Buy NHL 20

Some things never change — not much, anyway. It's time for the annual refresh of EA's sports franchises. While FIFA, Madden and NBA are some of the highest-grossing candidates, NHL falls by the wayside once again. There is new content, but the nature of the changes and where they are will determine if this year's iteration is worth your money.

When we looked at NHL 19 last year, some much-needed gameplay changes finally made it into the game. The slow and tank-like behavior of players on the ice was adjusted, and a new sense of flexibility and speed made its way into the title while also nerfing the seriously overpowered poke check. Add to that the introduction of pond hockey with Ones, the 1v1v1 online mode, and franchise improvements, and although the title didn't make the greatest jump, the improvements were notable and significant.

This year feels decidedly different on this front, with the biggest changes being mostly outside of the gameplay. After five years, the presentation and commentators have been completely overhauled with new graphic overlays, designs, and most importantly, different and more voice-recorded tracks. It's a welcome and long overdue change that, on its own, probably has the biggest impact on the gameplay. After many years with little to no changes, returning players knew almost every single line by heart. This new presentation isn't perfect — special occasions like hat tricks or high-scoring games inevitably mean that you'll hear similar lines of dialogue over and over again — but it's delivered in a more dynamic and natural fashion with more variety. With that being said, it's also a more traditional approach compared to the more ambitious mixed reality presentation from last year. The movement of the scoreboard to the bottom might feel weird, but overall, it works reasonably well.

A couple of minor adjustments with very little gameplay impact have also been added this year. The new presentation style also brings highlighted plays to the mix. They look nice enough, with rotating camera angles and slow-motion shifts. While they can be skipped when you're playing alone, they can't be skipped in online games, which is an odd decision. Along similar lines, most replays get to the point much faster this year, so you don't have to sit through 10 seconds of players cheering on the ice after a goal; you'll see a much quicker transition to the highlight reel.

The gameplay itself has also seen changes, but they're not as drastic as last year. Many are of an aesthetic quality, so goalies have new puck-stopping animations, like grabbing pucks from behind their back, adding to their agility and improved threat assessment AI. Overall, goaltending has a solid outing this year, and it doesn't seem to be too exploitable (yet).

Animation is the buzzword this year. New contextual shot animations have been added to make scoring goals look more fluid, natural and distinct between players. The results are quite noticeable, especially with the new goalie animations creating much more authentic movement and goal scoring. It feels as good as it looks, and while it isn't the biggest change, it is certainly a welcome one. On top of that, there are many minor differences and an improved animation blending technique that reduces abrupt movements and makes the gameplay feel more fluid and a touch faster. Not too much of it has actual gameplay ramifications, but taken together, the overall presentation of the moment-to-moment gameplay looks greatly improved.

NHL 20 doesn't change too much on the handling, though, and that is something I have some gripes with. I participated in the NHL 20 beta a while back, and passing wasn't very great then. While it's improved in the final product, it doesn't feel as snappy and precise as it should. The aforementioned poke check isn't as brutal anymore, going back on the game's direction from last year.

Generally, I can live with the way NHL 20 plays. It's nicer to listen to and look at than other NHL offerings in recent years. If we can get a few more adjustments on the gameplay elements, it would be a solid or even good entry in the series. It didn't do enough in the back skating. Skating backward into the attack zone was one of the most annoying tactics that had almost no remedy. Players skating backward were incredibly difficult to separate from the puck without taking penalties. It's better this year, but it hasn't improved as much as it needed to. That's mostly due to a significant reduction in checking efficiency, and bumping into players (rather than a full-blown check) doesn't seem to yield many results this year. Speed matters more, and smaller players seem to benefit from that, while defensive play with the skill stick feels as solid as ever, with higher chances of actually getting the puck when standing in the passing lanes.

The outlook gets grimmer when talking about new additions to NHL 20's offline modes and content. While the franchise mode sees the addition of being able to hire and manage your entire coaching staff, other modes are basically untouched. Franchise mode is in a good place, given last year's Fog of War addition, this year's Line Chemistry option, and the ability to match coaches and player styles to influence how your team plays.

If you're buying NHL games for the sake of playing offline, NHL 20 doesn't provide many new options. At this point, Franchise mode can be played as either a basic management simulation or a season mode or both, depending on what you'd like to get involved with. However, it's about time that the game also gets modes that have been staples in other sports titles, like Connected GM mode or, more crucially, an overhauled single-player career mode. Be a Pro is once again unchanged and has the most basic setup imaginable. It has basically been neglected for 4-5 iterations, which is a shame given its potential and how well the story-driven single-player experience has been implemented in EA's other sports titles. The only other notable offline improvement is the inclusion of Ones as an offline mode with local co-op.

