NHL 26 Elevates Authenticity With NHL EDGE Partnership and ICE-Q 2.0 Integration

[Steve_OS]

As part of the NHL 26 cover reveal, EA Sports and the NHL announced a partnership...

Written By: Steve Noah

Click here to view the article.

[timpfla]

All i want is a representation of nhl hockey. From broadcast to gameplay. When you score a goal, i want to see cut scenes of the celebration that follows, not this crap we have.. I want to see the goal scorer do his celebration and then go to the bench and give atta boys along g with the stadium anthems. I want be a pro to be authentic, and the commentary to represent the nhl . I just want to feel the excitement of being a nhl player

[Fiddy]

All i want is a representation of nhl hockey. From broadcast to gameplay. When you score a goal, i want to see cut scenes of the celebration that follows, not this crap we have.. I want to see the goal scorer do his celebration and then go to the bench and give atta boys along g with the stadium anthems. I want be a pro to be authentic, and the commentary to represent the nhl . I just want to feel the excitement of being a nhl player

I want them to bring back being able to take control of an already established NHL player and go through their career.

[PernellKarl076]

This data integration is made possible through the new ICE-Q 2.0 system, which uses puck and player tracking from every NHL arena to shape gameplay. With millions of data points powering everything from skating acceleration to shot power and goalie reactions, players in NHL 26 are designed to move and perform like their real-world counterparts.

Hearing all of this makes me think that there will be no more sliders ? The game and players will play like it’s real life counterparts out of the box ? If this is all true, I don’t mind paying $500 for the game, one guy can dream, but I’m pretty sure I’m gonna wake up in a cold sweat on September 12 😣

[MiracleMet718]

Hearing all of this makes me think that there will be no more sliders ? The game and players will play like it’s real life counterparts out of the box ? If this is all true, I don’t mind paying $500 for the game, one guy can dream, but I’m pretty sure I’m gonna wake up in a cold sweat on September 12 😣

There are going to be sliders. It’s just updating player tendencies and the moves they try/areas they go to on the ice. It’s not going to be a drastic difference from last year, but the AI should play a bit smarter. So don’t get your hopes up too much or you are going to be pretty disappointed.

[PernellKarl076]

There are going to be sliders. It’s just updating player tendencies and the moves they try/areas they go to on the ice. It’s not going to be a drastic difference from last year, but the AI should play a bit smarter. So don’t get your hopes up too much or you are going to be pretty disappointed.

I know MiracleMet, it was just a pipe dream of mine that one day this game will play like real hockey out of the box…. It’s gonna be another year of slideritiss for me. Add that to the fact that the game is often possessed by an entity that plays with the game speed and whatnot on its own 😒

My dream would be to have a game that plays real 20 minutes periods with real stats and all. People that wanna play quicker games, can just FAST SIM portions of the game and jump in whenever they feel like it.

Hockey should be HOCKEY to it's purest form. It’s the most beautiful game on earth. Have another game on the side called NHL Streets or something for people that like to play pinball hockey. Problem solved.

Pretty sure lots of people that works for EA don't even know themselves what sliders do exactly. The coding for this stuff must be hell for them to even comprehend. Imagine, we have a hockey game with 6 speed settings !!! And that’s the first slider out of around a hundred others… Sigh !

[Fiddy]

Pretty sure lots of people that works for EA don't even know themselves what sliders do exactly. The coding for this stuff must be hell for them to even comprehend. Imagine, we have a hockey game with 6 speed settings !!! And that’s the first slider out of around a hundred others… Sigh !

This 100%!

I question if they even know at this point either. Like this dev team takes over a few years ago, did they even touch what the sliders do? Sure they give us a small snippet of what the slider should do, but what else does it effect directly, A, B, and C? Or just A? I don't get why we never get these type of breakdown from dev's across all sports games.

Like when everyone was complaining about CPU penalties online from their AI, what did they do? Just adjusted the slider down to 1 LOL. Didn't fix their behaviors in game however they would do it, but just took that penalty slider from 40 and made it 1. Meh. LOL

Hoping for the best today!

