{"id":48950,"date":"2025-08-06T23:05:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T23:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/48950\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T23:05:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T23:05:15","slug":"ea-sports-skates-into-nhl-26-with-tkachuk-on-the-cover-and-big-promises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/48950\/","title":{"rendered":"EA Sports Skates into NHL 26 with Tkachuk on the Cover and Big Promises"},"content":{"rendered":"

EA Sports revealed NHL 26’s<\/a> cover athlete a couple of days ago, which was a sign that a trailer wouldn\u2019t be far off, and sure enough, it\u2019s time!<\/p>\n

Matthew Tkachuk was revealed to be this year\u2019s cover athlete, the first Panther since John Vanbiesbrouck all the way back on NHL 97<\/a> \u2013 not counting a special edition cover of Olli Jokinen for NHL 2005<\/a> \u2013 so it\u2019s been some time.<\/p>\n

Watch on YouTube <\/a><\/p>\n

Subscribe to Push Square<\/a> on YouTube160k<\/a><\/p>\n

While there\u2019s always discourse about who graces the cover of each year\u2019s edition, what matters is the gameplay, an area that has been letting hockey down for some years. Will NHL 26 be any different?<\/p>\n

While the trailer doesn\u2019t offer a ton of info on this front \u2013 outside of seeing the PWHL and Utah Mammoth jerseys \u2013 the press release and video description offer up some juicier bits.<\/p>\n

The big takeaway is that the story-oriented Be A Player mode is due for an update. While the specifics of the changes likely won’t be shown off until a standalone deep-dive video, the mode has been stale for some time. If the mode is going to receive a massive overhaul, that can only be a good thing. It needs it. The press release mentions playing in the World Juniors, which certainly sounds like a worthy addition.<\/p>\n

New goalie playing tweaks are being introduced this year, too, described as a new ‘Crease Control System’. Goaltending is usually the hardest thing to get right when it comes to player input, and it’s usually a coin toss from year-to-year if things feel good. A handful of years have felt great, but just as many haven’t. Hopefully, these changes will help.<\/p>\n

Some of the other talking points include the fact that NHL 26 will be using an updated ‘ICE-Q 2.0’ and “real-world sports data” taken from ‘NHL EDGE’ to inform player attributes and abilities, which begs the question of what in the world was being used previously. Some new X-Factor abilities are being added to the title as well.<\/p>\n

This is in addition to the usual litany of Ultimate Team updates that you can expect every year, but that will likely receive its own deep-dive as we get closer to the 12th September release date.<\/p>\n

Are you planning to pick up this latest model of EA’s NHL? Or is NHL 26 one you’re planning to skip? Tee up a one-timer in the comments.<\/p>\n

[source ir.ea.com<\/a>]<\/p>\n

\tRelated Games<\/p>\n

\tSee Also<\/p>\n

\"Graham<\/p>\n

For over a decade, Graham has been writing reviews for Push Square. In that period, he’s encountered an innumerable amount of high-quality experiences, and yes, several duds. With an encyclopedic knowledge of games and studios, it should come as no surprise that he’s comfortable playing any genre. However, when it comes time to write a review, you’ll probably find that he gravitates towards music\/rhythm games, and in more recent years, VR. If you let him talk about games long enough, he’ll definitely let you know that his favorite game is Kentucky Route Zero.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EA Sports revealed NHL 26’s cover athlete a couple of days ago, which was a sign that a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[41612,64,63,41070,575,34400,85,13293],"class_list":{"0":"post-48950","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-announcements","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-ea-sports","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-ps5","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-trailers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}