EA report states NHL 21 is still on track to release in 2020
By Mary Clarke
The coronavirus pandemic will not halt EA’s plans to release their annual NHL video game in the fall of 2020, according to a new report.
Hockey fans can rest assured with the knowledge that the coronavirus pandemic will not impact the upcoming release of the sport’s best-selling video game series later this year. On Tuesday, EA confirmed in a press release that the company will still release NHL 21 on time in the fall, despite the difficulties with the current situation of the world.
Also confirmed to release this coming year are FIFA 21 and Madden 21 — both in quarter two of their fiscal calendar– alongside one other sports title sometime within the next year.
The confirmation of a quarter three release date for NHL 21 is a good sign, considering the handful of major video game releases that have been delayed due to the coronavirus over the last few weeks. Given the previous release dates for the NHL franchise of video games, it’s likely EA is still targeting a fall release, even though it’s unclear as to what the NHL plans to do for the remainder of the 2019-20 season and beyond.
The NHL game franchise is an incredibly popular one for EA. Hockey players and fans alike buy the newest installment each year, and the current iteration NHL 20 has been getting a lot of love in the time of coronavirus. About the time the 2019-20 regular season would have wound down, NHL teams started to broadcast simulations of their scheduled games inside NHL 20 itself.
The NHL too has since leaned into the NHL 20 trend, recently promoting their 31-team Player Gaming Challenge for the month of May that will see various hockey players play against one another. Alex Ovechkin and Wayne Gretzky also played in a charity NHL 20 tournament for coronavirus relief, where the pair played to a tie that helped raise over $40,000 for charity.
The knowledge that EA plans to release NHL 21 later this year should no doubt be comforting to fans of the long-running series with no live hockey to look forward to for the foreseeable future.
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