NHL 22 contains an impressive array of appealing game modes both online and offline, but its World of Chel distinguishes itself by serving as a hub for such a variety of ways to play hockey that it’s almost a whole other game unto itself. Allowing you to create your own skater and/or goalie, you can use that player across the entirety of the World of Chel and also alter strengths (and weaknesses) by using various loadouts and tweaking attributes. As you play more games in WOC, you’ll gradually unlock different boosts you can apply to your loadouts by leveling up. You will also discover cosmetic rewards within hockey bags that you’ll be able to use to create a unique look.
For any newcomers, it’s possible that the WOC could be a little overwhelming (it is a whole world after all) and you may not even know where to begin, let alone what to do in order to make the most of all the options within its confines. Thankfully, the mode is designed in such way that you can start out simple and then work your way up to full 6-on-6 team play.
To provide some further assistance, let’s explore everything contained within this vast world so you can have the best experience imaginable. This rundown of nine fun things to do in the World of Chel will help you decide what part of the WOC might be best suited for you, and it will also offer some tips on how to have your players looking and playing their best.
Loadouts
Before we get into any of the ways to play, it’s important to familiarize yourself with the various loadouts that you can use to ensure you have the preferred skills at your disposal. This mainly involves selecting from a group of set archetypes depending on your position and desired play style, which will ultimately determine your base abilities. If you’re an offensive player, you’ll probably want to gravitate towards something like sniper or playmaker, while defensemen have specific loadouts like two-way defenseman or defensive defenseman that are ideal for the position. Naturally, goalies have their own loadouts designed to cater to them as well.
However, these archetypes are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to deciding what kind of player you want to be in the World of Chel. With the introduction of Superstar X-Factors in NHL 22, this new element opens you up to more specific strengths on the ice. As you play games, you’ll begin to unlock powerful zone abilities along with lesser superstar abilities and other boosts that will improve your archetypes in certain facets depending on which ones you choose. Even once you unlock them, the abilities that you can select are all connected to your archetype, so you can only use ones that make some sense with the kind of player that you’re trying to be. This prohibits anyone from crafting oddities like a defensive defenseman who can somehow snipe with the best of them or a playmaker capable of delivering huge body checks.
But wait, there are even more ways to make adjustments to how adept (or inept) your player can be in certain areas. For the first time, NHL 22 allows you to make tweaks to the attributes with every archetype, but obviously you can’t just go in and max all of them out to transform your player into some kind of superstar. The way it works is that all of your attributes are divided into five separate categories: technique, power, playstyle, tenacity, and tactics. Within each of these categories, you’re free to take points away from any of the five attributes and apply them to other attributes within the same category. For example, in the technique category you can increase your wrist shot accuracy but that would mean having to decrease either your slap shot accuracy, speed, balance, or agility. This allows you to now create a more distinct player who doesn’t perform exactly the same as someone else who happens to have an identical archetype.
Cosmetic Customization
Since the inception of the EASHL (a precursor to the ridiculously named World of Chel), a hugely entertaining component of the mode has been the way you can alter the look of your player in various ways. The options for doing this have only become more complex over the years. By playing games in the WOC, you’ll regularly earn hockey bag rewards that will contain all sorts of items that you can equip to make sure that you’re noticed when you play.
This starts with the clothes that you wear and then extends to altering equipment like your stick, helmet, and skates that you take into action, with plenty of creative options from which to choose. You can also decide on more fun things like what kind of animation you want to use to introduce yourself at the outset of every game and how you want to celebrate when you score a goal. If you’re feeling especially adventurous, you may prefer to eschew all of the preset goal horns that are available and make your own one from the included options. Lastly, your shooting and skating styles are even customizable.
Challenges
You’ll find that the World of Chel will always have a series of challenges that you can complete for rewards, and these will periodically be updated throughout the game’s cycle. They are typically structured to get you playing in every area that the WOC has to offer, including Pro-Am, Ones, and drop in games — with set objectives to complete for each of them. For every challenge that you complete, you’ll receive rewards that range from articles of clothing to hockey bags to XP. There will also usually be one larger reward that you can only unlock by completing a set number of the challenges, which is currently a special vampire jersey (or costume?) for Halloween.
