Originally scheduled to arrive today, the NHL 22 team has announced they will show 27 minutes of NHL 22 gameplay video footage tomorrow at 11:00 AM ET. Be a Pro and Franchise Mode details are still scheduled to arrive on October 4 with NHL 22 Hockey Ultimate Team details set to arrive on October 6.
UPDATE: (9-29) We have embedded the video below.
The team also answered NHL 22 community questions and provided additional details in a deep dive hour long Q&A audio session and revealed plenty of gameplay changes that have been made since the NHL 22 closed technical test.
Passing/Pickups/Receptions
- Improvements to short range passes which were causing unintended pass quality penalties in those situations
- Fixed an issue where pucks would sometimes cleanly go through the blade rather than bobbling when not fully handled
- Fixed a few situations where the awareness attributes weren’t being factored into reaction time
- Change to use puck control rating to determine how quickly a player can react after bobbling a pickup/reception
- Fixed a case where players wouldn’t drop the puck when the puck/stick would be held up with the net leading to warps
- Blade angle animation improvements to various pickups and receptions
AI
- Improvements to AI defenders to have them facing up ice more and getting their stick toward their opponent when in good position goal side
- Fix for AI defensemen that would frequently move out of position off center ice faceoffs
- Fixes for AI where they wouldn’t attempt to tie up/stick to the winger on offensive zone faceoffs
Physics
- Fixed cases where the puck would bounce unrealistically or at high speed off the goalie or players
- Tuning and stick physics improvements around the boards
- Fixes for the puck going through stick blades on one-timers
- Improvements to goalie interference logic to avoid unwanted weak interference calls
- Fixed a case where the puck could pass through the top of the goalies pad
- Stick strength and tension tuning
- Reverse hit animation responsiveness improvements
- Stick lift targeting and reaction improvements
- Fixed a few cases where sticks would get tangled with players off faceoffs
Goalies
- Fix to stop goalies from looking around screens during faceoffs and play far outside their zone
- Fixed an issue where human goalies reaction time would be too high when having to move a limb a larger distance, allowing them to sit deep in their net and have success
- Improved flinch saves while the AI goalie is leaning against the post in butterfly
- Various goal scoring balance improvements
- AI Goalie poke check frequency tuning
- Improved user goalie Spread V and butterfly mechanical consistency
- Improved AI contortionist saves trigger logic
- Fixed an issue where goalies would drop an already covered puck if they were poke checked
Shooting
- Fixed issues where attempted slap passes would lead to unrealistic deflection postures/outcomes
- Fix for when shots were getting queued before a hit
- Rebalanced one timer shot outcomes based on quality of pass and reaction time
- Fixed an issue where players would still attempt to deflect blocked shots
- Blade angle improvements to various deflections
Skating
- Improved postures and stick interaction when trying to turn near the boards
- Fixed skating transitions that were not blending correctly
- Improved skating behavior and transitions in and out of board play
General
- Vibration tuning and fixes for cases where vibrations wouldn’t turn off
- Fixed an issue where players were able to perform actions to extend the goal post goal sequence
- Various improvements to preserving proper momentum when a player would trip
- Fix for shot blocks that were being picked inappropriately instead of diving poke checks
- Improved flinch logic for kneeling/pass blocks
- Various X-factor ability tuning and logic improvements
- Fixed pro-am penalty logic where regular trips from non-diving players were being called
- Various crash and desync fixes
The Standard Edition of NHL 22 releases on October 15 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5. The X-Factor Edition launches 3 days earlier and includes bonus in-game content. The NHL 22 trial arrives for EA Play and Xbox Game Pass on October 7.