[PernellKarl076]

Sure this game is on the right track, I'm playing a game of 25 right now with my sliders and at the end of 1, the SOG for Columbus are 6 and Montreal 3. That’s on 10 minutes periods. Something could be done for close to 20 minutes IMO. With some players edits and whatnot. See this AM the game plays at the right speed and seems to take take my sliders in effect. When the game does this, it plays like a GEM 😀

That being said Fiddy, I can’t wait to see that gameplay deep dive… Hope it’s a deeper dive than last year, lol !

[PernellKarl076]

Well, that DEEP dive was 5 minutes long ☹️ With what I saw it looks promising. The ICE Q 2.0 integration alongside NHL Edge data seems like a great thing. Supposedly the real skater’s acceleration, the top speed and shots speed will be replicated in the game. I'm kinda stoked, not gonna lie.

That being said, we have sliders to adjust these factors with multiple sliders. Will there be a Slider set/values that will keep these TRUE to LIFE??? That is the million dollar question.

[MiracleMet718]

Well, that DEEP dive was 5 minutes long ☹️ With what I saw it looks promising. The ICE Q 2.0 integration alongside NHL Edge data seems like a great thing. Supposedly the real skater’s acceleration, the top speed and shots speed will be replicated in the game. I'm kinda stoked, not gonna lie.

That being said, we have sliders to adjust these factors with multiple sliders. Will there be a Slider set/values that will keep these TRUE to LIFE??? That is the million dollar question.

Read the full deep dive. It’s actually pretty cool for the features they are able to include now.

[Fiddy]

I was hoping when they talked about the NHL Edge stuff that we would see live updates applied to rosters etc. But just look like they used to to create some differences in players, which is still great. If they can use this data to get teams and obviously players to play more life like, including using all skills users can use this will be fantastic. My question is, guys like Ovie, can I create my own player so to speak and mirror his set up? Would my created player find that space on the PP and play just like Ovie?

Only 22 player tendencies out the gate, would love to see another 20 or so added during the year if possible. Even if they create their own versions of 3rd and 4th liners using data and getting those depth/role players to play like they should that would be a win.

[MiracleMet718]

I was hoping when they talked about the NHL Edge stuff that we would see live updates applied to rosters etc. But just look like they used to to create some differences in players, which is still great. If they can use this data to get teams and obviously players to play more life like, including using all skills users can use this will be fantastic. My question is, guys like Ovie, can I create my own player so to speak and mirror his set up? Would my created player find that space on the PP and play just like Ovie?

Only 22 player tendencies out the gate, would love to see another 20 or so added during the year if possible. Even if they create their own versions of 3rd and 4th liners using data and getting those depth/role players to play like they should that would be a win.

I’m curious about the tendencies too, mostly from the on-ice positioning perspective. It’s great for current players but for prospects or generated players, I’m curious if that can be “created”, meaning they have a made-up tendency list since we don’t know how the prospects play and the created ones will just be fake anyway. Should be interesting to see and for this being year 1, I’m sure it will expand in future years.

[The EVHL]

This new dev team has completely botched the goalies since their first release in 23. The underlying reaction time is so robo-fast that even a 36 overall goalie at 0 reaction speed slider on 25 is still resulting in goalies overreacting to pucks. The goalies are making limb reaction movements before the puck is released. This means saves aren’t even remotely organic, and it actually results in goalies coming up short on lateral plays because they’re reacting to a shot that hasn’t happened yet which stops their movement way too soon.

This new edge 2.0 stuff makes me mildly interested for the first time in years, but I’m not overly optimistic based on doing a deep dive play session with 25 just to verify my stance on the current state of the game.

lots of things I like, but the underlying lack of puck pressure from the AI + the complete dismantling of offensive zone competence from the user AI teammates when compared to NHL 20 means that 26 has a massive mountain to climb for me to purchase.

[13whitebread]

This is all good. What drives me crazy is they give info out with an eye dropper little bit by little bit. I guess they think this builds anticipation but for me at least it just angers me. It’s mostly because when they do give info it’s not complete in anyway. Leaving us all to speculate presentation means different thing to all of us but it’s August 23 the game releases in September I believe and we still don’t know anything about presentation frustrated as always!

[LegendKillerOne]

this is great and all but does it mean when the computer is on the power play they will actually setup work the puck around and take shots from the point instead of everything being to the net?