadly this is not an uncommon thing to see today with games releasing this way. I guess for me I still think it's worth it to invest in a product I believe in. I plan to keep what I bought. But not all players see things that way. A lot of players will probably see the state of the game at release, look at the price tag, and say "no". Not launching the game with online multiplayer instead of just delaying the game for a month or so, or however longer the developers would need to make the online multiplayer ready for the public, will forever perplex me. CONCLUSION: As I said earlier, I do still want to give this game a thumbs up. I do believe that this game is promising. I can tell a lot of love was put into this project. Perhaps being a game developer myself makes that a bit more obvious to me. And I do think, despite the issues at launch, this game is really good for what it is! But it's also hard to ignore that yeah, this game has issues that indicate that it wasn't fully finished when it launched. And when it launches like this, with a price tag like that as mentioned earlier, it can be a tough sell for a lot of people. And people are valid to think that, it's understandable. I do hope there is a learning opportunity here on the publishing side that will be taken to heart on how to handle game launches like this a bit better into the future. If you are someone on the fence on whether or not to buy this game, I would say to definitely keep an eye on it, comeback later and have it in your wishlist. See at a later date if they've addressed a lot of these issues players have and then make your call then. Or wait for a sale. Or both. I do think that I would wholeheartedly recommend this game to anyone on that fence once these are addressed because I think this game, and franchise, has a promising future.
Been playing these games since I got them at garage sales when I was a kid, so this was my most highly anticipated game of the year. Pros: - The animations look great, and I appreciate the sound design. Very polished. - Various quality of life improvements, such as hotkeys for batting stance, make micromanaging easy. - Hitting the ball feels really nice, especially on homers. In the older games, it was euphoric to get a hold of a curveball and blast it 600 feet, and they've modernized that feeling here. - I like the extra options for base running. Controlling the sprinting and sliding is both fun and creates a welcome skill ceiling. - The voice acting is, for the most part, good. I really enjoy the new Sunny Day, and I have no issues with the players. - It feels like some of the notoriously mediocre kids in previous games got buffed to the point of viability, without sacrificing the best players. I like the variety that this will create in both single player and multiplayer when it eventually comes. I never thought I'd see the day where Jorge Garcia has a reliable skill set, but here we are. - Overall, the faithfulness to the original games is positive, save for a few things I'll get into. I figure there's some artistic restraint necessary when making a new game in a series like this, balancing trying to make your own mark with sticking true to what works. I think the devs did a good job making it feel like a backyard game instead of a husk trying to live off the label, much like any backyard game released after 2005 felt to me. No Real Opinion: - This section is basically just about the Gatorade inclusion. I don't really care about it, but I understand if others are peeved. I'm neutral about it because Gatorade didn't replace 100% juice. If Gatorade HAD replaced it, I would've been pissed. Devs, PLEASE don't get any ideas. Areas for Improvement: - Not having multiplayer on launch hurts. I can still get dozens of hours out of single player, but playing against friends or even random people was something I was really looking forward to. Obviously this is something I'll remove from the review when it comes to the game, but the clock is ticking to make the multiplayer viable while the hype is still here. - HATE the change to power-ups. Getting strike-outs should give a pitching power-up, and getting a hit off a power pitch should give a batting power-up. I can't imagine anyone out there likes this change, but at the very least, I'd appreciate the ability to toggle it to the classic system. - I've played games with the pitch locator and without it. Without it, I can barely make contact. The new pitch animations look nice, but don't have the same arcs as the older games. Obviously this is something I'll get used to eventually, but no veteran of the series should assume they can just jump in with no pitch locator. Now, because you pretty much have to use the pitch locator to get a hit when you start playing, the game is incredibly easy. I'm talking 40 runs an inning easy. The pitch locator shows the exact location of the pitch instead of shading a general area. Previous games in the series have an option to show a rough area as well as the exact pitch location, and I believe this would be better than what is currently in the game. I can't comment on the difficulty levels since I haven't unlocked the hardest difficulty, but I can't imagine it'll change too much with the pitch location dichotomy. - I need way more stats. I need more stats in-game when players are at bat, I need to be able to pause a game and see how each kid on both teams are doing up to that point, I need to be able to use stats to scout my opponent, and I need to be able to see the league leaders. The irksome part of this bullet point is the fact that I'm not asking the devs to add something I've never seen before. I'm asking for something that is in the nearly 30 year old game(s) and NOT this one. Feels like a very easy, slam dunk fix that will add to the feel of season mode. - There are some more very minor gameplay things. I don't think the CPU takes enough time between pitches. The old games had it down pat, but in this game the opposing pitcher is on what feels like a 3-second pitch clock. You won't notice it in most situations, but it's jarring when you're trying to steal. Along these lines, there's a couple things I've found that don't follow the rules of baseball. When an outfielder catches a ball that bounces off the wall, it's been counted as an out multiple times for me. Also, if there's two outs and you get caught stealing for the third out of the inning, the batter that was at the plate when that out occurred doesn't go back to the plate, instead moving on to the next kid in the lineup. I don't know if these are bugs or intentional, but I figure these'll be fixed. - Vinnie's voice acting feels off. Like there's a lapse in the accent at the end of sentences that gets a little grating. I don't think a change here is even feasible, and it's not a particularly big gripe, I just wish the voice acting was better for one of the two characters you hear the most. - Lastly, $40 is too much for the product that we currently have. I've already played it too much to refund, but I never had any intention of doing so. There is a world where this game gets to $40, though. As long as multiplayer is nailed, I'll be happy. I'm also hoping there are free updates along the way. But as I write? $40 is steep. And if they have plans for DLC that's anything other than free, that'll be a big issue. Overall, while I think I had a lot of cons, I'm feeling good about this game's trajectory, as practically everything I said is fixable. This game has GREAT bones. It looks and sounds great, I'm enjoying gameplay, and it's very faithful to what made the older games work. I care about these games so much that this is the longest review I'll probably ever give for anything, and I think the devs have that same passion. I can definitely see a world where there's constant tweaks for the better, major content updates, and a vibrant multiplayer scene. I'm going to recommend it with the caveat that you love the series. If you're new to the games, I'd buy '01 instead and see if it speaks to you before committing to this $40 price tag.
