EA SPORTS™ NHL® 27: A Closer Look at the Reveal

BREAKDOWN

• Connected Franchise
  • Build Your League
• Atmosphere
  • Arenas
  • Orchestrator
  • Broadcast
  • New Voices
• Gameplay
  • Smart Hockey
  • How Teams Adapt
• What's Next
  • Only The Beginning

The Reveal Trailer was our first chance to show you what we've been building for NHL 27. We also know how the NHL community watches a reveal.

You don't just watch it once and move on. You pause. Rewind. Compare it to last year. You notice a new camera angle, a different crowd reaction, a scoreboard you've never seen before, or a team playing in a way that feels a little different. You're looking for proof that this year's game isn't just more NHL, it's a better NHL.

That’s exactly where our focus has been. This year, we centered NHL 27 around the parts of the experience players engage with every time they pick up the controller.

First, Connected Franchise, one of the community’s biggest requests for years, gives players the chance to build leagues with their friends and much more.

Second, the arenas you play in and the broadcast that presents every game, bringing more authenticity, atmosphere, and team-specific personality to every matchup.

And third, in NHL 27, how you play with your team matters more: team identity plays a bigger role in how each team functions as a unit.

Rather than trying to explain everything in one trailer, we wanted to use this blog to share some of the thinking behind those decisions, highlight a few details you may have missed, and give you a better idea of where we're heading over the coming weeks.

Let's take a closer look.

CONNECTED FRANCHISE

Build Your League. Create Your Rivalries

For years, the community has kept Connected Franchise at the top of their wishlist. As we began development, our team focused on a single, vital question: what kind of experience would truly do this mode justice for our players? It begins with the connection of playing with friends, fostering genuine rivalries, and sparking those social interactions that transform every season into a unique narrative.

That massive trade shifts the league’s competitive landscape.

That one rival who always manages to end your postseason hopes.

The unexpected surge of a dark-horse team.

The legendary title run that becomes the talk of your league for months to come.

Connected Franchise is designed to bring those specific moments to life.

Building this wasn’t a solo effort. We utilized prototypes, conducted deep-dive user research, and refined UX systems through community playtesting to identify and eliminate friction. These insights directly influenced how you establish leagues and how fast you can jump into the action, resulting in significant upgrades to menu navigation and responsiveness.

Our mission for Year One is to establish a robust foundation centered on social play, intense competition, and a living league atmosphere. But this is just the first step. Looking ahead, the future of Connected Franchise will be guided by ongoing community feedback. That feedback will help shape how the mode evolves over time, including potential areas like fantasy draft, player development, aging, and deeper franchise simulation.

Connected Franchise - Year One

Year One is all about getting the foundation right. Connected Franchise lets players create a league with anywhere from 3 to 32 human-controlled teams and on any platform via crossplay, giving groups the flexibility to build the experience that works best for them. Some players may want to recreate a full 32-team NHL season, while others may want a smaller league with a few friends, a lighter schedule, and more control over how they play.

Roster control is a major part of the experience. Connected Franchise gives players control over roster management, trades, pickups, drops, lineup decisions, and free agent claims. Custom rosters (including player movement, created teams, and created players) can be created offline, uploaded, and used in a Connected Franchise league. Roster sharing is now also crossplay compatible, so no matter what console your league is on, you can use the roster setup you want and build from there.

That flexibility extends to both league setup and scheduling. Connected Franchise includes a fully customizable rule set that lets you adjust league size, structure, season length, game rules, gameplay sliders, salary cap ranges, playoff formats, and more. You can also play games in any order with the flexible schedule, giving your league more freedom to move at its own pace. The goal is to give players the tools to create the kind of league they actually want to play with their friends.

Commissioners will also have access to a dedicated Commissioner Tool Suite designed to help leagues stay organized, playable, and moving forward. With these tools, commissioners can manage users, move a user to another team, use Roster Override to make in-league roster moves, advance season phases, adjust settings and sliders, process claims, approve trades, resolve game outcomes, and keep the league on track.

Not the Finish Line, the Foundation

If you watched until the end of the Reveal Trailer, you only caught the first glimpse of Connected Franchise, and there’s much more to share.

We’ll have a full blog dedicated to Connected Franchise coming soon, with a deeper breakdown of how leagues work, what you can customize, and the tools available to commissioners. Stay tuned to the EA SPORTS NHL social channels for the latest NHL 27 news and updates.

We also know that the best way to earn your trust isn’t only through blogs or trailers. It’s the experience itself, once the controller is in your hands.

That’s why we’ve launched the NHL 27 Feedback Portal and are opening Connected Franchise to community playtesting. The portal is a dedicated place to tell us what matters most to you and help shape where Connected Franchise goes next.

You can start sharing your feedback now and sign up for the NHL 27 Community Playtest on July 22 using this link. 

The playtest will primarily focus on Connected Franchise, giving you a chance to try the mode for yourself. Get your group together, jump in, put it through its paces, and keep sharing feedback based on your experience.

