NHL 25 Gameplay Deep Dive Trailer and Blog

We'll have more news coming as we get closer to release.

Thanks. Appreciate the kind words :)

I really like the vision control for defense. One of the annoying things in the current game is when you're trying to defend in front of the net and the puck gets to a player front, your player can kinda get turned around and face the goalie instead of the guy with the puck.

Looks like some good changes to the game this year.

Hopefully “paddle down” is back in the game. 

Connor is leaving the area assuming the skater will either stay in the middle or go to the right.  Connor is in the process of curling into the middle slot

I'd like to know if the defensive AI was improved, and if so, to see some clips of it.  The video shows off some improvements to offensive AI, but there is a lot of horrendous defensive AI play on display.  Defense is where the game's AI needs improvement more urgently, please show us what has been done in that aspect.

Of course defense AI is improved but it's always gonna be subjective to how you play and position.  With the AI offense getting changed up it only makes sense for the AI defense to get some changes too.  If it's a huge thing to you then I'd wait til more information can be talked about if you haven't decided on getting NHL 25 or not.

Interested to see how improvements to shove and hit conflicting with shooting controls looks like. There are too many actions mapped to the right stick, with shove, shoot and hit all together, and the system often failed to register the right response for the situation. I wish EA would just allow complete control button customization. I tried to do it with my Elite controller, but it was impossible to get the configuration I wanted because of so many actions mapped together.

So many times in a game, my guy is shoving when I'm trying to shoot-- even when no defenders are near me. And when trying to shoot a loose puck in front of the net, we all know how often that leads to an interference penalty.  I also get a lot of cross-checks because of the shove button-- I guess it doesn't register that I hit back and forward on the right stick for a hit. I've never been a penalty player until this year. If I had my way, I'd eliminate the shove mechanic. Never once in a game have I said, "this is a great time to bring out the shove." It's of no use to ME.

My fingers are crossed that this has been fixed or that control customization has been added.

Still just the same old game with the exact same big emblem we all asked to be removed. It should be criminal to just patch the same game every year and sell it as AAA.

Is there an additional gameplay video or blog coming?  The schedule only shows mode-specific videos remaining.  And that would be consistent with what they've done in the past... one brief gameplay overview (that they call a "deep-dive") and the rest mode-specific stuff.

I want to see the AI reading plays better, more sticks and bodies in shooting and passing lanes, better situation awareness (for example in NHL 24 and earlier, in 3v3 OT the AI defenders still often seem to think they have 4 teammates helping them, that needs to be fixed), and more generally better positioning.  The defense in this video looked atrocious, but granted they were mainly showing off offense so it's expected.  I'd love to see more clips showing off any defensive improvements, or at least some bullet points listing specific things that were addressed for defense.

Sadly I think you will have to wait until the Hughe's brothers face off to see more real gameplay and get an idea of what the AI looks like.  And yes the videos are usually always about making goalies and AI defense look silly to showcase offense.