However, the mode could have still used a bit more content and variety as it is nearly identical to last year and it feels like there are too many pauses this year. There are also multi-year goals now, so the story doesn't abruptly stop in year 2 as it did in NHL 21. The X-Factor system comes into play here as you can eventually grow and develop your player to earn these new abilities and boost your stats in desired areas.
Nhl 22 review pro#
In the Be a Pro career mode, you will still play as a highly touted rookie being drafted into his first NHL team. It's a system that is from EA's Madden, where it debuted two years ago, so it's not exactly a fresh innovation. In reality though, it's a fairly basic system that doesn't really affect anything in the moment to moment gameplay – you already know Ovechkin's blast from the point is going to be great, and having an X-Factor designation doesn't change anything other than displaying an icon above his head. They have a main X-Factor, as well as some smaller ones. Essentially, whenever players find themselves in a specific situation, those X-Factors give them a boost to performance. There are shooting and defensive abilities, ones for movement/dekes, as well as those for goalies. From Ovechkin's one timer to Eichel's snapshot, these are basically designations of something that the player excels at. It's incorporated into every single mode in the game, and basically marks the top players in the game as having specific skill sets and passive stat boosts. The main feature of NHL 22, regardless of what console generation you're playing on, is the X-Factor system. These are issues that seem worse than last year, so it's another notch in our wild theory that this is a tweaked port of a two/three year old NHL title. However, the AI seems to have taken a step back – regardless of difficulty settings, they have a tough time breaking out, will circle their own zone for a while, and struggle to manage the puck behind the net. The referees are really improved, letting more things go and finally making the defenders feel like they can use all their tools – from poke checks and defensive sticks to big hits – without the constant risk of drawing a penalty. Skating, passing, and shooting feels familiar, and still mostly satisfying, and the physics puck and stick interactions add a little bit more detail to the plays on the ice. Offline, you can still tweak the settings sliders very extensively to fine-tune the gameplay to your liking.
To be fair, the physics tweaks do improve the experience for the most part. So, besides some physics-based gameplay tweaks and the new ice surface, there's not a ton that NHL 22 offers exclusively on next-gen. However, that's about where the changes end – the crowds still look very dated and last-gen, some of the new broadcast elements are just simple overlays, and a ton of the gameplay animations and cutscenes are re-used. There are also some new animations during play and collisions, and the physics between sticks and pucks offer a higher sense of realism. The overhead arena lights could use a bit of turning down on their reflection brightness, but otherwise it's a simple but awesome improvement. The surface looks truly great, with a ton of detail and neat reflections. The most immediately noticeable, and sadly only, next-gen improvement is the look of the ice. Similarly to FIFA 22, the next-gen jump is fairly underwhelming for this EA Sports series, but it hopefully lays the ground work for a more impressive future. The new engine does offer a few tweaks to how NHL 22 plays and looks, but it's not a groundbreaking new experience.
Nhl 22 review code#
The still-slow menus being the first possible hint, and the fact that the small development team would obviously need more than a year to switch to a new engine, so they had to go back further for their code base than NHL 21.
It gives weight to a wild theory that NHL 22 is really a modified port of NHL 19/20 onto a new engine – a totally baseless claim to be taken with a huge truck of salt, to be sure, but with some of the issues and details that we've noted in this year's game, it's not completely outlandish. Even on PS5, with the extensive hardware power and an SSD, the menu speed continues to be a surprising snag. The menus have been revamped and now offer a cleaner UI and easier navigation – however, there is still plenty of pauses and lag.
Nhl 22 review Offline#
Players can still choose from a variety of offline and online modes, whether that's the Be a Pro revamp from last year, Franchise mode, Hockey Ultimate Team, World of Chel/EASHL, and more. NHL 22 marks the switch to the Frostbite engine, and thankfully the game doesn't lose any modes or features in this big change.
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