MLB The Show 26 does a fantastic job of keeping games competitive, but its Dynamic Difficulty system can sometimes feel like a double-edged sword. One week you are seeing the ball perfectly and crushing homers, and the next, the game decides you are a digital prime-era Cy Young winner and starts painting corners at Hall of Fame or Legend difficulty. When you hit a rough patch, it is completely normal to want to scale things back, tweak how often the difficulty shifts, or just start completely fresh.

However, navigating the menus to do this can be a bit confusing. Because the game continuously tracks your real-time performance and adjusts your skill baseline behind the scenes, there is no straightforward "reset progress" button sitting in the options. Instead, you have to look at a few specific system settings and community-tested workarounds to get your gameplay back down to a fun, manageable level like Beginner or Rookie.

How to Enable or Change Dynamic Difficulty
If you want to turn Dynamic Difficulty on for the first time, swap between different areas of play, or control how often the game interrupts you with updates, you can manage everything right from the main menus. Here is exactly where to go:

Head over to the top-right corner of the main menu and select the Settings option.

From there, choose User Settings and then click on General.

Look for the Difficulty tab. Here, you can independently adjust your Hitting Difficulty, Pitching Difficulty, or Fielding Difficulty.

To turn the feature on, simply push your selection slider all the way to the left until it reads Dynamic. You can do this for all three options or mix and match if you only want it active for hitting.

Optional Display Updates: If you find the mid-game skill notifications distracting or want to see exactly how close you are to leveling up, go to User Settings, select Display, and scroll all the way to the bottom to find Dynamic Difficulty Update. You can set this to Progress (shows a visual progress bar during play), New Level (only alerts you when you actually rank up or down), or Game Start (keeps things completely quiet until the next game begins).

Quick Tip: Setting your difficulty updates to "Progress" is highly recommended if you are trying to track your performance, as it gives you immediate visual feedback on how your plate discipline or pitching accuracy is impacting your hidden rank.

How to Reset Your Dynamic Difficulty Progress
If the algorithm has scaled your difficulty up to a punishing level and you are no longer having fun, you do not have to sit through dozens of frustrating games just to naturally drop back down. Since a standard reset button does not exist, the community relies on two reliable workarounds to clear out old data or force a fast drop.

The Preset Profile Method (The Cleanest & Easiest Way): Go back into the main Settings menu and look for your gameplay presets or profile management. From here, choose the option to create a brand-new settings preset. Setting up a completely clean profile essentially wipes the internal dynamic baseline clean, sending your difficulty right back to Beginner/Rookie. Best of all, this only resets your slider progress; it will not touch your Diamond Dynasty cards, your Road to the Show saves, or any of your unlocked trophies.

The Exhibition Slider Hack (The Fast Track): If you want to force the system to rapidly re-adjust to a specific sweet spot without making a new profile, launch a standard Exhibition Game with Dynamic Difficulty turned on. Pause the game, go to the Sliders menu, and change the sliders based on what you need. If you want to drop your difficulty fast, deliberately strike out on offense and surrender massive home runs on defense to plummet your rank down to Rookie. Conversely, if you ever want to level up instantly, crank your batting contact and power sliders all the way to maximum and rack up dozens of hits.

Using these methods gives you total control over your experience. Whether you want a clean slate or just want to slow down the rate at which the game punishes your successes, tweaking these settings ensures your time on the diamond stays rewarding and fun.