The launch of Connected Franchise isn’t the finish line. It’s the foundation. Your feedback through the portal and playtest will help shape what comes next, and we’re excited to keep building it alongside the community.

ATMOSPHERE

Every arena feels like home

Early in development, we started talking about something we called hockey tourism.

If you've ever been to NHL arenas around the league, you know every building has its own personality. Bell Centre feels different from Madison Square Garden. Madison Square Garden feels different from the HONDA Center. It's not just the logo at center ice. It's the fans, the traditions, the music, the lighting, and the little moments that make every city feel like home to its team.

From the moment you step onto the ice, everything around you should reinforce where you are. Throughout today's Reveal Trailer, you'll notice authentic goal songs, dynamic arena lighting, mascots, superfans, crowd traditions, jumbotron moments, and team-specific presentations inspired by all 32 NHL arenas. None of those things stands on its own. Together, they're what give every building its identity.

Every home crowd has its own energy, every road game feels unique, and every arena tells its own story before the puck even drops. It’s a new way to experience the league through some hockey tourism, giving you a reason to visit venues you may not normally play in, discover teams you may not always keep up with, and feel what makes each fanbase and arena special.

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Every game tells its own story

This year, we challenged ourselves to improve; it wasn't just how the game looked, it was how it unfolded.

Every hockey game has its own rhythm. Sometimes, a team spends minutes hemming their opponent in the zone before finally breaking through. Sometimes, one incredible save completely changes the momentum. Sometimes a late goal turns a quiet building into the loudest place in hockey.

The challenge became making the presentation react naturally to those moments. That's why we built a new system called the Orchestrator. Instead of relying on the same presentation sequences in every game, the Orchestrator now understands what's happening in the game and dynamically decides how best to present those moments.

It brings together crowd reactions, lighting, music, jumbotrons, power rings, and broadcast cameras to capture the game's emotion as it unfolds.

The result is a presentation that feels more authentic and organic, with moments that shift, build, and surprise you from game to game, because no two nights on the ice should ever tell the same story.

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A broadcast built for today's NHL

Players have been asking for a more modern broadcast experience, and we agreed it was time for a fresh start.

NHL 27 introduces a completely rebuilt broadcast package with new scorebugs, overlays, goalie introductions, player callouts, transitions, replay treatments, and graphics inspired by today's NHL broadcasts.

Broadcasts have changed a lot over the last few years, and our game should change with them. Whether you're playing or watching a replay, we wanted NHL 27 to feel closer to the broadcast experience hockey fans know today.

You'll catch a glimpse of many of these updates throughout the Reveal Trailer, and we'll be taking a much deeper look at the full package in our Presentation Deep Dive.

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New voices in the booth

A new broadcast deserves new voices. This year, we're excited to welcome John Buccigross and Darren Pang as NHL 27's new commentary team.

Working with John and Darren was one of the highlights of the development process. They didn't just step into the booth and record lines; they brought years of NHL broadcasting experience, challenged us on authenticity, and helped shape a presentation that feels closer to what hockey fans watch every night.

Bucci brings the energy and excitement fans know from ESPN, while Panger's perspective as a former NHL goaltender adds insight into the systems, reads, and little details that make hockey unique. Together, they bring a fresh and authentic voice to NHL 27 that players will notice from their very first game.

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GAMEPLAY: EVERY TEAM HAS AN EDGE

Every team plays differently

If you’ve played NHL over the last few years, you know how much individual star power can shape a game. Connor McDavid doesn’t attack the same way as Auston Matthews, and Nathan MacKinnon brings a different pace and style than Sidney Crosby.

For NHL 27, we wanted that same level of differentiation to extend beyond individual players and into how each team plays as a unit.

That starts with authentic team playbooks. For the first time, every NHL team has its own playbook, built using real NHL EDGE positional data captured during NHL games and inspired by how each club actually plays on the ice.

For NHL 27, we wanted team identity to influence more than just star players. We wanted it to shape how each team attacks, defends, pressures the puck, and creates scoring chances.

That starts with authentic team playbooks built using real-world NHL EDGE positional data. By mapping each club’s behavior to modern positional data, teams can now express their systems in more distinct and authentic ways on both ends of the ice. Even when teams use similar approaches, like aggressive forechecking, their positioning, spacing, and pressure patterns can vary significantly, creating a different feel from one playbook to the next.

This also brings modern forechecking systems like the 2-1-2 Split and 2-1-2 Stack into NHL 27, reflecting the puck-pressure approaches used across today’s NHL. Some teams, like Florida and Los Angeles, will lean more into dump-and-retrieve play to generate offense through pressure and puck recovery. Others, like New Jersey and Anaheim, will favor carrying the puck through the neutral zone to maintain possession as they enter the offensive zone. Many teams will sit somewhere in between, balancing dump-in and carry-in tendencies based on their real-world style.

Team identity also continues once the puck is in the offensive zone. Cycle-versus-shoot biases help define how clubs create offense, with some teams working for the perfect look and others looking to hammer the net with volume, rebounds, and chaos.

