Red Bull's gaming blog has interviewed EA Sports’ Andy Agostini, associate producer on NHL 15, to discuss the expansion of the NHL franchise in Europe, as well as the work of Large Hadron Collidor (LHC) scientist from CERN on the game's puck physics.
Agostini was asked how Michele De Gruttola, the CERN scientist, became involved in the making of the game and he commented:
"We were extremely lucky to have a team member that was friends with Michele, the LHC physicist, and knew that he was looking for a change. After the initial interview, we knew that he’d be a perfect fit."
Exactly how much work De Gruttola put into the game isn't clear but it's still a pretty cool collaboration. EA Sports has also made physics improvements of their own, allowing for situation in which several players can get knocked over at once – Agostini gave the example of a player knocking into two others – and he added that because the game matches real world physics with its virtual environment "there is always the potential for the unexpected."
You can watch a trailer looking at the game's physics here.
As for how NHL 15 is expanding in Europe, the developer commented, "Hockey has a great tradition in Europe and with us having five of the biggest European leagues in our game, we feel we bring that tradition out in our game. The fans not only follow the NHL that is full of their national team stars but have a passion for their countries’ league. The biggest following for the game is in Finland and Sweden, but we have a big following in all the countries that have their leagues represented and have heard from fans outside of these countries who are big fans of our game."
The five leagues included in NHL 15 are Sweden’s SHL, Finland’s Liiga, Switzerland’s Nationalliga, Czech’s Extraliga and Germany’s DEL.
NHL 15 is now available for PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.
