NHL 26 is coming out in about three weeks, but don’t get too excited just yet.
EA is basically that Tinder date whose entire bio is just humblebrags wrapped in gym selfies. Yes, they’ve got a body sculpted by algorithms, eyes like that viral mugshot guy who accidentally became a Calvin Klein fantasy, and a wellness routine so optimized it makes them look like a prime Zac Efron.
But here’s what EA doesn’t put in the glossy trailer: underneath the swagger and the six-pack, there’s some unresolved trauma
— and more than a few performance issues when it counts.
At the core of EA Sports’ identity crisis is its engine: Frostbite. This thing was never built for sports games. It was engineered for first-person shooters. like Battlefield — games where blowing up a wall is a feature, not a glitch. Frostbite was made for environmental destruction, not precision passing or footwork algorithms.
The Gameplay Engine Is Not Built to Handle Sports Games
The result? No sports-specific tools, no optimized pipelines — just brute-force adaptation. Former EA developers have gone on record saying they had to build everything from scratch. And while that sounds innovative on paper, it’s more like trying to bake a cake with a grenade launcher.
Picture this: you’re a surgeon, and a patient is wheeled in for brain surgery. You open the toolkit and realize something’s very wrong.
“Doctor, those aren’t neurosurgical tools.”
“No, they’re not,” you reply grimly. “They’re… for foot surgery.”
But EA MediPrime shrugs:
“Sorry, that’s the kit. And you’ve got an exclusive contract with us until 2028. Best of luck.”
So, yes. The gameplay, if you watch the trailers and the deep dives very closely, are very much the same. However, the puck movement is more realistic. Wow. That would be like Madden, in their next game, touting improved ball trajectory as a feature. That is quite literally the bare minimum. Star players are going to skate like themselves. Incredible. It’s like a billion dollar company should be expected to use their resources and budget to make the game more realistic. After all, they do have the simulation license.
EA appears to be reintroducing pre-game presentation elements to Be A Pro mode — and one can reasonably assume they’ll appear in quick play as well. These atmospheric flourishes aim to give each arena a sense of personality.
For instance, if you’re playing for the San Jose Sharks, players now skate onto the ice through the gaping, fog-belching jaws of a massive shark head — because subtlety is for expansion teams without branding.
The Washington Capitals get their own brand of theatrics, entering the rink with crimson lighting, dense fog, and a towering digital eagle flexing on the scoreboard like it’s auditioning for a Marvel reboot.
And then there are the Toronto Maple Leafs, whose pre-game sequence bathes Scotiabank Arena in soft blue lighting while grainy nostalgia reels from 1967 play across the jumbotron — a gentle reminder that the franchise’s last meaningful moment is now eligible for a senior discount at Taco Bell. Okay, that last sentence was a joke — but alas, so are EA’s attempts to resell you old features.
NHL 26 also pushes an improved media feature where you answer questions from reporters that may or may not impact your future progression or your relationship with your teammates, only this system was actually ported over from UFC 5. If you look at it closely enough, you will see it’s the same thing for the most part. That’s not a problem, though. It’s smart to work with other developers on your team to make a better game. The issue arises when such a modest adaptation is marketed as a groundbreaking leap forward. For veterans like myself, who have followed the NHL series since the late ’90s, this kind of rebranding rings hollow — particularly when it’s used to justify spending an additional $70 for a slightly polished roster update.
Take NHL 23, which proudly touted the return of improved pre-game presentation by bringing back the national anthem — a feature that quietly vanished about 24 years ago and then re-emerged like a long-lost uncle at Thanksgiving, now rebranded as “new.” Except this time, it was limited in scope, inconsistent across teams, and often just didn’t show up at all. It’s not an isolated case. Madden 26 reintroduced the beloved weekly recap show, which hadn’t appeared since 2011. Sounds promising — until you realize it only recaps three games. Not the week. Not the full slate. Just… three.
This is the EA playbook: take a feature that fans loved, strip it for parts, then reintroduce it years later with great fanfare — but somehow, less functionality than before. It’s like getting back together with an ex, only to realize they’ve forgotten your birthday and now charge microtransactions for therapy So if these latest “improvements” to pre-game presentation turn out to be underwhelming, well — act surprised if you must, but don’t pretend you weren’t warned.
But hey, pricey pond hockey is finally gone after five years.
