You can create your own arenas, right down to goal songs and the scoreboard. It does appear NHL 17 ups the bells and whistles for gamers. A more detailed look at the new game mode: You can even get fired for failing to meet expectations and signed by new teams. Your tenure as GM depends a lot on your relationship with your owner and how much the owner is committed to three traits: spending, importance of success and patience. Those were key elements that we were looking to as the most requested aspects for Be a GM users.”Īnd it looks oh-so detailed. "How are you as a GM performing to the owner’s expectations? Being able to manage stuff like budgets, facility upgrades, ticket pricing, etc., all the way to being able to relocate your team. "The reasoning behind the rebrand to franchise mode is the motivation behind adding the owner element," said NHL 17 producer Clement Kwong. Front and center: the freshly labelled Franchise Mode, which expands on Be a GM Mode to make it far more immersive. If NHL 15 was about graphics and presentation, and NHL 16 was about restoring the online experience, NHL 17 is about introducing new game modes. Ramjagsingh believes NHL 17 is the biggest year-over-year shift in his time with EA, and he's worked on nine editions of the game. Now in Year 3 of this console generation, and armed with more actual gamer input than ever, EA hopes NHL 17 will be its next "paradigm shift" hockey release. There was even "a guy from Europe" devoted to "hardcore gameplay and presentation," Ramjagsingh said.
#NHL 17 XBOX PRO#
Included in the NHL 17 process were reps for various modes of the game, from Hockey Ultimate Team (HUT) to offline Franchise Mode to Be a Pro Mode. It worked so well last year, especially with its input on the goalie physics, that EA expanded the Game Changers group. A key reason for the turnaround was EA Sports' Game Changers program – a group of hardcore players brought in as an expert feedback panel. The company took the feedback to heart and rebounded with last year's NHL 16, bringing back the sorely missed online features, and game was generally well received. The first year in every console generation requires game makers to iron out kinks.
#NHL 17 XBOX PS3#
Users were savage, rating NHL 15 1.4 out of 5 on PS3 and 3.2 on Xbox One.īut NHL 15 might have simply been a necessary blow for EA to absorb.
#NHL 17 XBOX PS4#
Critics gave an average score of 60 out of 100 for the PS4 edition and 59 out of 100 to Xbox One. NHL 15, according to aggregate review site Metacritic, was the worst-reviewed title in the franchise's history. The leap in graphics quality meant a gorgeous game but also that the series had to eschew many of its popular game modes, most notably the EA Sports Hockey League, which let players create their own characters and join online leagues with all-human 6-on-6 play. And that worked against EA two years ago, when it dropped NHL 15, the series' first foray into eighth-generation consoles Xbox One and PlayStation 4.