Ahead of its Thursday morning reveal, some NHL 23 features were made public sooner than EA Sports anticipated. A now removed blog post on Best Buy Canada’s blog detailed some of the things coming to this year’s game, including one of the most requested features finally making its way to the series.
The big new feature finally coming to NHL 23 is cross-play. Though it will only be a same-gen cross-play — current gen with current gen, last gen with last get — it finally opens up players to play with friends who may not have chosen the same system as them. There are a couple other caveats, however, to the feature.
Cross-play will only be available in World of Chel and Hockey Ultimate Team (HUT), meaning that regular online head-to-head games won’t have the ability. Also, it won’t be available for players at launch, instead coming in a post-launch update in November.
#NHL23 will include an overhauled and enhanced arena experience with better crowd reactions and celebrations pic.twitter.com/zo0VNEeYbw
— Mike Straw (@MikeStrawMedia) August 25, 2022
NHL 23 will also see “last chance puck movement” elements, 500 new “stumble action” animations, loose puck plays, updated goalie AI, and more in regards to gameplay. Meanwhile presentation gets an update thanks to an overhauled and enhanced arena experience. The new experience will feature better crowd reactions and new celebrations for things like scoring an overtime winner or recording a hat trick.
In Franchise Mode, NHL 23 will offer players more customization to make the mode more of their own.
“Control every detail of your league,” EA Sports says. “Tweak the organization and how many teams are in your league, as well as the number of games at every stage including the playoffs. Plus, control the min/max salary cap and individual player salaries.”
Lastly with HUT, NHL 23 will feature women for the first time in series history.
NHL 23 launches October 14 for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
What do you think of the NHL 23 features coming? Let us know in the comments below or take the discussion further in the official SGO Discord server.
