Overall, mediocre game, can only play franchise mode with NHL and AHL teams, gameplay is poor at best. I mainly play offline so that’s what this review will be referring to. Defensive AI is horrendous, goalies are completely unaware of their surroundings and let so many stupid shots in. It seems nearly impossible to consistently win on high difficulties in this game unless all you do is score cross creases and turtle defensively after. The AI learn your every move and can counter you which is fine, but your teammates do not. AI teammates are useless, constantly skating out of position and give up goals that you maybe otherwise could have prevented. The game looks good but it’s just another rehashed version as every year is with sports games. 3/5 is being generous, gameplay needs a lot of work, badly needs tweaks. EA is just so consistently mediocre.

buggy as heck but lord am i a sucker for disney and animal crossing

also its made by gameloft so im fully expecting to return to this and find everything blocked by paywalls

months later edit : oh look, microtransactions galore
I'm still in love with this game though <3