Is NHL 23 Coming To PC?
With nearly every so-called console exclusive these days having a separate release on the PC to accommodate players without consoles, it's hard to believe that any major game development company would purposely snub the somewhat ubiquitous platform. But hindsight is as reliable as the tech market is unpredictable, and discontinuing the PC release of every single one of its franchises was exactly what EA Sports did in 2008 (via Engadget).
The company cited a lack of profits and concerns about pirating as the company's reasons for limiting itself to console releases. Many franchises like "NCAA Football" and "NBA Live" never saw the light of the PC market again until the end of their careers, having been canceled and/or discontinued in the time since. Of the surviving series, "Madden NFL" made a return to PC as of "NFL 19" and "FIFA"... well, continued to release on PC, as it never actually stopped, strangely enough.
Regardless, this still leaves the "NHL" series as the only long-standing EA Sports franchise to have stayed on consoles only since the 2008 snub, with "NHL 09" being the last in the series to have been available on PC (via IGN) despite vocal interest from fans with nearly every new release. Nearly 14 years later, fans are asking yet again: Will "NHL" finally be seeing a PC release with "NHL 23?"
Unfortunately, EA Sports hasn't changed its mind
The bad news comes from Bill Lavoy of ShackNews, who managed to catch "NHL" producer Clement Kwong after a press release to ask about any possible PC release. Unfortunately, the answer to whether "NHL 23" will be coming to PC is a resounding "no," with no future prospects to offer, either — apparently, a PC release simply isn't "on the radar" for the series at all.
Still, as Lavoy points out, there may yet be hope for PC audiences — this generation is the first to implement some form of crossplay with "NHL 23" and "FIFA 23," showing that EA Sports is in fact taking steps to properly support a multi-platform audience. While there's a ways to go before sports sim fans will be getting the full array of multi-platform crossplay options — what with "Madden" having yet to catch up to the cross-platform game and "FIFA" will be undergoing a total reboot after EA's notorious split with FIFA – it's too early to say that it'll never happen — it just won't be happening this year.