NHL 27 Under Fire Over AI Match Commentary
NHL 27 is not a good game.Don't just take my word for it; check out our review written by...oh wait, me.I'm not a fan of NHL 27 in the slightest. Normally, I can still find something that keeps me coming back to weaker…
NHL 27 is not a good game.
Don't just take my word for it; check out our review written by...oh wait, me.
I'm not a fan of NHL 27 in the slightest. Normally, I can still find something that keeps me coming back to weaker sports games. I won't be doing the same with NHL 27. It's frustrating, disappointing, and a shell of what the franchise was a little over a decade ago.
I'm not the only one who feels this way, either. The game currently sits at a 64 on OpenCritic, with only 31% of critics recommending the game.
One of the newer additions to the game is commentary from ESPN's John Buccigross and Darren Pang. Unfortunately, that commentary sometimes feels weird. We now may know one reason for that.
John Buccigross Confirms NHL 27 Utilizes AI With Its Commentary
Appearing on the Chirping Zebras podcast, Buccigross talked about how tedious and difficult doing commentary for a sports game can be.
He says reciting every player's name for money is pretty easy for him. Commentating on random scenarios, however, is a bit tricky. There are only so many ways you can talk about a team being up by a lot of points, for example. That said, EA Sports reportedly worked around this by using AI.
Buccigross explains that the development team uses AI to splice his recorded commentary to put together lines in-game. As expected, Bucci realized that AI was often getting something wrong.
"They were playing me back some of my AI voice, and it's, you know, and they're playing it, and it's like 'Score! And the crowd gets out of its chairs!'"
While AI could, in theory, be used to remove some of the tedious work that comes with recording commentary, it's clearly getting stuff wrong. It also explains why some of the commentary I heard in-game felt a little weird and out of place at times, as if it wasn't matching what was happening in the actual game.
EA Sports NHL Fans Continue To Feel Frustrated With the Direction of the Franchise
As you could imagine, fans of the NHL weren't too happy. They also weren't really surprised, either.
Beyond NHL 27, it's honestly been a rough year for sports games in general. Other EA Sports franchises, such as College Football and Madden, haven't fared much better with this year's outings. After a strong 2025, WWE 2K26 was a step backward.
NBA 2K27 at least has some redeeming qualities to it, even if it's "overstuffed with fluff modes."
It begs the question, though: where exactly do sports games go from here? Is making them on an annual basis really feasible in 2026? Honestly, it doesn't feel like it, although that's what EA F1 did this year. Game development is only becoming harder and harder, and sure, you could go down the route of NHL 27 and utilize AI, but that blatantly didn't work in its favor.
As they love to say, though, as long as people keep buying them, nothing will change.
NHL 27 Sports Simulation Systems 5/10OpenCritic Reviews Top Critic Avg: 64/100 Critics Rec: 31% Released September 11, 2026 ESRB Everyone 10+ / Mild Violence, In-Game Purchases (Includes Random Items), Users Interact Developer(s) EA Vancouver Publisher(s) EA