Finally, sports are back! And by sports, I of course, mean football, the only sport any true, red-blooded American should care about. But if you’re about those other sports, like hockey, you are in luck. EA SPORTS showed off a gameplay deep dive for the upcoming NHL 23. Some of the features mentioned in the almost five-minute video include:
Last Chance Puck Movement – Contact with another player is one of the most frequent occurrences in gameplay and now in NHL 23, Last Chance Puck Movement adds another layer of authenticity and excitement to gameplay with 500 new animations related to player contact and desperation plays.
New Updates to Strategies – NHL 23 will bring you more control over every action with updated strategies: a 1-3-1 power play, and a counter to 1-3-1 with a 1-1-2 on the penalty kill, which players might know as Triangle +1 or Wedge +1. On the Power Play, players can assign three different roles to players: Distributor, Finisher and Puck Carrier. In addition to these strategies, NHL 23 will feature Assisted Strategies which will include an in-game pop up that notifies players if there’s an opportunity to modify their strategy during the game, increasing the competitiveness of play.
New X-Factors – NHL 22 first introduced the X-Factor system to highlight the greatest skills of some hockey players while providing players with the most significant abilities that appear in-game. Now, NHL 23 brings players two new X-Factors to accompany the two cover athletes: Sarah Nurse and Trevor Zegras. The first is Sarah Nurse’s “Relentless,” which increases player ability to shoot and pass while off balance, a fitting skill for the high-scoring Olympian. The second is Trevor Zegras’ “Skilled Up,” which allows players to recreate the Ducks player’s viral “Michigan” flip pass over the net.
AI Awareness – Goaltending and teammate awareness has been an area of focus for NHL 23. AI goalies will now play more like a human player than ever before with the addition of 300 new save animations that were previously unavailable to AI players, while AI skaters will also bring players closer to the game with increased team awareness, just like fans would see in a regular hockey game.
Community Feedback – By listening to our dedicated fanbase, we’ve made a plethora of in-game changes including re-working the pass assist, improving the interception and the disruption of passes and increasing the puck carrier speed, as well as bringing about updates to the poke check.
NHL 23 will be available on October 14 on PlayStation5, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation4 and Xbox One. If preordering is still something you’re into, if you pre-order the X-Factor Edition will get you three days of early access.
