He may not have a football, baseball or football audience, but for his proud fans there is something really special in hockey. It is cool air in the arena, the weight of the disc on a stick and a sense when the skate moves on the surface of the ice. I must admit that developers from EA Vancouver seem to be all that led them to create a pleasant NHL simulation that won a devoted audience. This sacrifice, however, has been more and more often tested in recent years, because the series failed to really move forward in any significant way. EA Sports NHL 26 continues this dynamics thanks to the game that nails most of the elements that make hockey special, but it never seems that a significant jump over what was before, can make the purchase of the next version be invigorating, not obligatory.
If in the last few years you have played hockey with EA at any time, you have a good idea, what can be expected from NHL 26. Lynchpin from the series is a franchise mode that allows you to take the team selection team to lift Stanley’s cup. This is basically the default mode, showing what the series is best known and it still does it quite well. Individual games are speedy, the controls are intuitive, and Ea Vancouver spent years improving the formula that mainly works. It is true that there are currently very few other hockey games, and those that exist do not have official players or NHL teams; This lack of competition can be what developers lead to playing such sheltered things and leave such unchanged from year to year. To be straightforward, it is complex for them to blame them not to fix what is not broken.
However, this situation has created an unfortunate trend for the series, which has made every year a version that seems to be childish steps, and the NHL 26 still focuses on smaller corrections than on significant changes. As a result, it is straightforward to miss corrections that go beyond the reflection of gigantic changes in the letters that we saw out of season, such as Mitch Marner, who is on golden knights after leaving the leaves, and Matt Dumba appearing on penguins after his departure Dallas. At the time of writing this text, it seems that EA Vancouver did a pretty good job, making sure that everything is current, including representing the mammoth Utah with their fresh name, uniform and arena (after the season under the momentary label “Utah Hockey Club”). Finally, PWHL has been updated to add two fresh women’s league teams from the 2025-2026 season, although this mode seems completely unchanged.
Although the franchise mode seems to be the most popular one -player mode in the annual NHL EA games, I really like customizing options and a general approach to sport found in a narrow concentration of BE. As someone who grew up playing hockey, there is something that is really original in focusing on controlling an individual player. There is a greater need to consider lines changes, play in position and configure characters controlled by the processor.
I was pleased to find that some of the major changes this year can be found here, but I discovered that they are not positive. Some of the biggest improvements result from the cut -out of what did not work: NHL 26 has finally often dropped a gigantic and often repeated scene opening “expensive hockey to hockey”, which appeared in many games. You will no longer see the same repeated film sequence with an agent who says how much you are passionate about hockey, that you play Pond Pick-up with a group of children. Instead, you fall into the player manufacturer. And fortunately, EA also decreased to recurrent meetings of coaches from the past, but the hook is that the replacement can be even more monotonous: press conferences.
The idea of taking part in press conferences is actually a bit neat, and the initial questions aid shape the personality on ice. Hockey Press asks questions such as your approach to a free agency, and choosing one option will improve your sympathy with team members, and the other helps your brand. However, the performance quickly becomes dull when you take part in several in a row. This may be a bit too real: I participated in real NHL press conferences, and the questions of sports journalists can really be as causing moans as sometimes here. What do I think I didn’t win the division? What do you think?
In addition, the impact of response to a press conference on player statistics often seems unfair. At one press conference I was asked about modeling a career around a particular player, with many options to choose from. Apparently I chose the wrong and immediately led to a reduction in my brand’s statistics. Even worse, NHL 26 does not always explain what answers will have a negative impact on your brand or a sense of management, so seemingly harmless reaction may have unforeseen consequences.
However, an bright change meant that the most intimidating NHL mode was more available to me. The meeting of the team built from NHL Mages in the Hockey Ultimate Team (Hut) takes a lot of time and effort. It may also require a real currency, although you get daily freebies that can aid shape a decent team without paying an additional one. However, I still do not necessarily want to raise my team against passionate players who dominate the Internet with a combination of skills and gigantic wallets; Sometimes you want to play without the pressure of competing with real people. So this is a welcome change, which for NHL 26 EA has replaced last year’s battles in the chat team with a fresh offline chase mode, which offers a chance to build a team and try them in a full campaign for a single player with many levels of difficulty. I was grateful that I had a chance to jump into games using my custom team, without worrying about learning people fiercely with the protection of their online rankings. And anyone who wants to do this can take this team online, as usual in the hut.
However, on the Internet or besides, NHL is more and more often with the annual package of sports games graphically. This happens despite the fact that last year NHL 25 marked the first game in the series that abandoned PS4 and Xbox One and move to the current platforms. But NHL 26 still does not seem to be really pushing PS5 and Xbox Series x | S fully. The ice itself jumps nicely on the screen and there are many impressive details, including consumption to the surface as the game develops, but disappointment is almost everywhere. Character models are coarse, with players, coaches and fans often looking ugly in relation to what we saw in other recent sports games. There are also a few strange choices and supervision, which are handles from previous games, such as team logo on specific screens. The crowd’s reactions are also stuck in the past, with awkward celebrations that would be at home on PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii.
Fortunately, I recognized the sound much more pleasant. This year, the menu has several great fresh songs, including songs from groups such as Wet Lega and The Hives. I would never have thought of “Catch This Fists” as a hockey song, but it fits undeniably. In the EA Vancouver games themselves, it still replicates the original sounds of each ice rink, with shouts and sounds of the organs. The commentary is also very faithful to the current experience in watching NHL; It seems that he is watching the game on domestic television, offering the same conversation that can be expected at TNT. Having said that, I was grateful for the option to turn it off when it became repetitive.
Probably the worst sound in NHL 26, however, belongs to Macklin Celebrin. San Jose Sharks striker can be heard by offering career tips in Pro mode, and it is clear that not all hockey players are cut off from acting.
