NHL 23 Review

"Playing it Safe"

Campaign

October 22, 2022 at 5:10pm
By Jason Stettner

After the previous year’s improvements we’re given what’s essentially the most minimal change-up I believe we’ve ever seen within this EA Sports hockey series. I’ve been playing the games for a couple decades now and outside of the awkward late gen same game, different roster scenario I really don’t think we’ve come across such a light set of improvements or adjustments.

It’s still a well put together hockey simulation, but it’s most certainly not pushing any new boundaries. The only real thing that’s changed is desperation dives to hit the puck, that’s about it. We will be getting crossplay which is a big feature, but that’s not here at launch so who knows what that will be like.

It’s weird to have such a great addition be a post-launch sort of thing, as nothing else really comes close to adding something fresh like that. Even though it is technically just an additional pool of players to draw from. So anyways, if you played the previous year it’s essentially the exact same across the various modes, so no real surprises for you.

When it comes to offline play you get your quick exhibitions and a host of other modes. This includes Be A Pro where you create your own player and make your way in the league, that’s about the same. Then there’s franchise mode where you manage a team and play, big difference is now you can have a semi custom Stanley Cup hoisting moment.

Tournaments allow you to play pre-set match structures. Other modes include the playoffs to only do that sort of thing and then season. Finally there’s Ones for fast play alongside Threes. The online offerings include exhibition quickplay with others for a ranking or just against friends. Hockey Ultimate Team is about playing with virtual trading cards, women are included there now as well.

World of Chel is the online component of making your own character, earning lootcrates, I mean loot hockey bags for customization. I wish base appearances would carry across years, tiring to remake the same dude every time. World of Chel includes your Ones battle royale, Threes online including wild mascot action and finally there’s the team position oriented EASHL which is well loved by the community.

Gameplay

The movement mechanics are definitely about the same as prior. I did notice a slight emphasis on trying to move away from the over powered poke checking but it’s certainly still present, you just may notice some more penalties being called. Other than that it’s basically the same as before. It captures the game decently well but transitional shifts still need some work and passing also at times feels rough.

The jerseys no longer look like capes which is nice but I do notice some rough animations, particularly during cutscenes. I’d love to see more traditional camera angles return for when goals are scored as it’s hard to see what happened with their overly dynamic angles. The same goes for presentation where I’d love to have the score at the top corner where it belongs. The broadcast commentary seems improved upon which is nice, they no longer have the woman announcer saying weird meta things.

At least, it blends in nicely which is appreciated and I believe that’s Carrlyn Bathe providing those notes. It’s an odd thing to note, but it really stood out awkwardly in the prior year as I had no issue with her inclusion but the strange meta commentary was so bizarre and out of place. I don’t really love being told I’m playing a video game, that impacts the immersion. That aside, everything else is about the same. It’s got the same hits, the same moves and the same cheap one timers that teleport pucks into the nets.

I will note there are weird situations where the controller doesn’t vibrate sometimes when you launch the game, I hope they fix that. Visually it looks good, the 4k 60fps offering is nice though with HDR it’s strange. The game goes from glowy to straight up too dark with it applied. Bizarre, but does look visually appealing enough. I did notice the crowd seems to be downgraded and quite blocky, I believe that has to do with adding glowsticks for no apparent reason as I don’t think any team in the NHL does that.

The Conclusion

EA Sports NHL 23 is the safest and most minimally upgraded entry they’ve ever done in the series. It’s a fine running and looking game, it just would have been nice to see some more ambition. It’s not by any metric a bad experience, it’s just not anything that really upgrades the experience over the previous year.

I hate using the phrase roster update, but this is probably the first time I’ve ever felt this for the NHL series and I think it’s fair. Crossplay will be great to have, but it’s not here at launch. They have done some smaller tweaks which are nice, but that’s not exactly groundbreaking. We’ve caught up on features finally and it seems they may have run out of things to add to the game that really change things up further.

I know people still really want that GM Mode, so maybe that will eventually be something we see brought into this in a future entry. For now, it’s still fun playing the sport of hockey but I just wish they did something new or exciting here to change things up.

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NHL 23 Review on Xbox Series X
Review Code Provided by 47

Rating Overall: 7.2