The Early Access Trial for NHL 22 Is Live Now
NHL 22’s Early Access trial is live now for players who already have a subscription to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate or EA Play. The game will be officially out by October 15th, but this trial will give its fans the opportunity to download the full game in advance and play for up to 10 hours.
Any progress and all achievements that have been obtained during these 10 hours of trial play will be saved. This means that those who decide to purchase the game once officially launched to the market, after the trial period, will be able to carry on and continue where they left off.
NHL 22 players who already have an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription will immediately get EA Play as part of the package. The EA Play subscription service, on the other hand, is available for PC, Xbox, and PlayStation consoles.
Since NHL 15—which launched for PS4 and Xbox One users—NHL games have always run on the Ignite engine. With NHL 22, however, the game will be featuring a new gameplay engine that is powered by Frostbite. This new engine has brought “huge visual upgrades that dramatically enhance realism” to the ice hockey game series.
More subtle changes to the player’s likenesses have also been improved, adding more realistic eye animations to make the in-game players look more life-like. In addition to this new gameplay engine, NHL 22 will also have a new feature called Superstar X-Factors. This will give select players some unique abilities that they can execute during games for an added advantage over their opponents.
The NHL gaming community has long been clamoring for Electronic Arts to move the franchise to the Frostbite engine, in line with their other major sports game titles. After all, the FIFA series have been on Frostbite since FIFA 17, while Madden games have been using it since Madden NFL 18. This engine change for the NHL series has arguably been long overdue.