The latest NHL season is upon us and, with it, comes the newest iteration of the biggest hockey simulator in the game: EA Sports NHL 26. While most sports games earn a reputation for incremental improvements from year to year, NHL 26 has promised overhauls in key areas that could help draw players to the latest version of the game and provide an excellent starting point for newcomers.
I don’t usually start reviews with the graphics, but I felt compelled to do so this time. Graphics were a sticking point in my early impressions of the game. EA Sports NHL 26 has done an excellent job with its design, featuring clean menus, detailed arenas, and subtle touches like reflections from arena elements glinting off the ice. However, the same praise doesn’t quite apply to the player models.
Looking back at my review of EA Sports Madden Football 26, the player and coach scans brought life to the experience in a way that NHL 26 doesn’t quite capture. It’s not that the visuals are bad, but the same leap forward just hasn’t been made—and compared with every other element of the game, that shortfall stands out.
“EA Sports NHL 26 has done an excellent job with its design, featuring clean menus, detailed arenas, and subtle touches like reflections from arena elements glinting off the ice.”
They have done a lot of work, however, in making sure the players feel like the players when your hands are on the controller, though. With EA Sports NHL 26’s ICE-Q 2.0, they utilize NHL EDGE data to apply the key attributes of each player in-game, achieving an amazing effect. It starts with player speed, acceleration and power, but takes it further to adapt player tendencies, like where on the ice and, indeed, how they shoot, to make each player feel unique, which fans will undoubtedly notice.
X-Factors 2.0 in EA Sports NHL 26 will also have a major impact on the players’ advantages on the ice. Broken down by Playmaker, Offensive, Defensive and Goalie X-Factors, individual advantages like “Born Leader,” “Post to Post,” and “Quick Draw” will highlight elements of the games that make the players on your team (and the ones you create in-game) special. Goalie tendencies are also highlighted in their Goalie Crease Control system, focused on Goalie awareness and reflexes.
EA Sports has made major strides in storytelling across all its games, and the reworked Be a Pro mode in EA Sports NHL 26 is no exception. Build your player from the ground up, take them through the World Juniors, and enter the NHL Draft. From there, experience the whirlwind of an NHL career as you navigate not only your time on the ice but also, just as importantly, your time off it. Interviews and off-ice choices directly affect your trajectory in the league.
It’s modes like this that I tend to dive into after spending time in a franchise or dynasty mode. They bring a touch of role-playing to the experience. I found NHL 26’s Be a Pro mode more straightforward than Madden’s recent offering, which can sometimes create too intricate a web of characters and choices for a sports game. (I don’t deal with that many people in my real life.) My time with it felt smoother and more focused, without being dull, though I did notice that even the smallest decisions seemed to impact player stats a little too harshly.
HUT (Hockey Ultimate Team) seasons in EA Sports NHL 26 are another excellent way to expand gameplay beyond the standard league. They’re especially enjoyable once you’ve advanced beyond the current season and the league landscape shifts as players retire or move to new teams. Collect player cards—both current stars and past icons—to build your ideal NHL lineup and compete in offline (Cup Chase) or online (Ranked) modes.
While you’ll never find me playing strangers in ranked modes, I love the ability to hop on the ice for a quick game with friends without worrying about the ratings of our favourite teams working against us when we’re battling for video game supremacy. HUT lets you combine players from every era into one unbeatable lineup.
“EA Sports has made major strides in storytelling across all its games, and the reworked Be a Pro mode in EA Sports NHL 26 is no exception.”
When it comes to gameplay, it remains my favourite part of the EA Sports NHL series because it allows you to tailor your experience to your skill level. Do you want to get granular and make every stick movement and button press feel like an extension of the player’s body, turning them into virtual marionettes? Great. Prefer to press a single button to shoot because you grew up in the ’90s and your thumb isn’t quite as fast as it used to be? Also great.
EA Sports NHL 26 shines when it comes to the information it provides during play-through on-ice graphic overlays. Much like in high-quality NHL broadcasts, you don’t need to look far to see how much time remains on a penalty kill or which lines are coming onto the ice. When shooting, you can gauge your scoring chances based on your line of sight to the net and the goalie’s position, factoring in both players’ skill levels. It’s a feature that’s both subtle and eye-catching at the same time.
EA Sports NHL 26 is available in Standard and Deluxe editions. The Standard edition includes the base game and 250 NHL Points, while the Deluxe edition offers the game, 4,600 NHL Points, a HUT NHL Players Pack, a HUT Icon Choice Pack, a HUT Heroes Choice Pack, a World of CHEL Vanity Set and a World of CHEL Battle Pass XP Boost. The Standard edition is priced at $69.99 USD, while the Deluxe edition costs $99.99 USD. Both are available on Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5.
“NHL 26 is a solid, confident entry in the series—and if this is your first foray into hockey video games, you’ll be in good hands.”
As sports games go, EA Sports NHL 26 delivers a few notable improvements across its modes but remains largely the same experience players have seen in past editions, just with updated information. Whether the upgrade is worth it depends on which modes you enjoy most and how much value you place on current rosters and stats. If you don’t dive deep into Be a Pro mode, you won’t be missing much by sticking with your current version.
At the very least, NHL 26 isn’t one of those rough off-years for an annual release. Sometimes a franchise like this takes big swings, adding and removing features at will, changing up gameplay too drastically and, ultimately, drawing enough criticism that developers walk it all back the following year. That isn’t the case here. NHL 26 is a solid, confident entry in the series—and if this is your first foray into hockey video games, you’ll be in good hands.
