NHL 25 Review (PS5)

In life, there are three certainties: death, taxes, and underwhelming, incremental upgrades to annual sports titles. Enter NHL 25, EA Vancouver’s latest iteration of the greatest game on ice. While EA’s hockey titles tend to fare better year-to-year than Madden or EA Sports FC, that doesn’t mean the title is always able to escape unharmed.

We found NHL 24 to be a noticeable step back from the past couple of titles, though not without its bright spots. Being able to manually select your pass target was a godsend, and the new button layout, 'Total Control', was good, if unpolished. With an additional year under its belt, what exciting new changes do we have to look forward to?

Well, the biggest introduction is the new 'ICE-Q' system, an improved logic system for the AI in the game, allowing players on the ice to react and read plays or breakouts more authentically than ever before. And it’s kind of noticeable. If you squint. If you go into this game hoping for something closely resembling the actual sport of hockey, it’s now a little easier to cycle the puck or generate sustained pressure, though be wary of letting the AI handle zone entries, as computer-controlled players seem to have no idea how it’s actually supposed to work.

The actual gameplay is what lets this new tech down. Unfortunately, while the control scheme update last year was solid, it doesn’t feel as though any improvements have been made. Moving and reorienting your player still feels sluggish, and puck pickup, even from a standstill, is dreadful. It’s even worse in the arcade modes. We understand it’s not actually easy to pick up a bouncing rubber disc on a sheet of frozen water, but the execution in NHL 25 doesn’t feel like a stat problem with players; it feels broken.

Additionally, hitting still feels as bad as last season, further inconveniencing the arcade modes like Threes or Ones, which thrive on the chaos of big checks and frantic scrambles. Combine the poor hitting with the fact these modes haven’t received anything more than cosmetic tweaks in years, and it’s clear they need an update.

Mercifully, not everything feels as though it lacks improvement. Franchise mode has received a fairly hefty overhaul for the first time in a number of years, with a "new" UI to help navigate running your team. What this really amounts to is the UI in Be a Pro mode — which has, again, received no updates — being slapped onto Franchise mode. While it’s not really new, it is still better. You have greater flexibility to jump around menus, it’s less cluttered, and there are neat settings you can mess with when building your team. For example, you can now ask players to change their play style to fit your team, and the burden of enticing a free agent to your team falls to you should you choose to do so.

There are interesting inclusions, much like the new Grudge Match system, which can create season-spanning rivalries between teams or players, another positive for the presentation of the title. Also welcome is a massively expanded replay system, bringing it more in line with what NHL titles of years past used to have. You can view far more events than used to be feasible, and box scores are tracked and archived for games. Plus, stats are more robust in general, with player awards being tracked at long last.

If you noticed, most of what we’re talking about is changes happening away from the ice itself. That’s because, apart from getting to see the new Utah uniforms on the ice, very little of what has changed impacts the actual gameplay. No new modes — minus a rebrand of the card draft mode in Ultimate Team — no sweeping changes, nothing. In fact, the biggest change is a streamlined economy in the Ultimate Team mode. Instead of each HUT mode having its own progress system, everything has been unified, improving the rate at which you unlock items and earn rewards. This makes it that extra bit easier to not pump money into a mode that is quite fun despite its pay-to-win inclinations.

Presentationally, the NHL 25 remains exceptional. Uniforms look great, and the arena ambiance and sound design are phenomenal. A slew of animations are new to the title as well, with some goalie save and incidental contact motions looking especially excellent. The scoreboard is even back in the top corner, including a shot counter at long last. Players also get accurately coated in snow spray if you take a sharp edge or stop short. The licensed soundtrack is solid as ever, featuring returning favourites like Darude’s Sandstorm, and the best song Green Day has made in years. However, presentation has never been the problem unless you count the sluggish menus, which have yet again gotten slower.