Will NHL 21 Come Out For PC?

Hi there, @jimmarshall.

We'll have to wait and see what happens. In the past, there just has been enough interest in NHL for the PC. Hopefully, that changes in the future.

If the switch from last gen to current gen was any indication, 21 will just be a carbon copy of 20.

NHL 22 will be your best bet as the team will have a year's worth of experience with new consoles and amd tech to better suit PC's integration.

As for Madden, the sport as a whole is vastly more popular than NHL so it makes sense to have a PC version. I've noticed the pro PCers being more vocal this year than previous ones so as long as you can all get together in a single HUB to voice your opinions you still habe a shot.

@TTZ_Dipsy 

No game is ever a carbon copy. Even NHL 15 on Xbox One/PS4 wasn't a copy of NHL 14. Yes, it was a more barebones version when it came to the new consoles, but carbon copy wouldn't be correct. With each year after, more is added to the game. Just like it was with the previous generations. It can't be rebuilt every year. We take the previous game, add new content, improve existing content and resolve as many issues as possible. It's a popular statement to say our games are the same every year, but that's just not the case. Especially when comparing 20 to 19 and 18. Sure, graphically not a lot changed other than presentation, but there have been big gameplay changes. It's never a case of slapping a new cover on the same game though.

@EA_Aljo 

You're right, calling it a carbon copy is a bit of a stretch, and the team can definitely make great strides like with NHL 20's speed system and continuation of 19's defensive tweaks, but I personally think EA would receive much less flak if they released yearly (or just constant update) patches to a base "EA's NHL" like the community has been requesting instead of full price releases; You can get away with making us pay for them, sure, (though you make enough money in HUT not to but this is beside the point), but I think $30 or $40 is much more reasonable.

As for resolving issues.. it's been near 10 years for basic left right left dekes on goalies to be fixed, 5 years since defensive shot and pass blocking were tuned, and 3 years since the horrid rebound cheesers were toned down. I appreciate all the changes to skating/agility and especially poking, but there are some, what I'd call game-breaking problems that are low priority

@TTZ_Dipsy 

Rebounds, of all things, definitely changed this year. I'll agree that they were pretty easy to exploit in previous years, but goalies direct pucks into the corners or out of play a lot more than they used to. Rebounds are a part of hockey. They are also something professional players know how to set up. Just because someone scores on a rebound, it doesn't mean it's an exploit. You have to allow the shot on net and another player to be there to receive the rebound. If someone is constantly using that against you, change your defense to Protect Net and Collapsing. That's not going to stop everything of course. When I play defense and notice teams going for rebounds, I plant myself low in the slot so I'm there to recover them. This is where you need human defenders. The AI defenders aren't recognizing the habits of your opponents. They just play according to what's happening on the ice as well as the strategies you're using. 

Defensive shot blocks and pass interceptions have been improved. Some would say too much as there have been some complaints about how good they are with 20.

As far as forehand-backhand dekes on goalies go, that's a pretty legit move in real hockey. You also have to be relatively skilled to pull it off. There are plenty of times someone fails at it as well. If you're more skilled, you should be rewarded though. You're also giving up an excellent scoring chance, most likely through a breakaway. That can be attributed to bad defense. Goalies can only bail you out so much when that happens.

As far as charging less for an annual update goes, I don't think people realize just how much game development costs. Besides building the game, there's licensing, support, maintaining servers, marketing, etc. There's a ton of costs that go into making the game each year. I get that $60 is a lot for some people, but the price of games hasn't really changed in decades, but everything I mentioned has increased dramatically. There's are often discounts as well as the game moving to the vault in EA Access at some point. I really don't know what the future holds. Of course things could change at some point. Especially with subscription services becoming more popular. So, who knows what will happen? That's not up to me.

@youneverknow8 

The NHL studio researches the viability of a PC port. I don't have any fine details on what determines whether or not it happens, but it mainly has come down to not enough interest. Yes, there are some threads from PC players wanting NHL to return, but it's not quite as high as it seems. If it were, most likely this would happen. Hockey is kind of a niche sport. It doesn't have the same popularity as Soccer or American Football. Hopefully, a PC release happens. I know it's something we'd all like to see happen, but it could also mean sacrificing work on the console version. Which is vastly more popular.

@youneverknow8 

In my opinion, all the different ways people have been asking for a PC version are why there isn't one - you all need to consolidate your support into a single entity, otherwise they won't be able to get an accurate picture of how many unique users want it. Also, the most I've seen in a single petition was like 12,000 - you're gonna need wayyyyyyy more than that to make them budge.

@EA_Aljo 

Again, they only direct it better when the shot is coming from the left (tendy's right) - coming from the right side is just as easy, if not easier than previous years; I don't know how you haven't noticed it. Seeing as how there was a recent patch that made defensive awareness better, shot-blocking and interceptions did indeed need fixing afterall.

Here's the thing about forehand-backhand dekes - if a human goalie knows that's all you're going to do, he will act accordingly; cpu goalies get fooled like 90% of the time and don't learn, that's why they need tweaks.

This picture is for a different game under the EA umbrella but, and this is just my opinion, I don't think you can really blame economical struggle affecting quality for yearly titles that have a host of microtransactions when said MTX more than make up for it.

@TTZ_Dipsy 

I just haven't noticed anything different with rebounds from either side. I'll still watch out for it though.

You don't need to do an extensive search to find out there is interest for this game on PC. 140 000 views on youtube for a roster update of NHL 2004 on PC. If that doesn't sound like people being desperate for NHL on PC i don't know what is. We're talking about a 16 year old game still having that kind of following just because there's no alternative. You don't see more people asking around because most of us gave up the idea of a new NHL game on PC.

This and the fact community managers keep deleting everything that point at them for why people lost interest in their PC version in the first place. Reason being they ported the * NHL PS2 version 4 years in a row while console users had all the fun with the new gameplay and next gen stickhandling and all that stuff.. They'll probably delete that too because they don't like the truth.