Hey NHLGamers,
Anyone keeping up with the NHL 20 news over the past few days and weeks no doubt has been subjected to the widespread speculation regarding whether or not there would be a beta, as well as when said beta would become available. As a response it appears, EA have announced that there will indeed be a beta, albeit with some fairly extreme caveats. Additionally, whilst the release date has not been officially confirmed just yet, it seems as though that it will in fact go live today sometime during the "evening", which timezone this evening is 'set' in is anyone's guess, but it certainly lines up with the idea that it will be playable from 15:00 EST (or 21:00 CEST) onwards. So, all we can say is keep your eyes peeled as the upcoming evening goes on!
Anyway, probably most importantly I would like to take a minute and go over the caveats that I spoke of previously. EA have been rather uncharacteristically forthright about the upcoming beta, stating that “… we cut the beta build eight weeks prior to today, meaning that there are 8 additional weeks that you’re not going to see and feel in the beta. You’re playing an early, work-in progress version of the game. Some of our new gameplay features were not fully ready to be included in the beta build …”. In essence then, this beta, more than any before it, stands as more of a proof of concept than the ‘finished article’. Despite this disconnect between what we will be playing and where the game actually is at, EA have tried their best to assuage the problem by attempting to get the general feeling of the main three additions (Shooting overhaul, Explosive Transitions, & Goalie Intelligence) in the beta, at the potential cost of stability. Therefore, with the disclaimer that there will be some “inconsistencies”, players should expect to see the following improvements over NHL 19 in the NHL 20 Beta:
As always, we will be setting up bug reporting threads that we will then compile and send to EA once the beta has concluded. Furthermore, these threads will be available in English, Finnish, Russian, & Swedish.
In addition to this, the full (and especially extensive) post-beta changelog is as follows:
Again, please note that the changes immediately above will NOT be visible in the beta. We will let you know the moment the beta is released.
Edit: The beta is now available for download!