EA has today revealed the official release date for NHL 24, which is coming to Xbox One, Series X and Series S on October 6th! Unlike last year's game, it sounds like the series is making some major strides forward this year as well.
Arguably the biggest new feature in NHL 24 is the Exhaust Engine, which is a new way to "bring the rush and fatigue of high-pressure games to life". When you're proving dominant in the offensive zone, a special Perk will trigger and the other team's stats will drop, while goalies will also become more tired when they're facing a barrage of pucks.
Here's a bit more information on how this works:
"Through the Sustained Pressure System, offensive players who keep pressure on in the attack zone are rewarded and will trigger the Sustained Pressure perk, lowering their opponent’s attributes for a limited time and creating more space for movement and setting up plays.
With the Goalie Fatigue System, the more pucks you put on net, the more fatigue the opponent’s goalie will experience. This will affect the netminder’s ability to react to shots as they wear down over time and upwards of 75 new goalie animations will help bring this in-game storyline to life."
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Elsewhere, the team has overhauled physics and animations to "deliver realistic body checks like never before", including the ability to send players into the bench and check them through the glass. The controls for human goalies have also been upgraded this year, so if you like playing between the sticks, you'll benefit from improvements.
As for the modes, EA is mainly only taking about Hockey Ultimate Team and World of CHEL right now, with the former adding all-new HUT Moments and a real-time objective-tracking system, while World of CHEL introduces a new form of EASHL Playoffs, improvements to Creation Zone, a free and paid WOC Battle Pass, better matchmaking and more. Cross-play is also supported across both of these modes between Xbox and PlayStation.
You can pre-order NHL 24 today on the Xbox Store in standard and X-Factor variants, with the latter including a bunch of perks such as early access and lots of Hockey Ultimate Team bonuses. NHL 24 will also have a free Xbox Game Pass Ultimate trial in early October for anyone who wants to try before they buy.