2.0 out of 5 stars HUT online is mostly broken
Reviewed in the United States on November 16, 2021
Platform: PlayStation 5
This has been the buggiest NHL release I have ever played (and I go all the way back to the original on the Sega Genesis). Online modes have been super buggy. The 2-day early access was broken and needed a patch after launch to complete a game, another game update has since made goal celebrations unskippable, there have been apology notes on the main EA dashboard, it's just bad.
Even when everything is working, they totally nerfed passing this year so that you have to manually target a player with 100% accuracy (there's a nice passing indicator included in offline mode, not available for HUT). Passes also take too long to complete. As a result, there's a lot of individual play and glitching happening where players find online tutorials showing them how to work around the bugs. It doesn't feel much like a hockey game.
The offline modes have a lot of sliders available to offset overpowered AI, so it's possible to dial-in a good game experience. It's just not happening in the online modes. The AI is dumb and gameplay is buggy. I can't recommend purchasing this at full price. Wait until a heavily discounted sale and when the game has been patched up some more.