Stats
As fun as it can be to play games in WOC, they wouldn’t mean quite as much if there was little to no record of the game having ever been played, but luckily that’s not a problem since WOC now keeps a detailed account of many statistics. These stats not only allow you to see all of the goals and assists that you’ve accumulated in the WOC, but they also divide your stats into splits to show exactly what modes within the WOC you have played.
A Player Progression tab keeps you updated on badges that you have obtained or still need to obtain as you play games in order to receive more XP and bag rewards. Clubs will be pleased to see plenty of tracking of their stats and progression, and everyone will appreciate how you can view the details of recent games that you’ve played so you can relive any amazing victories or excruciating defeats.
Pro Am
Pro Am lets you play games with and against the CPU while you learn how to use the archetype and attributes that you have chosen. It’s also an opportunity to grow accustomed to playing games without any referees in charge, giving you a green light to hack, slash, and hit anything that moves. As you progress through the available challenges, they should slowly grow more difficult and winning will no longer be a foregone conclusion. Pro Am is also a nice way to gain some XP and level up enough to unlock some of those superstar abilities and boosts before you jump in and face real human competitors.
Ones And Threes Eliminator
Once you’ve had enough of playing with the CPU, you may want to progress to either the Ones or Threes Eliminators, depending on whether you would rather play alongside some human teammates or take on competition alone. Ones will have you facing two other players in a half-rink free-for-all where the only real rule is to score more than your opponents. Threes is largely the same except you’ll be working with a full rink and have a few teammates to help you.
Either way, you’ll be placed into a tourney where you advance to the next round with a win and eventually claim the entire tourney if you can string together a few wins. You need to be aware though that the scoring doesn’t always work exactly the way it does in real hockey, and there are sometimes money pucks that will not only be worth multiple goals but can also cause your opponent to lose goals. As you might expect, you’ll receive better rewards at the conclusion of your entry should you come out victorious in the end.
Threes And Sixes Drop-Ins
One of the more popular regions of the World of Chel is playing drop-in games, which you can do in groups of three (even though this actually involves four players when you count the goalie) or sixes like in the NHL. The very idea of drop-in games is somewhat of a crapshoot as there’s no way to know if you will be paired with players who know what they are doing.
You should also be aware that penalties work a little different in threes. Rather than spending any time in the penalty box as with sixes, every infraction is punishable by a penalty shot for the opposing team. Fortunately, the player base has increased enough since the game’s official release date that it no longer takes quite as long to get a game going, even for those on next-gen consoles. At the end of the day, drop-in games can range from competitive and exciting to complete messes that you want to quit almost immediately, but the games don’t ultimately matter all that much when they’re all said and done.
Clubs
If you’re looking for games that do have a little more weight to them, it may be time to consider looking for a reliable club. Your club would ideally be comprised of friends who you’ve played NHL games with before so you have some familiarity with each other, but it’s also possible to find clubs online (Reddit or the OS forums would be good places to begin a search). The real appeal of clubs is that you can build a rapport with your teammates, develop strategies to use as you play games, and attempt to establish yourself within the ranks of all the other clubs out there.
Clubs even have their own separate progression so you can unlock items to improve your team’s arena, uniforms, and mascot, which can be vital in keeping your club different from all of the others that you might play against.
Tournaments And Leagues
As immersive and addictive as playing in clubs can be, they do have their inherent limitations in that the game’s “seasons” don’t have any sort of set schedule and the rankings are somewhat arbitrary. The esports community has emerged in recent years to fill this void that existed in a few different ways. If you’re in a dedicated club that’s at the point you feel like you could beat the best teams out there, you will want to keep an eye out for the kind of sixes events like the recently announced Columbus Blue Jackets Gaming tournament where teams compete for a substantial prize pool.
On the other hand, if you’re someone who loves playing drop-in games but is longing for something a little more organized, I would suggest exploring the world of League Gaming, a site that has run a multi-tiered competitive league modeled on the NHL and all of its minor league affiliates for years now. With a new season on the horizon now that NHL 22 has been released, it’s not too complicated to enter into scouting games to prove your worth, get selected or assigned to a team, and then find yourself making new friends by playing league games with same group of people every week.
