World of Chel: A new mode set on some beautiful outdoor rinks. It dramatically improves the pace of the action. Real Player Motion: A new animation system designed to make skating feel faster and tighter. And it gives previously forlorn modes like Threes some badly-needed context. After so many monotonous arenas, it feels good to get outside. Hardcore fans will complain that it pulls badly needed resources from other modes-Be a Pro could certainly use some more love, having been basically left to rot since NHL 16-but I like how much it brightens up NHL 19. World of Chel moves into the great outdoors. Maybe World of Chel needs an NHL Fours: A mode that splits the difference between the hardcore EASHL and the unbearably silly Threes. On the other hand, it's fairly slight, and not necessarily something that you can hang a whole mode on.

It feels like the sort of 'palette cleanser' that the NHL folks hoped Three would be. There's a certain appeal to the chaos of trying to hold on to the puck and score while two other players are trying to plant you against the ice, and games can be banged out quite quickly. Winning pushes you up to more elaborate ponds and tougher competition, while losing gets you demoted. The closest thing it has to a 'flagship mode' is Ones: a three player multiplayer free-for-all in which everyone battles to score the most goals before time runs out. Right now its modes include Pro-Am, a series of games against CPU teams led by legendary players, and a drop-in multiplayer variant of aforementioned NHL Threes. Granted, that's just what this is: a start. If the goal is to capture the beauty of hockey in all its forms, this isn't a bad start. Combined with the bright hats, parkas, and jerseys that can be unlocked through earning XP-World of Chel mercifully avoids any microtransactions-it adds a badly needed splash of color to EA's often stale palette. But mostly, World of Chel is an opportunity to take the action from the sometimes stuffy combines of the NHL's various arenas out to the snowy expanses of Canada's outdoor ice rinks.

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