Electronic Arts is bringing hockey fans together with EA Sports NHL 23, the most authentic and immersive NHL game ever.

NHL 23 is greater together and will bring an all-new level of social play never before seen in the franchise when cross-platform matchmaking comes to the game in November 2022, allowing matchmaking between players of the same platform generation in World of Chel and Hockey Ultimate Team (HUT).

Powered by the Frostbite engine, NHL 23 brings fans new levels of authenticity with gameplay improvements that include over 500 new last chance playmaking animations, living arenas and atmosphere, deep franchise-mode customization and new ways to play HUT, including the addition of IIHF Women’s National Teams in HUT, allowing the best women’s and men’s players in the world to compete on one lineup.

EA Sports has also revealed two cover athletes for NHL 23 that represent an exciting new generation of hockey talent—Anaheim Ducks phenom Trevor Zegras and Canadian professional hockey and women’s national team member Sarah Nurse, the first woman to grace the cover of EA Sports NHL.

In a historic first, IIHF Women’s National Team members can now play alongside men in a Hockey Ultimate Team (HUT) lineup, allowing players to make their dream team of the sport’s best players. After their introduction last year, national teams will continue to play a prominent role in NHL 23, as national team players will have both base and master items incorporated into HUT events. In addition, players can now compete in a variety of new rotating game themes in HUT Rivals. NHL 23 also introduces three additional tiers of HUT Rivals Rewards based on win or win streaks.

For the second year, the EA Sports NHL franchise returns to the legendary Frostbite engine, bringing whole new levels of visual immersion to the game. From electrifying new OT Winner, Hat Trick and Shootout celebrations that will hype you up, to raucous stadiums with overhauled levels of Crowd Awareness and Moment to Moment Reactions, NHL 23 has the most authentic in-game atmosphere in franchise history. A whole new series of Last Chance Puck Movement gameplay animations add even more excitement to the game, with over 500 new Stumble Action animations, loose puck plays and enhanced goalie AI.

Soundtrack Reveal

NHL 23 delivers the most unapologetically rock soundtrack in videogame history with 42 tracks from heavy hitters like Panic! At The Disco, Korn, Muse, Turnstile, iann dior & Travis Barker, Motionless In White & Caleb Shomo, Shinedown, A Day To Remember and more (Check out the full listing here). The soundtrack is available to stream now on Spotify, Apple or your favorite service. 

HUT Deep Dive

Here are some of the highlights:

• Following the integration of women’s players in last year’s title, NHL 23 will allow players the opportunity to build mixed ultimate teams with the incorporation of men and women on a single team.
• HUT rivals welcomes a new reward structure called “win-based” awards, allowing players to earn extra rewards by garnering a win streak, as well as the addition of new game styles.
• Coming in November 2022, cross-platform matchmaking will allow players to square off against opponents that are in the same console generation, giving HUT larger player pools and more accurate pairings than ever before.

NHL 23 has many new innovations that can change the way you play this year and HUT is no exception, thanks to new, exciting live service narratives, and all new additions to HUT rivals.

UPDATES TO HUT RIVALS

Built in direct response to community feedback requesting more stake in wins, is a new instantaneous reward structure for HUT called win-based rewards. With this system, if you get a win streak against your opponents, an additional instantaneous reward on top of your typical reward will be granted to you immediately. The higher your division, the greater the instantaneous reward, speeding up rewards. 

Also coming to HUT rivals are new game styles that will keep playing against your opponents and collecting items a fresh experience each week. There are 10 new game styles coming to NHL 23 that cover 10 different ways of playing. Each week will have a different theme for the mode including arcade speed settings, international ice, 3v3, and various other styles to diversify the way you play each week.  Listed below are the full details on each game style coming to HUT.

But for those of you who’d like to play traditional hockey, then HUT champions will remain a classic, 5v5 hockey experience with no variations or themes.

Regardless of game-style, a small, but important feature coming to the pre-game experience is the ability to now view your opponents team records. Now, you and your opponent can see the skill level of who they’re facing off against just before the game starts, increasing competition and informing you of who you’ll be playing against. And to help rebalance competitive levels, divisions will be reduced from 10 to 6.

Improved Matchmaking

Detailed in the video here and FAQ here, Cross-Platform matchmaking allows you to square off against your opponent if you are on the same console generation. Testing for this feature has been successful and the November patch to the game will have fewer player pools with more players in each, resulting in shorter matchmaking times.

Alongside Cross-Platform matchmaking, HUT will feature a search restriction based on skill level to better match you to your own skill level. 

With Cross-Platform Matchmaking and skill level filters, HUT will now have larger player pools and more accurate pairings than ever before - making matchmaking a much smoother process.

New Hut Icons

Every year, EA SPORTS NHL partners with the alumni association to add some of the greatest players in the legacy of the NHL to the game, and this year is no different. Alongside these additions are new power up icons items for players like Daniel Sedin and Henrik Sedin.

