NHL 15 Missing Modes – New Details Emerge About October Updates
There has been a lot of controversy surrounding the release of NHL 15 for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. NHL 15 has officially launched in the U.S and Canada today as, we in Europe must wait until the 12th.
CVG reported on Monday via sports gaming website Operation Sports that EA have cut a ton of modes from the last NHL instalment. Being a huge fan of the franchise since NHL 94 and seeing how well the game has progressed with NHL 14, which is my personal favourite title from the franchise. Now, knowing that EA has cut a huge majority of the modes that featured in that title has made me more than disappointed. To be quite frank, I think it is taking P**S. Before, I start going off on one, here is the list of modes removed courtesy of Operation Sports.
Below is what will be missing from NHL 15:
- No GM Connected
- No Online Team Play
- No EA Sports Hockey League
- No EA Sports Arena
- No Online Shootouts
- No Live the Life
- No Be A Legend
- No Winter Classic
- No tournaments or Battle for the Cup
- No season mode (you can only play seasons in Be A GM, which is limited to NHL teams)
- No NHL 94 Anniversary mode
- No custom music support
- No create-a-play designer
- Cannot customize each team’s AI
- No create-a-team
- No way to edit individual players
- Practice mode is now limited to one skater vs. an A.I goalie
An EA community manager took to the EA forums over the weekend and revealed the following information. Some of the most substantial updates include a play-off mode and GM draft. Below you will find a list of the updates that will be taking place from September to October.
Playoff Mode
Create a custom offline tournament bracket with up to 16 teams from any of the 12 leagues in the game. Play or simulate each game and track player and team stats throughout the tournament.
Be A Pro – Coach Feedback
Get the coach’s feedback while you are on the bench. The coach will give you tips on how to stay on top of your game and grade you on your play.
3 Stars of the Game
At the end of the game, see the three stars and their high level stats. Will apply to every game mode.
Hockey Ultimate Team
Several content updates, including:
- Changed layout and navigation in HUT store
- New animations for player items
- Improved edit lines screen to better identify players that are injured or require contract extensions
October
Online Team Play
Online multiplayer mode where every player on the ice can be human controlled.
GM Draft
For the first time in the NHL franchise, you will be put on the clock and feel the pressure like real NHL GM’s. You will now only have 3 minutes to make a draft pick. If the pressure is too much, you can also call timeouts to extend the amount of time you have to make a draft pick or potentially negotiate a trade. You can make trades at any time during the draft. The CPU will also propose trades to each other and the user throughout the draft.
Here is my opinion on this situation:
As you can see, there are a lot of fantastic features missing from this New Gen instalment and I generally think EA have been cutting corners to save money, but still charge the full price for a product that really at launch isn’t going to be complete. The fact that there is no 94 mode is quite shocking since it was a hugely demanded feature for NHL 14. The fact there is also no Online shootouts, No Be a legend, No tournaments, No actual season mode and no create-a-player designer is ludicrous, actually it’s atrocious to think EA would even launch the game without these modes. This Quarter, EA have already cut features from Sims 4 and the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of FIFA 15.
The lack of the full season mode really grinds my teeth. The season mode is possibly the most played feature of the game other than online, and they’ve cut it in half. Do they really think they can get away with stating “some features will be released with future updates“, is this EA’s way of saying “pay £50, have half a game and we will release the other half later as the game isn’t finished“. I would rather have the game delayed a month, rather than having to deal with constant updates, which will be updating modes that should already be there. It’s as bad as Capcom having the DLC of one of their titles already on the disc, but then has the cheek to charge for the DLC! Oh and lastly, still no Hockey Ultimate Team friendlies. Disappointing.
We are still waiting on our review copy from EA and we will most likely receive it on launch day due to EA not wanting reviews to be published before release. Check back in a few days for our review, if our copy arrives.