The recent announcements coming from EA regarding NHL 26 have been exciting. Every year, we’re hoping for significant improvements to gameplay, various modes, and other aspects that sometimes feel unchanged. After watching a preview with Mike Inglehart, Gameplay Director, and David Pritchett, Principal Designer on EA Sports NHL 26, I’m confident the gameplay is being changed in a big way. With the inclusion of NHL Edge, this year’s entry could be something revolutionary in the series.
It’s clear that realism is important in sports titles, but how EA is doing this with NHL 26 means a huge inclusion of a real-world service. NHL Edge is used in the National Hockey League to track every kind of statistic. In each arena, there are 14 infrared cameras set up, with sensors located in every puck and jersey. This helps to collect one million data points in each game, such as speed; shot power; stoppages; saves; and much more. EA is now using this to improve gameplay and how each player feels to control.
ICE-Q is NHL 26’s baby. It’s at the forefront of the gameplay and offers unique intelligence as to how you play, along with how the AI reacts. Combined with NHL Edge, it has great potential to change the series for the better. Looking at player attributes and tendencies, it’s going to affect the gameplay in NHL 26 to give great realism. Players will be identical to their real-life counterparts. Games will change depending on each individual player’s performance.
Players like McDavid will use their speed to pull away quickly, adding strategy to how you deal with this agility. Imagine this for every player and each game will feel completely different to the last. It provides a competitive edge, teaching players how to utilise their starters. Player tendencies fall into 22 different categories across both offence and defence. It will bring the AI to life like never seen before. The Goalie Crease Control system will make goalies more aware and more reactive as well.
Goalies have often been locked in animations when making a save or attempting one. Now, 81 new animations have been collected through mocap, meaning a second animation will be triggered to improve their intelligence. They’ll react to the puck in ways not seen before. More awareness will come from where the puck is, and if they let in a goal, their frustration will be seen in games. AI positioning all-round has been improved all over the ice and not just in-goal as well, offering more control and more reliability.
NHL 26 features new replay systems. Expanded goal replays will highlight player skating speeds, shot speeds, and more. It shares similarities with FC 25, but it takes it further by looking at the stats for the entire season and not just the current game. Camera angles have been improved to match real-world angles, such as behind goalie shots. Statistics from NHL Edge feature all over the ice and throughout every game, and these replays are further evidence of how well it seems to be implemented.
There’s also a cool new feature that lets you see player stats during face-offs. Stats once again update in real-time to show the probability of players winning face-offs. All of these tweaks and improvements in NHL 26 are going far beyond what people expected, and as I continued to see short videos and screens from the presentation, I could see just how much work was going into making EA’s latest iteration so much more involved than what had come before.
The final focus for the NHL 26 gameplay presentation focused on X-Factors 2.0. There are 28 refined and enhanced X-Factors in NHL 26 across 5 categories. Each one includes unique animations depending on the focus. The developers have also changed how they are labelled, making it much clearer to see when play in-game. There are three levels of intensity to X-Factors. Each one adds strategic gameplay to both how you utilise them in your team and how you play against them.
NHL 26 is looking great so far. These gameplay changes are going to provide plenty of strategy to how each game is played. The way NHL Edge is being implemented means no two games will be the same. The replays are going to be awesome, and the inclusion of stats that update in real-time is going to make the sports nerds (including me) very happy. X-Factors 2.0 further refines the mechanic to both balance the concept of individual player’s skills while also not breaking the game, and I cannot wait to get on the ice.
NHL 26 is coming to PlayStation and Xbox on September 12th.
