'Backyard Sports' Return Revealed in New Trailer, Teases Baseball Video Game

After recent teases on social media, the Backyard Sports video game series has been confirmed to return.

Playground Productions released an official reveal trailer for the relaunched series teasing a new baseball game on Tuesday.

The trailer includes Backyard Sports icons Pablo Sanchez, Stephanie Morgan, Achmed Khan, Pete Wheeler and Kiesha Phillips.

The upcoming game will mark the first release for the franchise since 2015 when Backyard Sports: Baseball and Backyard Sports: Basketball were released for iOS and Android.

While it's unclear how many people outside of Playground Productions had any inside info about the relaunch, there have been plenty of teases in recent weeks to suggest something was up.

Kansas City Royals star Bobby Witt Jr. used a custom Pablo Sanchez bat last weekend against the Cincinnati Reds as part of MLB Players Weekend. He even hit a homer with it in Friday's 7-1 victory.

Tess DeMeyer of The Athletic noted an official release date for the new game has not been set, but an announcement from Playground Productions said it would be "in the coming months."

Playground Productions chief product officer Chris Waters issued a statement about the relaunch (h/t DeMeyer):

"We're incredibly excited to reintroduce Backyard Sports to a new generation of players. We're taking great care to preserve the look and feel that made the original games so special while updating them with modern features and gameplay that today's audience expects. I can't wait for fans to see what we're building on the Playground."

Interest in the franchise seemed to pick up earlier this year when Jason and Travis Kelce talked about it on the New Heights podcast, with Jason saying he was "secretly looking into" who held the rights to the franchise to potentially buy them and relaunch the series.

The franchise launched in 1997 with Backyard Baseball. Football, basketball, soccer, skateboarding and hockey were all added to the list of games in the Backyard Sports franchise over the years.

Professional stars like Stephen Curry, LeBron James, Derek Jeter, Mike Trout, LaDainian Tomlinson, Peyton Manning and Michael Vick have been featured in past games in the franchise.

A total of 38 games have been released in the series, not including the relaunch title.