EA SportsThanks to dramatic on-ice changes, NHL 24 from developer EA Vancouver looks like it could be the first truly next-generation feeling game from the storied hockey series.
Promising a dramatic overhaul to the gameplay meta thanks to a new stamina system and a more dynamic relationship between crowds and the action, the third effort on next-generation consoles feels like a major revamp.
Impressive, considering much of the highly successful NHL 23 did the same by yanking the series out of the old generation's reliance on animations during gameplay.
Meaning, once again, the newest entry has the chance to grasp best-yet status in the series.
It was fair to wonder where the series would go with gameplay after last year's fantastic outing.
As it turns out, it's comfortable gambling it all on what could be a major upgrade.
A feature called the Exhaust Engine now governs the back-and-forth nature of the sport, leaning heavily into themes of momentum to dictate stamina bars.
What the game dubs a Sustained Pressure meter builds when maintaining possession of the puck inside the other team's blue line. It fades quickly when the puck leaves it, but when fully built, defender stamina drains notably faster and offensive players get boosts to passing and shooting.
Goalie Fatigue systems within this ecosystem fatigue the netminder faster than usual, making it harder to move post-to-post and a wealth of new animations really sells the idea, with the goalie becoming more desperate and exaggerated with each consecutive save attempt.
The idea is that this will open up more shots from farther out, rewarding players who operate smoothly within the blue line, or rewarding defenders who block shots and clear the puck.
On offense this is a great feeling. It's clear goalies aren't as successful or potent after the first shot of a power play and managing the puck well indeed feels like it creates a snowball effect that leaves the player with great regret if a sustained trip inside the other third doesn't result in a goal.
Defensively it feels pretty good too, with the play of other defenders having a massive impact on whether their netminder can actually survive the push. While the thrill of being on offense with momentum is fun, so too is the palpable relief when the defense wins out and the puck goes back the other direction.
Defense gets an assist via a revamped check system which sees fatigue drain faster than ever, creating a more risk-reward element to something players had been able to spam in the past. So much so, evading a check will create big separation for the target, meaning it is a big risk-reward for defenders.
While it's not new to other sports games, a fresh vision passing feature puts a helpful map of face buttons on screen to make options with the puck obvious.
From a netminder-specific slant, there are new highlight saves and better controls, including a setting that automatically returns the player to middle of the net. This makes engaging with a player-lock mode strictly as a goalie refreshingly fun.
The game even boasts a new control setting called total control skill moves, which re-maps dekes to face buttons. Quite different than skill stick mapping of old, this sort of control feels fine for more arcade-based modes like World of Chel, making it easier to pull off the tough stuff, but it's understandable if most players want to stick with the legacy option. It will register as controversial for some players because very difficult moves can happen with a simple button prompt, but the series needed to dial back some of the complicated inputs.
Add in last year's big upgrades like X-Factors and player roles and the game feels different in a way most sports games don't on a year basis. The overarching fatigue system will need some tweaks once the community gets its hands on it and starts to find cracks, but at launch, it feels really fresh and good.
Graphics and Presentation
This is the third year of Frostbite engine and it shows as the series continues to lean into the newfound horsepower, be it on the ice or in the sweeping presentation tweaks.
Chief among these is the revamped presentation and crowd, spanning interesting new-feeling camera angles and light shows to an arena that largely seems to react well to things like those high-pressure moments inside the blue line.
Players will need to experience it for themselves, but this is the first time it has felt like the video-gameified rollout of interactions has changed. In the past, players would do an action, then the crowd and commentary would react to it. This time, there is more nuance, with the crowd sometimes encouraging the player to shoot and otherwise swelling during a sustained push or breathing a collective sigh of relief when the defense wins out.
The game sporting new celebrations doesn't sound like much, but a new camera angle and unique celebrations for some of the game's biggest stars really adds that flair of authenticity.
Ditto for new dynamic rink boards, as the game gets creative here. Rather than throwing more overlays and information on the screen, some of this gets shifted to the rink boards themselves, displaying important game info such as the remaining time on the clock.
