Experienced gamers are certain to know all about EA Sports’ major franchises such as FIFA Soccer, Madden NFL, and NHL Hockey. What you might not realise is that these games have now been around for more than 25 years, having first been published for Sega’s Mega Drive (also known as the Genesis in North America) console in the early 1990s! In the case of NHL Hockey specifically, the first game was published in 1991 with a sequel – NHLPA Hockey 93 – appearing on the market just 18 months later. Those initial titles proved so popular with gamers and sports fans that EA Sports has continued to release annual updates to the NHL franchise ever since.
The NHL Hockey games have sold well in every major territory, even in countries where the sport itself is not particularly appreciated. I’ll admit that I was shocked to learn that hockey has more than two billion fans worldwide, making it the world’s third most popular sport behind only soccer and cricket. Nevertheless, take a look at the ice hockey section of any major sportsbook and you are certain to find that NHL odds make up the lion’s share of the bets on offer. This should not come as a surprise – Ice Hockey is a national pastime for Canadians, as well as being one of the four major sports played in the United States.
A Brief Recap
The fact that I am old enough to remember playing the first NHL Hockey game shortly after its release on the Mega Drive is a sobering thought. The original included just two main gameplay modes dubbed season and playoff, and it wasn’t until NHL 94 that this was expanded to include exhibitions, training, and shootouts. These new modes represented a dramatic increase in the scope of the game and convinced a huge number of existing players to purchase the updated cartridge.
The arrival of 3D-capable games consoles such as the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn presented EA Sports with an enormous challenge, as their developers scrambled to get to grips with the new hardware. This resulted in the 2.5D NHL ‘96 in 1995, followed by the first true 3D instalment a year later. We then got a mostly evolutionary update in the shape of NHL ’98, before NHL ’99 broke the mould once again by adding a career mode to what was already shaping up to be an expansive and involving sports simulation.
Notice Anything?
The eagle-eyed amongst you might have noticed a pattern during those early years – every other year, the NHL franchise would receive a relatively major rework. This was a clever strategy on the part of EA Sports – whilst only the most dedicated hockey fans were likely to purchase the games offering only minor changes such as an updated roster, the company ensured that they published a major update every couple of years to convince other players to invest in their new game.
Unfortunately, EA Sports seems to have abandoned its ‘tick-tock’ strategy at some point during the last decade or so, and major updates now seem to appear with ever-decreasing frequency. If the changes made to a title are relatively minor, a full-priced sequel can be difficult to justify; in such a case, developers should take advantage of the online connectivity built into modern consoles and provide a paid add-on or patch instead of requiring players to splash out on an entirely new game.
What’s New in NHL ‘23
All of that raises an obvious question – should NHL ’23 be a full-priced release, or should owners of the previous game be entitled to a paid update? When answering this question, it’s important to point out that NHL ’23 is the first NHL game that has been specifically developed for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series consoles. It’s also the first game in the franchise to offer crossplay, allowing Microsoft and Sony fans to compete against one another on the ice for the first time.
Another ‘first-time ever’ update is the addition of female hockey players to the game’s controversial ‘Ultimate Team’ mode, a result of EA Sports’ recent partnership with the IIHF. That’s an obvious win for inclusivity and diversity, but does little to improve the gameplay experience – last-chance puck movements are a different story, however, allowing players the chance to make desperate plays at the end of a game just like real-world teams. And there’s more – the sound effects have been improved drastically thanks to the addition of the Frostbite engine, and we even get a bunch of new ‘X-Factors’ to experiment with as well.
Conclusion
You could certainly argue that EA Sports could have done more given the power available in the current generation of consoles, but NHL ’23 still represents a worthwhile update to the franchise both visually and in terms of the gameplay on offer.
