It’s that time of the year again.

After players who pre-ordered the X-Factor edition were given early access this week, NHL 23 is finally available worldwide today. The initial announcement left a lot to be desired for those wanting a truly new experience, but there’s enough packed into the latest title to satisfy long-term fans of the franchise.

If you’re looking for a TL;DR, NHL 23’s new features aren’t going to blow you away by any means. If you’re looking for a unique experience, you won’t get it here. But if you want something more well-rounded, you’ve got it. If you liked NHL 22, you’re going to love this iteration.

The game is available on Playstation 5, Xbox Series S/X, Playstation 4 and Xbox One.

Here’s what I learned from playing NHL 23 over the past week:

What I love

The in-game experience

If you’re a fan of the pure game experience, NHL 23 feels like the most refined game in the series. The tripping appears (for now) to be manageable because the poke checks are no longer overpowered. There’s no need to continuously spam R1 or RB because missed pokes can negatively impact your player.

The crowd is absolutely electric. Scoring a hat trick feels great again, especially when Ray Ferraro and James Cybulski’s commentary acknowledges the fallen chapeaus. In the past, they’d talk about hats being thrown, only for the ice to be completely clear and everyone celebrating like it was a normal occurrence. Scoring your third of the night feels important and is something to strive for.

I also enjoy how invested the crowd gets. They felt hackneyed in previous titles as if the fans were more invested in their phones than the actual game on the ice. In key moments, the way the crowd cheers and follows the play is something that hasn’t been replicated in the past.

There can still be glitchy, unrealistic moments, but you’re likely not going to see a lot of them unless you’re pushing everything to the limit as a competitive pro player.

If your favorite thing to do is just load one NHL team up against another NHL team and not do anything more complicated, you’re going to love this game.

Improved goaltending

One HUGE change seems to be the improved goaltending. For me, the baseline is how good/bad the goaltending is in 3s eliminator, the mode where you’re given peewee-quality netminders to shoot on. There were certain plays that would always go in – outlasting the goalie, 2-on-1s, etc. In the 10 or so eliminator games I played (I had the most hits per game on PS5 leading up to launch day, a true accomplishment), goalies seemed to be more aggressive on the cross-creases and would beat you about 60-70 percent of the time. You had to really master the play instead of letting the glitchiness work in your favor.

The puck physics also seem to be improved. The puck doesn’t just randomly warp somewhere after touching it or getting involved in an impact. One of my toughest losses was losing an overtime game where a teammate was hit and the puck went flying past our goalie at the other end of the ice.

Custom leagues

This, by far, is the standout feature of NHL 23.

The ability to create your own custom leagues – ranging anywhere from 6-48 teams – allows people who love franchise mode to really have full control. This will be especially helpful for people who create custom rosters to get their teams in a league – perhaps a full NWHL or KHL season if your heart desires – that you couldn’t do before.

And, come on. We all know where this is headed. And its initials are GMC. If I’m right, get ready for NHL 24.

Inclusion of women in HUT

This was a popular addition when the game was announced, and it’s something that’s going to stand out. Women players were included in the game in the past but didn’t have a proper league to be apart of. Now, you can get players like Marie-Philip Poulin, Kendall Coyne Schofield, Sarah Nurse and Sarah Fillier and use them like any other player in HUT.

One positive thing this does is open the athletes to new audiences. NHL 21 introduced the long-awaited IIHF license, which meant playing the Women’s World Championship. But if you didn’t play with those teams, you could have easily forgotten their existence because they didn’t appear in any other meaningful way.

Now, having them alongside McDavid, Zegras, Crosby, etc. allows for the players to become more well-known for audiences that aren’t aware of them, which can only be seen as a positive.

Well done, EA.

The soundtrack

OK, I lied. THIS is the best part of NHL 23.

NHL video game soundtracks are important to me. I found many of my favorite bands through games such as NHL 2004 and NHL 06. Avenged Sevenfold, baby!

After years of mixing things up and trying new things, the NHL 23 soundtrack goes back to the series’ rock-focused roots, featuring bands such as A Day to Remember, Coheed and Cambria, Ghost, Korn, Motionless in White, Muse, Shinedown, Stick to your Guns, Turnstile and so much more.

There are 37 songs on the loaded soundtrack, fewer than the 42 from NHL 22, but it feels like this one will have a more memorable impact for fans of the early 2000s games.