That's part of the fluidity to presentation that is best in series now. The game has always excelled at presenting stat overlays and important information, so it's cool to see it blended into the experience in a new way.
Sound design remains a huge positive on most fronts, especially thanks to new color commentator Cheryl Pounder, replacing Ray Ferraro. Longtime players will notice repeated lines from prior years elsewhere, so it still needs work, but injecting a completely new voice into it—who does a fantastic job—is a nice step.
There's been some notable user interface (UI) work done in modes such as World of Chel, too, simplifying things. But some of that menu lag remains, creating a slog of navigation at times that feels outdated.
Hockey Ultimate Team, World of Chel and More
Hockey Ultimate Team (HUT) is one of the notable modes to get a big update pass this year.
HUT Challenges are out in favor of Live Moments. The effort, clearly, is to remove some of the boring, static challenges players had to tackle with a little more personality. So, players will tackle challenges from throughout the sport's history (and unlock legends), with the promise that current happenings will eventually become part of the experience too.
Also back are X-Factors, which diversify the gameplay a bit in a nice manner, though how online metas develop around these will be something to watch.
Finally, the auction house is now a crossplay feature shared across consoles too. We've seen some sports games start to yank this type of feature entirely from similar modes, so it's nice to see it remain and expanded upon for the health of the online community.
World of Chel, though, gets the biggest updates of all given its broad appeal.
A new single-period game mode that doesn't have a leaderboard or impact competitive ratings is a pleasure to experience in short bursts, as designed. It will be interesting to see how rewards increase or decrease in this quick mode over the game's life cycle, but it's nice to have the option to drop into a brief session, have fun and pop back out.
NHL 24 offers a bit of a give-and-take to the customization side of things. Boxes with random drops are out, but in is a shop built around coins, which players earn and can use to buy apparel and such. It's nice to see the archaic lootbox-styled rewards that leave players vulnerable to RNG to earn desirable things gone, but it's understandable if players are hesitant to the pitfalls of an online shop.
Case in point, there is now a World of Chel battlepass in the same vein as battle passes found in other games, ad nauseam (the fact it's a battle pass in hockey game is pretty funny, at least). This first pass is free, but subsequent ones every two months will have free and paid versions ($10), both offering varying degrees of cosmetics.
In a nice touch, at least, the game promises that all of the customization items from last year's game are available in the store and everything players earn will carry over to next year's game.
CHEL and HUT enhanced cross-play now spans all generations, meaning it is possible to create clubs with players on different consoles.
For those looking to compete on competitive ladders, an updated EASHL playoffs mimics real-world playoffs, tasking players with four best-of-seven rounds. It adds more stakes to each game compared to the mindless grind of infinite games to move up a leaderboard found in past efforts.
By now, fans of sports games know there is a big give-and-take when it comes to allocating resources to the year's annual installment. And unfortunately, Franchise Mode and Be a Pro get the short end of the stick (get it?) this year in favor of the gameplay upgrades.
That franchise X-Factor progression now levels based on attributes is one of the bigger talking points says it all. While a very welcome and necessary change, Be a Pro otherwise feels like it starts the same way as last year with very minimal changes throughout and it's mostly the same vibe for franchise.
As always, the game flirts with top-dog status amongst sports games when it comes to the wealth of options. Performance during games is solid, though the same certainly doesn't apply for the stuttering menus and little things like number of steps it takes to customize characters.
Conclusion
Impressively, the series continues to build a healthy bit of momentum by the year, with NHL 24 even rolling the proverbial dice on a sweeping gameplay change that could have backfired dramatically.
While the new momentum and stamina features will need future tweaks to keep up with players, it might actually be really interesting to see Madden adopt a system like this to a greater effect, where sustained drives really have an impact.
For a series that has often felt like it's getting the shiny new stuff a year later than other sports games, it's nice to see NHL 24 create some of its own unique momentum to positive results.
While the series still has some serious growing to do, NHL 24 feels better than ever on the ice, which is the most important area to get right before almost anything else.
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