The result is a wider range of authentic hockey moments, with each team’s playbook better reflecting how that club actually plays. Once you get their hands on the game, we encourage you to explore the differences in the playbook screens, put each one to the test, and find the team and style that best fit the way you want to play.

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Smarter Hockey Starts with Smarter Teammates

We wanted AI teammates to feel more connected to the full picture of what’s happening on the ice. Hockey is built on five players reading, reacting, supporting, and adjusting together, so our goal with Cohesive Team AI was to make teammates play with a stronger sense of shared purpose.

That starts with better support around the puck. On dump-ins, linemates are now more active in chasing pucks, helping create stronger retrieval opportunities in the offensive zone while putting immediate pressure on defenders. Instead of the puck carrier feeling isolated, teammates are better positioned to support the play and help sustain pressure.

Defensively, Cohesive Team AI is designed to make teams feel more engaged and structured without simply making them harder to play against. Defenders will step up more effectively at the blue line, hustle more often to close down space, chase puck carriers with better urgency, maintain stronger gap control, and do a better job disrupting dangerous chances, including cross-crease passes and breakaway opportunities.

Coaching strategy also plays a larger role. AI-controlled teams can now adjust their strategy based on the game's context. If they’re trailing heading into the third period, expect them to stretch the ice, push more aggressively, and play with added desperation as they look for offense. If they’re protecting a lead late, expect a tougher path through the neutral zone as they clog lanes, manage space, and focus on defending the advantage.

The goal wasn’t just to make the AI more challenging. It was to make it feel smarter, more connected, and more aware of how a real team should respond together.

Last year, we spent time improving how individual players behaved on the ice. This year, the challenge became bringing that same level of authenticity to the teams themselves.

Think about any NHL team you watch regularly. They're not just defined by who's on the roster. They're defined by how they play. How they forecheck, break out of their own zone, attack through the neutral zone, pressure defensively, and execute on the power play and penalty kill. Those details are what give every team its identity.

That's why every NHL team now has its own authentic playbook, powered by NHL EDGE data and inspired by how each team plays in the real world. We kept coming back to the same idea during development: choosing a team shouldn't just be a roster decision. It should be a strategic decision. 

Your favorite team should feel different because of how they play, not simply because of who's on the roster. If you know how Florida pressures the puck or how Colorado attacks off the rush, that knowledge should matter in NHL 27 as well. And for teams you may not know as closely, playing as them or matching up against them gives you a better feel for what makes them unique, making the next time you watch them in real life even more insightful, as you'll recognize how their strategy unfolds on the ice.

In the Reveal Trailer, you caught a glimpse of that with Carolina and the LA Kings. Carolina uses a balanced forecheck designed to clog up exit lanes and force quicker decisions under pressure. The Kings create offense through heavy net-front pressure, generating screens, tips, and rebound opportunities.

That philosophy extends across the entire game, from five-on-five play to special teams. Whether you're breaking out under pressure, setting up on the power play, or protecting a lead on the penalty kill, teams now approach those situations in ways that reflect how they play in the real NHL.

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Teams adapt as the game develops

Authenticity isn't just about how teams start a game. It's about how they respond to it.

Real NHL teams don't play the same way for 60 minutes. A team protecting a one-goal lead approaches the game differently than one chasing an equalizer with five minutes left. Coaches adjust. Players take more risks. Momentum changes.

NHL 27 brings that same thinking to the ice through Contextual Strategy Shifts.

As the game unfolds, teams can adapt their tactics based on the score, time remaining, and game situation. The result is hockey that feels more dynamic, where momentum matters, and every matchup evolves naturally as the game progresses. It's one of those improvements that's difficult to appreciate in a trailer, but one you'll notice once you have the controller in your hands.

We'll take a much deeper look at Team Playbooks, Cohesive Team Play, and Contextual Strategy Shifts, and quality of life updates in the upcoming Gameplay Deep Dive.

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WHAT’S NEXT

Only the beginning

Today's Reveal is only the beginning. Over the coming weeks, we'll take a much deeper look at the biggest investments in NHL 27 through:

• Connected Franchise Community Playtest: Your opportunity to experience the mode early, share your feedback, and help shape where it goes next.
• Connected Franchise Walkthrough: League creation, customization, commissioner tools, and the long-term vision for the mode.
• Presentation & Gameplay Deep Dive: How Authentic Atmospheres, Broadcast, and Commentary come together to make every arena feel unique, and a closer look at NHL Team Playbooks, Cohesive Team Play, and Contextual Strategy Shifts.
• Developer Q&A: Answering the questions we know the NHL 27 campaign will spark.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. We hope it gives you a better sense of why we built NHL 27 the way we did and where we're taking the franchise next.

More than anything, we're excited to finally get the game into your hands. We can't wait to see the leagues you build, the rivalries you create, and hear what you think once you've had a chance to play.

See you on the ice.

Mike Inglehart, Creative Director & Andy Beaudoin, Lead Producer

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EA SPORTS™ NHL® 27 is now available for pre-order on PlayStation®5 and XBOX Series X|S. Stay in the conversation by following on X, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook.