EA Sport’s NHL 27 Deep Dive — Is It In The Game?

Help Us Grow By Making Us Your Preferred Source

Follow us for the latest in the the games industry.

For years, EA Sports has used a slogan, “EA Sports, It’s in the Game.” Around 2016, they stopped using this slogan, which I still feel was a mistake, and after watching the new gameplay presentation deep dive for NHL 27, I think they should go back.

Over the past couple of years, the developers have shifted a lot of focus to the online components of the game while also changing the gameplay, strategy, and presentation of the game. All of these changes, like ICE-Q, I feel, are getting overshadowed by other things they’re trying to bring to the game this year with Connected Franchise or 99 Club, which I have spoken about previously.

I grew up around hockey and truly wouldn’t consider myself a hockey fanatic. The gameplay changes EA has made to how the game plays, I think, have been fantastic, but all you hear about is the community complaining about the online play features and now a game mode in Connected Franchise that none of us have even played yet, but somehow already have formed an opinion around it.

In their latest deep dive, I was blown away by some of the changes coming to NHL 27, and if they can pull off what they have said, I could easily say it will play like an actual hockey game.

I want to start with the fact that in NHL 27, EA Sports is bringing authentic goal songs and music played in certain arenas, because I think this will be one of the biggest overlooked things they bring to the game this year. Every team in the NHL has its own culture, style, and music. When I hear Kernkraft 400 by Zombie Nation, I’m instantly transported to TD Garden in Boston and will always associate that song with my favourite team, the Boston Bruins. When you hear your favourite team’s goal song, you instantly feel good because it’s never a bad thing when your team scores.

It’s something I have wanted in the game for years, and I feel it’s far too often been overlooked. Years ago on the OG Xbox, we could put our own music in the game by ripping CDs to the Xbox’s internal hard drive, and that was the only time I could add the Bruins arena music. I wasn’t able to add the goal horn, but they added that as well. During the NHL 27 Gameplay presentation deep dive, they even showed what it looks like when a goal was scored at TD Garden in Boston, and I can say it was accurate.

They added new fan animations and are promising game storylines created using camera angles and players’ and fans’ facial expressions to make each game feel like its own. For far too long, we have seen the same fans in the stands and what feels like the same goal celebrations year after year. If they can pull off what they’re talking about in the deep dive, I’m going to be blown away.

Changes Are Coming to NHL 27

These types of changes, though, don’t get the fanfare they should because Game modes and what I call the loud minority will overshadow them. I have been to over 14 NHL arenas across the league, and when I do the review for NHL 27, I will be sure to speak to the authenticity of each rink portrayed in the game.

They have changed their broadcast presentation this year, adding John Buccigross and Darren Pang, who are far more familiar to American audiences than Canadian audiences, but I can understand this switch, as I’m guessing they want to grow their American audience for the game. I will have to wait to play the game before I comment on whether this change was for the better. The developers mention they made this change to give a televised presentation, and I hope they pull it off because it has been lacking for years in the game.

The biggest gameplay change I’m sure had people feeling like they were learning was the use of the term AI a lot, which in recent years has developed a negative connotation. Ai has been the NHL franchise and sports games, for that matter, for years and wouldn’t be able to work without it. They have refined it over the years, and I feel they are working hard to make the game feel and look more like an NHL game.

This year, they have added all 32 NHL teams’ playbooks, which will let players use or change their favourite team’s system in-game. I’m not going to bore you with technical speak here, but the hockey nerd in me geeked out pretty hard when they spoke about this during the presentation. In simple terms, the Boston Bruins play a man-on-man system where each forward and defender follows their counterpart in the neutral zone and the defensive zone and doesn’t switch off, forcing teams to stretch them out to find open ice. If I’m using Boston and playing a team like the Tampa Bay Lightning that uses a hybrid system with a 1-3-1, it would allow them to clog the neutral zone and force Boston to have only one defender high in the zone, leaving them vulnerable to stretch passes. In NHL 27, I would be able to adjust to how my team is playing and use a different system if I’m unable to sustain offensive pressure early in the game.

In previous NHL games, they only allow you to use a couple of different offensive and defensive strategies, making it a lot less fun to play the game and a lot easier to find easy ways to score.

In the end, all of these changes sound fantastic to me, but I need to see the finished product before I can truly say “EA Sports, It’s in the Game” again. I do think hockey fans should focus more on these changes than the game modes they mentioned earlier, which, based on the statistics, most people don’t even play anyway.

Help Us Grow By Making Us Your Preferred Source

Follow us for the latest in the the games industry.