NHL 27 Dev Q&A: Building authenticity, capturing emotion, and more

It’s time to hit the ice. EA SPORTS™ NHL® 27 is officially here. 

To celebrate the launch, we sat down with Producer Nick Riley from the EA SPORTS NHL development team for an exclusive Q&A on the game’s biggest evolutions, including Authentic Atmospheres, The Orchestrator, and how the team is capturing and presenting the emotion and moments that make every game feel unique.

TL;DR: Key Takeaways

• Authentic Atmospheres: All 32 NHL arenas rebuilt with their own goal song, crowd chants and traditions — from Pantera’s “Puck Off” in Dallas to “Slapshot” at Madison Square Garden.
• The Orchestrator: A virtual TV producer picks the camera angles every time the whistle blows, so no two goal celebrations play out the same way.
• New voices in the booth: John Buccigross and Darren Pang call the action — the series’ first new play-by-play voice in seven years.

“Our team is actually a group of fans.”

Hey Nick! Congratulations on the launch. Now that the game is officially in players’ hands. How are you feeling?Everyone on the team is super excited. Personally, I’m extra excited because this is my first actual go-round on the NHL game at launch. But the game itself is something the team is really proud of. There are a lot of firsts and a lot of new stuff happening in NHL 27 that we’re excited to see the community try out.

There’s a lot of new this year, so let’s get into it. What are some new features you’re looking forward to players experiencing? There’s so much to talk about, but I’ll start with Authentic Atmospheres. For the first time, we have 32 authentic goal songs, so when you score, you’re scoring to your team’s own identity. The Rangers have their iconic song, written for them back in the 90s, and we’ve licensed it. Pantera has a unique “Puck Off” version of their song for the Dallas Stars. And we did a specific recording session where we had fans cheering along with the songs and doing the crowd chants as the music played.

It captures the unique feel, look, and identity of every arena in a way we haven’t seen before, and I am excited for players to experience that.

“...we built The Orchestrator to simulate the idea of a TV producer who points the camera, finds different angles, and brings these up during a broadcast to point at unique moments, depending on the emotions of the game.”

One thing I’m also excited about is called The Orchestrator. This year, we really took on a big risk. Instead of having these fixed, non-interactive sequences and cinematics where you see the same thing every time—the same animation, the same progression after you score a goal—we built The Orchestrator to simulate the idea of a TV producer who points the camera, finds different angles, and brings these up during a broadcast to point at unique moments, depending on the emotions of the game.

Now, whenever you play the game and you score a goal, or you have a penalty, or pretty much every time the whistle blows, The Orchestrator takes that camera and points it at things that are unique or fun happening in that game. It’ll say, this fan is doing something fun, go look at the crowd—they’ll be jumping up and down, mugging for the camera, hugging each other, just celebrating the game. As the player goes in and skates for the flyby and bumps fists with everyone when they go by, we’ll look at that if it’s an interesting story to tell. Every time you go through and score, it will be a different sequence of different fans and different moments, so there’s never going to be the same thing more than once.

“We want to show fans our dedication to hockey and to the experience itself.”

Where does that push for authenticity come from?

Our team is either a group of fans, or they grow to love it by being on the team. We’re hockey players, we’ve got people who coach hockey and run training seminars, people who currently play in their own fun leagues, and just generally huge hockey fans all over the place. We play ball hockey downstairs in the gym. Everyone involved with the NHL team is engaged with hockey in some way, shape, or form, and everybody has a history with it.

We want to show fans our dedication to hockey and to the experience itself. When you’re playing through the game, we really tried to make it a blend of feeling like you’re in the arena, but also watching it, because so many fans engage with hockey now on the broadcast, whether that’s streaming or on TV. We’re trying to create a blend of both, so you get the best of both worlds. You’re not just in the arena, you’re also watching at home.

Speaking of watching, the broadcast package got a refresh this year I understand?

That was a big part of this year for us. We wanted to completely revise and refresh our broadcast graphics package—all the motion graphics you see in the game, the lower thirds that pop up when you score to show who the goal scorer was, the intro sequences when the game loads and you get into the stadium. Those show you information about the team, what their scoring has been, even a history of grudge matches against the other team.

The goal this year was to make it new, make it modern, and try to really push the boundaries of what you can do with a hockey game.

There are also new voices calling the games this year.

For the first time in seven years, we have new voices in the booth: John Buccigross and Darren Pang have joined us. That’s been a big part of our journey this year, trying to get seven years’ worth of content redone in one. To kick off the partnership, we spent time together in Naples, Florida and worked through more than 40 studio recording sessions, capturing their performances and the range of commentary needed to bring the experience to life. We’re building on those recordings to bring even more depth and variety to the commentary experience.

John and Darren have also brought an incredible amount of hockey knowledge to the process, helping us capture the emotion and authenticity of the game in ways that go well beyond the booth. What a partnership to have going into this.

“I’m just really proud of the team and how everyone came together to make this great product.”

Thanks, Nick! Congratulations again on the launch. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

I’m just really proud of the team and how everyone came together to make this great product. We’ve had animators, coders, our QV partners on the team, the designers, the producers, our development directors—everybody’s been pushing to make this the best game possible, and to bring it to the fans so they can enjoy it. It’s been a real pleasure working with this team. It’s my first run-through from beginning to live, and it’s been super exciting. I’m honored to have been a part of it.

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