And now, variants of players like Wayne Gretzky from the LA Kings, Edmonton Oilers, and New York Rangers are available in-game with different attributes and abilities that reflect the way he played throughout his career. Also available are players like Mario Lemieux on the Pittsburgh Penguins, Mark Messier on the New York Rangers.

Women Integrated Into HUT

And to further expand players available in HUT, women’s teams will also be available in HUT, incorporating a new group of players in the mode that give you more options to build a team. 

Born out of the initial integration of IIHF Women’s Hockey in NHL 22, NHL 23 will feature mixed ultimate teams, an all new experience for any EA SPORTS NHL game. The arrival of IIHF women's players in HUT will provide all new team building opportunities as you can mix women’s and men’s players together in a single team. Live content for the full cycle of NHL 23 will incorporate both men’s and women’s content, so build your best team with the best men and women players in their leagues.

Attribute And Rating Shifts

NHL 23 will feature a minimum floor HUT faceoff rating based on a player’s OVR rating for centers. Now, base cards for players like Evgeni Malkin, Nathan Mackinnon, and Jack Eichel will have a higher face off rating which will increase with later OVR releases throughout the year. This progression will allow for a more balanced approach to center ratings in HUT.

In addition to centers, now goalies will have shifted attributes. Instead of putting a cap on taller goalies, now shorter goalies will have boosted glove high, speed, and agility, making these goalies’ attributes more balanced.

Power Up Icon Sets

As a result of community feedback concerning the difficulty to acquire power up icon sets, NHL 23 will have power icon choice packs with the opportunity to exchange lower OVR power up cards for higher OVR power up icons.

The exchange requires, for example, four 82 OVR power up icons exchanged for one 83 OVR choice pack. The progression continues with four 83 OVR power up icons for an 84 OVR choice pack up until you’ll be prompted to turn in a Howe, Messier, or Richard for a choice of Wayne Gretzky or Mario Lemieux.

Now, with trade-ins for your power up icon cards, you can build your dream team with more chances at getting the power up icons you want.

These sets will be available from launch and will stay in-game throughout the entire year.

Team Building Items

We’ve seen the positive conversation around team building items from NHL 22, so NHL 23 will feature expanded team building items.

Team building sets have become a popular program when starting out in HUT since everything you pull has value to completing a set. Once you’ve collected all the players from a particular team, you receive a higher rated player from that team to use in your lineup. This year, by exchanging 8 - 84 OVR Team Building player items from a division, you can obtain a choice of one of the 89 OVR divisional Team Building items such as Owen Nolan, Steve Duchesne, Milan Hejduk, Keith Tkachuk, Fedor Tyutin, Larry Murphy, Olli Jokinen, and Teppo Numminen.

New HUT Live Events: HUT Spotlight

Opening up this year’s HUT live events, NHL 23 will feature HUT Spotlight which highlights the biggest stories in the upcoming season that have consumed the hockey world. 

In the first event, you’ll be able to earn a Choice Pack (1 of 10) HUT Spotlight 88 OVR Master Item by completing all HUT Spotlight Objectives. In the choice pack, will be players who’ve been a part of the most interesting hockey stories in the last year like Alex DeBrincat who was traded to the Ottawa Senators, Kris Letang reupping with the Penguins, and more so you can add your favorite players to your roster to kick off the HUT season. Below are the event’s objectives and their corresponding rewards.^

So from telling these compelling hockey stories in our first live event to women’s integration into the game, HUT has exciting new upgrades and innovations that will keep you on the ice.

GAME MODES DEEP DIVE

Here are some of the highlights:

• The most significant update to franchise mode in NHL 23 is the addition of Custom Leagues, truly making players the commissioner of their league by being able to control the number of teams in a division or conference, dynamic schedules and playoff customization.
• Online Versus welcomes the addition of saved lineups and strategies, allowing for a smoother in-game experience where players don’t have to spend as much time navigating menus.
• Similar to HUT, World of Chel is implementing cross-platform matchmaking in November, ensuring players spend less time finding a match and more time on the ice with their friends.

From greater customization in your franchise mode leagues to cross platform matchmaking, NHL® 23 has made immense improvements across its game modes. So read on to learn more about the improvements to game modes this year and watch the full video deep dive on game modes here.

Franchise Mode

The most significant update to franchise mode in NHL 23 is the addition of Custom Leagues that allow you to control almost every aspect of your league.

Custom Leagues truly makes you the commissioner of your league by allowing you to choose the number of teams in the league from 6 to 48, divisions from 2 to 8 and number of conferences. So whether you want to recreate a historic league or a fictitious one of your own creation, Custom Leagues gives you this level of control.

In addition to the number of teams, divisions, and conferences, players can now change the minimum and maximum salary cap. From rookie salary control to complete playoff customization, Custom Leagues gives you more control over your league than ever before.

Dynamic Schedules

And now, with dynamic schedules, you can set the number of division games, inter division games, and conference games from 20 to 48. You can also set your league to play from 6 to 84 games, as well as a round robin schedule so you’ll have control over your league’s schedule from start to finish.

