The tradition of EA sports games predicting championship game results continues, this time with NHL 20 telling us the Stanley Cup winner. According to the game, the Boston Bruins will be this year’s champions after a six-game series against the Las Vegas Golden Knights. Of course the simulation could easily be wrong. It has been for several years now.
The real-life NHL season just began this past week, reports Gamespot. The beginning of a major league season signals EA to do a simulation using its newest yearly sports game. It happens with Madden when football season starts, FIFA does it for the World Cup, and now it’s NHL’s turn. Someone at EA runs a set of fake playoffs using the video games, letting the AI play every team, and the winner is declared the simulation champion. Then the results go up on social media.
Of course it’s all just a marketing stunt, as the predictions don’t have a history of being particularly correct. Both last year and 2017 saw wrong picks. In fact, the Bruins were said to reach the finals in 2017’s simulation but were actually eliminated well before then. Still, the simulation gives fans something to discuss as the season starts. There have to be some Bruins fans out there who took the news as a good sign.
While it’s not being a terrible Stanley Cup predictor, NHL 20 is actually a good hockey video game. Its changes to the physics, while small, go a long way towards making the experience more realistic. There’s also hockey battle royale which, while unnecessary, is surprisingly addictive. Even better, the developers are actively working on improving the game. The latest patch improved AI all around to make the game tougher, and also added a brand-new rule that’s being implemented in the real NHL this season.
EA sports is in a pretty good place right now. Madden and NHL had good releases. FIFA… we won’t talk about FIFA. It’s nice for the usually-reviled company to have a lighthearted tradition with fans for a change. But maybe don’t go putting early bets on the Bruins to win it all this season.
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