NHL 24 Review

Like clockwork, 2023 sees a new entry in the long running series of EA Sports’ NHL games as we’re greeted with the 33rd entry with NHL ’24. To keep things fresh on a yearly basis, EA Vancouver always figures out ways to update the game to keep it fresh and keep players coming back every year. Let’s see what the developers brought to the ice this year.

Similar to last year’s entry, the game will guide players through a few configuration settings to adapt their experience to their virtual hockey skills. Whether it be you’re a newcomer or a yearly dedicated player, you’re sure to find a difficulty setting tailored to your skills. The biggest difference here is that now you are forced to use the right stick to shoot whereas up to last year, some settings allowed you to configure shooting and passing to face buttons.

Let’s get into the meat of the new gameplay features. Obviously for newcomers, these won’t mean much, but long time players salivating at the idea of this yearly release will surely revel in them. First up is the new Exhaust Engine system which inspires endless forechecking in the opposition”s own end, near the goalie. And then there’s the new Goalie Exhaust System. The more you put pressure on the other’s team goalies with shots and offensive pressure, it will tire the goalie and subsequently increase your chances to score.

EA Vancouver also refined the game’s physics by upping their game (pun intended) with new Physics based contact. This new features lets players decide what kind of punishment to dish out; shoves or big hits. Shoving will nudge the opposing player separating them from the puck giving a window of opportunity to your team to grab it whereas big hits, as you’d suspect, causing the other player to land on his buttocks and giving your team small period of time for a man advantage.

When you’re on the offense, you can benefit from the new Vision Passing system which allows you to pass the puck to any teammate on the ice and create beautiful tic-tac-toes goal. Hut Moments will let die-hard fans of the sport relive a plethora of classic moments throughout the history of hockey. EA Vancouver also plans to add new moments throughout the year via game updates.

And yes, before you ask, this game is jam-packed with content. It clearly shows how far we’ve come since the Atari era. If you want to test your skills online against other real players, you can play Hockey Ultimate Team, World of Chel (arcade-like modes), Online Versus, Hut Rush and NHL Three Online. If you’d rather enjoy some solo fun or with a friend locally, you can Play Now a quick match, attempt to conquer the Be A Pro Career mode, Franchise Mode, tournaments, IIHF Tournaments, Ones Now, NHL Threes, Season Mode or Playoff Mode. You can also fiddle with random in-game settings by managing your rosters, roster sharing, creation zone, hone your skills with training and practice or just have some fun with Shootout mode.

As you’d expect, this game still looks great, albeit visual improvements are less noticeable year over year. At this stage in the current console generation, developers are slowly plateau’ing with certain engines and this one isn’t much different. Players do look great and detailed. Crowds look reasonable, although some camera angles still make them look like cardboard people. The audio is on point as you’d expect. The crowd noise is solid and responds accordingly to the action on the ice. The commentary will make you feel like you’re watching a game on TV. There’s also a new commentator, Cheryl Pounder, former defensewoman for the Canadian Women’s Hockey League who also competed in the 2002 and 2006 Winter Olympics.

While there’s isn’t anything inherently wrong, I mean if it’s not broke, don’t fix it, but the main nuisance I’ve encountered here is that now players are forced to use the right joystick to pull off shots on net. Up to last year’s iteration, players could swap controller scheme where they could either use the joystick or face buttons. As someone’s used to using the face buttons, it took a while to adapt. Furthermore, same thing for face-offs and as of this writing, I still can’t, for the life of me, win a face-off because of the joystick imposed mechanic.

NHL 24 is another great addition to the long lineage of EA’s flagship hockey franchise. There’s enough new content for hardcore players to experiment with and more game modes that you can shake a (hockey) stick at. Long time fans of the series are sure to be quite happy with this latest entry. Unfortunately, this might be a more difficulty entry point for newcomers; especially if you’re haven’t played a hockey game since either the golden 16-bit era or 2K NHL’s series. Being forced to use the joystick requires quite a bit of practice and time to adjust; especially when it comes to face-offs. It’s not really intuitive at first, and might even turn some newcomers away. Which is a bit unfortunate because gatekeeping gamers to cater to your core fanbase is not the way to grow. If you’re a returning player, this year’s entry is a must. If however you’re looking to dip your toes and experiment, I’d recommend NHL 23 instead if you fancy using face buttons for slightly more arcade-y feel.