Online gameplay is where EA has focused for several years, primarily Hockey Ultimate Team and CHEL. The latter introduced Ones, a 1v1v1 pond hockey tournament mode, last year and merged it with the EASHL and Threes (3v3) online modes, creating a singular online experience hub outside of HUT. Here, we create a player from a character creator, play online games and, earn hockey bags with loot to customize our online alter ego. Surprisingly, the hockey bags still aren't tied to microtransactions, as I had feared they would be.

The biggest change in the CHEL mode is the introduction of "Eliminator" for Ones and Threes. As in a battle royale game, we battle up to 80 opponents over four rounds until there's a last man (or team) standing. It's a fast and frantic mode that is thoroughly enjoyable for quick drop-in/drop-out games, but unfortunately, there isn't much more to it. There is a progression system in place, but all that yields is more bags with cosmetic items instead of actual player growth. It isn't as motivating as it would be if we could level up our player. It's a fun distraction, but it still doesn't feel like a drastic addition to the gameplay experience.

On the other hand, HUT is EA's bread and butter and has seen quite a few changes this year, mostly for the better. It's still the same grind-fest with microtransactions at every turn, but that component feels less pronounced than in previous years. Pack prices seem to have adjusted to lower ranges. Looking back at last year, it almost seems like EA is discouraging you from spending money on HUT. It became significantly easier to receive star players and legends (called "icons" this time around) in the second half of HUT's NHL 19 season, enabling players who don't spend money to catch up a fair bit to paying customers. There's no telling if this year's going to be the same, but many small changes indicate that even players who don't want to dish out extra money on card packs to improve their teams won't be left out.

Last year, if you wanted to get rewards for logging in, there were three free packs up for grabs (one every eight hours). This year, there's one every 24 hours, coming with an adjustment to the number of collectibles needed from those packs to rake in rewards. It seems more humane to log in once a day instead of three times. NHL 20 also changes the way it awards icon players; instead of giving it to certain players for certain collectibles, you can collect icon cards to trade in for icons of your choice. The more you trade in, the better the awarded player will be. There's no telling where this will lead, but it seems more manageable without spending more money.

A further indication of that is the inclusion of Squad Battles, a mode that FIFA players may already be familiar with. Squad Battles is an offline mode in HUT that, at any given time, lets you face off against one of four other existing HUT teams. You're able to see the opponent team and its players first and can decide on the difficulty level at which you'd like to play them: from rookie to superstar. The higher the difficulty, the more points we get based on our in-game actions, such as overall skill and goals scored. We can only play each of the four teams once. If we lose, we can pay in-game currency to try again for a chance to improve the score, but that option only exists once, and our second score is final and negates previous results, so choose wisely.

The four opponents can be refreshed for new teams every 24 hours, and all points are added to a total that ranks you on a leaderboard. Once the season is over, we get rewards for our standing. Even though we didn't invest a lot of time into the mode (about eight games), we eventually received 10,000 in the game's currency and about five packs of varying rarity, which isn't bad for a mode that is infamous for shielding packs behind paywalls.

The rest of the experience is straightforward, so if you've played NHL 19, NHL 20 won't seem too different. Apart from the mentioned new presentation features and modes, and some minor UI changes, the rest looks similar. On the flipside, that also means it isn't a technical mess like some of its predecessors. There are some flaws, though. One of the weirdest and unfixed issues is that parts of the UI flow over the boundaries of the screen, partially blocking the view of the UI used for row changes and tactic adjustments. This can't be fixed by adjusting the settings in NHL 20 or the screen setup of the PS4 Pro console, and it's quite intrusive when you rely on making on-the-fly changes to the way your team plays. Aside from that, there were a few minor oddities, like failing HUT challenges because the game incorrectly recognized events or players warping positions on the ice when starting a fight or goal celebration. It's enough to be noticeable, but that's about as bad as it gets. It's still rough around the edges, but it has been for a while.

As a whole, NHL 20 is still NHL like it always was. There are incremental changes, but there's still a lot more to be done. Be a Pro remains completely untouched, and the minor additions to other offline single-player modes are sobering. The presentation and animation take a small leap, and HUT seems slightly less grindy with the addition of Squad Battles and a more transparent model to receive card packs without being forced to spend real money. The new eliminator modes in CHEL are equally fun, but at the end of the day, this year doesn't feel as significant as the last. I'm curious where the franchise goes next year with the prospect of several new consoles on the horizon, but it has to step up things more than it currently does.

Score: 6.9/10