EA Sports NHL Is Trending In The Right Direction

For a long time, EA Sports NHL had a pretty subpar standard for how they interacted with the community. Whether it was listening to player feedback, implementing community wants for the game, or helping to shape the vision for EA Sports NHL, they always lacked transparency with their community. There was often a lack of communication from EA when it came to important topics and discussion points as well. Now that's beginning to change.

At 11:00 am on August 11th, 2023, @EASPORTSNHL tweeted an 8-minute and 3-second long video with the title "NHL 24 Community Update". The tweet read "Let's talk about Chel. We want to share our new approach to working together with you, the community, to help shape the vision for EA Sports NHL.

The video featured NHL Community Manager Dustin Wade "Clappy", as well as two team members of the EA NHL development team; Creative Director Mike Inglehart, and Senor producer Chris Haluke. The three discussed Community Obsession, Social Connection, and Gameplay Innovation as their three talking points.

The team started off by admitting that NHL 23 didn't live up to players expectations, and that they want to course correct this with NHL 24. Mike Inglehart also discussed how often the team listens to feedback, and said "While we can't answer absolutely everything you guys send to us, just know that we're reading them, we're seeing them, and we're using them to help plot the future of where we're going with this franchise". They also officially announced that they are opening up an official EA sports NHL Discord server after the NHL 24 worldwide reveal, where players can come in and be involved in the EA Sports NHL community. The team also discussed GM Connected Mode and where the development team was at with that. While GM Connected will not be in NHL 24, Mike did mention that "Connected Franchise" is something the team is working on, and hope to have in a near future NHL.

Social connection is an important part of the EA NHL games, as Chris Haluke mentions how hockey is a very social game, and emphasizes how they are ensuring that they have connected experiences all through the game. EASHL is a primary example of this social connection, and the development team is very aware of this. The team was thrilled to announce that they are bringing true cross-play into World Of Chel (or EASHL). As mentioned on a previous article by Safir (read more here NHL 24: Full Cross-play is Coming in World of Chel - The Hockey News Gaming News, Analysis and More) players on the same generation but different consoles can finally play on the same steam, instead of just against each other. 

Gameplay is a major, if not the most critical component of the NHL franchises, and the team discussed what gameplay innovations and features we can expect in NHL 24 and further down the development pipeline. Mike tells us that gameplay is one of the biggest focuses when developing NHL 24. The team has come up with a ton of gameplay changes that will change the game, including revamping the meta systems in the game. "You're gonna feel differences in how you attack, how you defend, and the tactics that go into that", says Mike. The team also discussed a new area they're exploring to help further grow the gameplay of NHL. Chris mentioned "tech driven gameplay", and how the team is looking into the possibility of having this in NHL. Tech driven gameplay could unlock volumetric capture, which would allow the team to capture unique animations for every player in the NHL, and could even include authentic strategies in the future. 

Overall, the video was a different approach from EA, one that allowed fans and players to catch a more behind the scenes view of how development occurs, and hear from those directly involved in making every EA NHL game. Don't forget you can catch your first peak of NHL 24 on August 16, 2023 when EASportsNHL released their full NHL 24 reveal at 11am EDT.