Playoffs Customization

You can even change the format of the postseason with playoff customization. You can format playoffs across your league, division, and conference by determining how many teams qualify up to 32 and even control league reseeding structures.

In playoff qualifications, players can change 4 tie breakers from regulation wins, regulation and overtime wins, total wins, goal differentials, and most goals for, to impact how your league creates tie breakers for the final few play off spots.

And now, you can even include a wildcard round in your league for a play-in spot at the playoffs.

Once you’re into the playoffs, you can control the breakdown of away and home games in each playoff series. You’ll be able to change the number of games played in each round from 1, 3, 5, or 7 and a 2-game aggregate series as well as the home and away formats. So if you want to have a 7 game series with three games away followed by the next four at home, Custom Leagues makes that a possibility. You can now also rename the conferences or divisions in your league structure.

Roster Sharing and Custom Leagues

Since NHL 22 and the introduction of roster sharing, expanding this feature further into franchise mode was always a goal. So now, you can create your custom rosters, download your roster sharing file and set it as an active roster in franchise mode allowing you to sub any team you want into franchise mode to recreate a historic league or a completely fictitious one.

World Of Chel

Cross-Platform Matchmaking

Cross-Platform matchmaking arrives in-game in November, cutting down your wait times for matchmaking by reducing the split between Xbox and PlayStation players. Now, instead of four, there are two matchmaking pools since players on the same console generation can now play against one another across all World of Chel modes for the first time in franchise history.

As we strive to provide greater connectivity between our players, you can now spend less time finding a match and more time on the ice playing with your friends.

Of course, if you want to opt-out of the Cross-Platform matchmaking experience, there is an option to disable it from the settings menu, however it will default to ON when the patch launches.

And as a result of the expanded matchmaking pools, we’ve added another server in the central part of North America to better allocate resources to where our players are based and are going to be playing their games which will result in reduced latency for players in that area.

Open Bags Faster Than Ever

We’ve heard the community when they ask for the ability to open hockey bags faster in World of Chel. That’s why NHL 23 will feature the ability to open bags even faster by moving from one bag to another quicker than ever.

You can now open multiple of the same bag-type one after the other while skipping the animation, making for a smoother and quicker WOC experience.

Strategies

The new and existing strategies available in NHL 23 are now in WOC. You can set your offensive and defensive tendencies as well as formations to ensure you play each game the way you want.

Visual Customization

World of Chel will also feature new customizations in the form of on-ice projections, national anthems, and hat trick personalization. New vanity will continue to appear in NHL 23 to expand the customization of your World of Chel experience.

Changes made to Attributes and Loadout Slots

Based on your feedback last year we’ve tuned the preset attributes on multiple classes to ensure balance. This includes increasing the starting attributes and giving you a higher starting overall to work with. Height and weight will also play a larger role and dynamically shift based on adjustments.

We’ve also added additional loadout slots giving you more flexibility and choice from game to game.

Online Versus

Save Lines and Strategies

Coming into Online Versus to play but getting held up with setting up your team and strategies is not ideal for your in-game experience, so to get you to the next game quicker than ever, NHL 23 will feature the ability to save your lines and strategies for online versus so you don’t have to adjust your game before getting on the ice.

This, along with all-new strategies throughout NHL 23 creates a smooth and seamless experience so you can spend more time on the ice and less time in menus.

NHL 23 will solidify itself as a best-in-class social experience with the introduction of cross-platform matchmaking, currently planned for November 2022. The launch of cross-platform matchmaking across same-generation consoles for World of Chel and HUT will shorten queue times and create fewer player pools to ensure players will have more options to face off.

Franchise Mode returns to NHL 23 with unprecedented levels of league customization, bringing an all-new level of versatility to the game, including adjustments to the numbers of teams, games played, divisions, conferences, playoff rounds, league salary cap and more.

EA Sports NHL is continuing to offer HUT content migration to ensure a smooth experience for players across console generations. Following a November update, players who start playing NHL 23 on PS4 or Xbox One will be able to transfer their HUT Team value and progress to the next generation of their respective platforms in PS5 or Xbox Series X|S.

Fans that pre-order NHL 23 will get a variety of bonus in-game content. The EA Sports NHL 23 X-Factor Edition includes the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 or Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S versions of the game, three days of early access, 4600 NHL Points, one HUT X-Factor Player Choice Pack, HUT X-Factor Power-Up Starter Pack, X-Factor Women’s HUT Choice Pack, five World of Chel X-Factor Zone Ability Unlocks, two Be A Pro X-Factor Slot Unlocks and XP Boost and Bonus Trait Points, and a signed Sarah Nurse World of Chel Jersey. All pre-order editions and information can be found here.

EA Play members can get more out of NHL 23 with three days of early access, and member-only rewards throughout the season.

EA Sports NHL 23 is coming to PS4, Xbox One ($59.99) and PS5, Xbox Series X|S ($69.99) on Oct. 14, 2022