Needs some work and smaller features that were in the old game, like its weird that there are no player portraits for any player that isnt part of the "main cast" so you see a lot of BLANK images. And other small things like that Disappointing that it launched this way but the developer has been very loud and active so I assume they are going to keep adding to the game over time with updates, but not a good first impression. Should've probably waited a few months UPDATE: - Commentators repeat the same 8 intros over and over again for the generic players to the point where its noticeable - No SUBSTITUTION notification or animation showing the pitcher is being switched like in the old game - No in depth in-game stats for the batter currently at bat like in old games, just tells you if they are 1/3 or 2/3 or 3/3 on the day...not even batting average which is strange. - Small things like when you click on a stat category and the description at the bottom populates sometimes they put spaces between words sometimes its just all caps mushed together like EARNEDRUNAVERAGE. Small things like this show lack of attention to detail - Stat label for RUNS and RBIs are both R...confusing - Cant change logo color for the team, even though you choose uniform colors - You name the team when you are creating a team for season play...but it doesnt use that. Which is fine, but why say it does? - everyone is wearing dark grey jeans. Kinda sticks out in a weird way. - you cant add a space in a player's name, so no first and last names...because SPACE BAR is the confirmation key. Not sure if intentional but it doesnt make it impossible - when you go to SAVE settings there is no CONFIRM or SAVE. Instead you have to press the BACK button and they let you know changes need to be saved that you may be cancelling unless you want to save them...instead of just having a CONFIRM CHANGES key. - Almost impossible to throw strikeouts unless you purposely throw pitches outside of the strike zone. If you do that you can definitely strike batters out but thats not exactly how baseball games work - Old Backyard Baseball games had a SHOW PITCH INDICATOR option in difficulty settings. Which was a shaded circle on where the pitch was going to be roughly...but wasnt the EXACT location leaving the player with some minor guessing on where it will actually land in said circle...now it just shows you exactly where its going. Strange
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Frequently Asked Questions
Backyard Baseball is currently priced at 38.99€ on Steam.
No, Backyard Baseball is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 38.99€ on Steam.
Yes, Backyard Baseball received 746 positive votes out of a total of 942 achieving a rating of 7.55.
😊
Backyard Baseball was developed by Mega Cat Studios and published by Playground Productions.
Yes, Backyard Baseball is playable and fully supported on Windows.
Yes, Backyard Baseball is playable and fully supported on MacOS.
No, Backyard Baseball is not playable on Linux.
Backyard Baseball offers both single-player and multi-player modes.
Backyard Baseball offers both Co-op and PvP modes.
No, Backyard Baseball does not currently offer any DLC.
No, Backyard Baseball does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
No, Backyard Baseball does not support Steam Remote Play.
Yes, Backyard Baseball is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for Backyard Baseball.
Data sources
The information presented on this page is sourced from reliable APIs to ensure accuracy and relevance. We utilize the Steam API to gather data on game details, including titles, descriptions, prices, and user reviews. This allows us to provide you with the most up-to-date information directly from the Steam platform.
Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.
Last Updates| Steam data | 28 July 2026 04:13 UTC |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 28 July 2026 03:12 UTC |
| Steam price | 28 July 2026 19:05 UTC |
| Steam reviews | 27 July 2026 07:45 UTC |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about Backyard Baseball, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about Backyard Baseball
- SteamCharts - Analysis of Backyard Baseball concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck Backyard Baseball compatibility
Game modes
Multiplayer
Features
Online players
581
Developer
Mega Cat Studios
Publisher
Playground Productions
Release
09 Jul 2026
Platforms