02:36 PM - September 9, 2015 by ChaseB
To an outsider, it feels like it must have been a strange offseason for the folks at EA Canada who shepherd the NHL franchise. After NHL 15 was generally lambasted by critics, they still had to plow forward, developing the next iteration in the series without much of a breather to take stock of what happened. However, that does not mean they have not "rebuilt on the fly." In my time visiting the developers up in Burnaby as well as checking out the game at E3, it’s clear to me that the team has taken many steps to right the ship.
This is not to say that any of these moves guarantee a successful product this year, but they at least demonstrate an awareness by all levels of the development team (design, presentation, marketing, post-launch support) that things need to be different going forward. I was one of the many who felt disillusioned by last year’s product, as it seemed to want to reset expectations for content while finally improving the long-stagnant presentation. This resulted in a game that started to look the part of a next-gen game, but it didn’t have the content to back it up. Gameplay was buffed by some new parts under the hood, but they were clearly first-year efforts -- with puck physics and collision physics being the focus.
Even with the black eye of last year’s release, everyone on the team has a good poker face. There’s still a quiet confidence in the Burnaby office, as it’s a core group who experiences very little turnover and who has, by and large, done right by the NHL brand. But one thing is clear: NHL 15 is not a product that represented what that team is capable of, and those folks have taken many steps to change the language of development, add accountability to their staff and reconnect with all types of fans.
Read More: Changing the Game - EA's New Approach for NHL 16 (Written by Glenn Wigmore)