Rumors have been swirling online that NHL 15 would be dropping some popular game modes, and the developers at EA Sports have unfortunately confirmed that to be the case.
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In a post on the official website, series Producer Sean Ramjagsingh explained that EASHL will not be coming to the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One versions of NHL 15 at any point, while the Online Play mode won't be ready for launch. This is disappointing news for fans of the series, as the modes are very popular among the hardcore crowd.
"Given our commitment to build a truly new generation of hockey games for our fans, we had to make some tough design decisions," Ramjagsingh wrote. "I'm writing this to let you know that despite our team's best effort to squeeze as much into the game as possible at launch, we will not be able to deliver EA Sports Hockey League or Online Team Play when NHL 15 releases on September 9 for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4."
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The post explains that the team did not have enough development time to create high-quality versions of all of the game modes, and their focus was mainly on making the next generation game engine. The physics and engine the developers made for NHL 15 will be used as the foundation of NHL titles for years to come, and as such, they decided to give that the majority of their time.
OTP will be coming as part of the down the line and is close to done, but EASHL (a fan-favorite mode wherein players use their pros on the same team against other users online) is not forthcoming. Ramjagsingh explains in further detail:
"As a franchise, we're 100% committed to the EA Sports Hockey League. While we can't deliver EASHL in NHL 15 on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, we have huge plans for the mode in future iterations of the game. We will be putting together a small EASHL committee made up of you, the fans, to ensure that we deliver an experience that is bigger and better than any of us would have imagined when we first introduced the feature in NHL 09.
"Decisions like this are never easy, nor do we take them lightly. We know that there is a passionate group of fans that loves these modes and is no doubt disappointed with this news; but we also know that this same group of fans expects a high quality gameplay experience above anything else. We're a franchise built on quality, so launching these modes without confidence in their quality wasn't something that we were willing to do."
