Backyard Baseball pressed all the nostalgia buttons when it was revived last fall for PC as
The Backyard Sports series debuted with 1997’s Backyard Baseball. In subsequent installments, the games tackled a variety of sports like football, soccer, basketball, hockey, and even skateboarding. Reboots of the series have occurred several times since then, first in the PS2 era with 3D takes on the formerly 2D series, and then again a few years later with a pair of Xbox 360 exclusives. A new game in the series hasn’t been seen since 2015’s pair of mobile-only sequels that were later removed from mobile stores.
Though Backyard Baseball ’97 (like Backyard Soccer ’98) doesn’t feature real-life pro athletes, some later games did when they originally debuted, and Playground Productions has indicated at least some of these players will be returning to future revivals as they release.