So, thanks, EA.

The upcoming addition of crossplay

One feature that isn’t here, but will be in a few months, is the addition of crossplay. That’s a huge plus, and something the game desperately needs. It’s disappointing that it won’t be cross-generation, though. For example, if you’re on the PS5, you can’t play with your PS4 friends. We could in NHL 21, which is why it stings that we can’t get that two years later.

Eventually, the series will shift into the current-gen systems only, and maybe we’ll see much bigger improvements. But for the stragglers left behind, it sucks that people on the same online network system as them can’t play together.

It’s also a shame that one of the game’s biggest features won’t be available at launch. But we’ll take what we can get.

What I don’t love

There were valid complaints about the last game. The most consistent part of online play seemed to be the random disconnects. Some of the core gameplay elements felt stale.

Some were real issues, and others were just complaints for the sake of complaining. We’re going to focus on the meat and potatoes here, though:

Be a Pro

Where do I begin? There have been some overall gameplay improvements, but it hurts to see what could be a great game mode get beaten to death by horrible interactions, again. Talking to other players can be mind-numbing with unrealistic conversation topics, dumb situations and, seemingly, no value to the game. Be a Pro had an overhaul a few years ago, but it feels like the developers haven’t figured out how to make it a truly captivating experience or one that feels different from year to year.

If you want to play a hockey story mode, stick with NHL 21 or 22. There’s no need to upgrade for what is essentially the exact same thing.

World of Chel customization

It’s great that there are what feels like 30,000 different outfit pieces available for your WOC character. If you love collecting an endless array of hats and pants, you’re in for a real treat.

But once again, it feels like we’re missing a big feature here. In NHL 22, I only got the goalie mask I had wanted for the entire game’s life cycle in August. By then, we weren’t as active, so the time spent wearing the helmet was limited.

What if we could earn coins in-game to purchase the items you want?

I know that gets into slippery slope territory because that would just be another opportunity for microtransactions. But I’d argue that those would be welcome in this case because buying a piece of equipment you like isn’t pay-to-win like buying an immense number of HUT packs.

It would be nice for a logo refresh, or, more specifically, the ability to have an online logo vault like MLB The Show 22. My team was previously called the Pickles, and now we’re the Figs, because we like naming ourselves after funny-sounding food. Our logo options are basically just a giant F in different fonts. That’s on us for having a stupid name, but when playing against teams with creative names, they also just have generic logos. I get there probably are some copyright issues with things like this, but it would be great if we could just upload our own logos or have a way to download other people’s designs and have a truly unique experience.

Miscellaneous visuals

The most disappointing aspect, visually, are the menus. They were great last year, no question about it, but it was a new change. This time, it’s identical. If something changed, I couldn’t see it. If it works, don’t change it, right? But it’s nice having a new visual experience that distinguishes the games from each other. If it weren’t for the NHL 22 logo, I would have had no idea this was a different game.

A slight visual refresh beyond some shaders and shadows and such would be nice. It doesn’t even have to be much different – just something a bit more tailored to the new-game experience. On a smaller note, the shadows looked nice, but it was glitchy when playing outdoors and got annoying as a goaltender trying to track a shooter down the wing.

Final thoughts

The main takeaway during the technical test last month was that the game was improved, but marginally. It felt like it could have just been a patch for NHL 22. After playing this for a few days, I still feel the same, but optimistic.

After playing NHL 22 until the end of the game’s life cycle – try finding an opponent at 10:00 p.m. on a Thursday in October – it’s safe to say NHL 23 will be the game I play the most on my PS5 this year. I enjoyed my time with it, and I know my teammates and I will enjoy yelling at each other for forgetting how to play defense, taking stupid penalties or missing the net by 450 feet in a 3-2 game.

But in reality, not much has changed. If you’re looking to keep playing with your friends, it’s still an extremely enjoyable game. If EASHL is your thing, and you enjoyed it in the past three to four iterations, you’ll remain a fan of it. But it feels like an incredible opportunity to help spice up the World of Chel – whatever that might be – was missed entirely. EASHL is all about grinding your way to Division I – and then what? That hasn’t changed, unfortunately.

EA has already shifted the focus to NHL 24, as it should. But hopefully, NHL 23 gets the love and attention it needs to thrive over the next year from every party involved to make this the best it possibly can be.

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