NHL 22 and NHL 23 Online Servers Shut Down Today on PS5, PS4 and Xbox

EA switched off the online servers for NHL 22 and NHL 23 on 31 August 2026, ending multiplayer support for both games on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S. Anyone loading either game from today gets the offline half of it and nothing else.

What stops working now that the NHL 23 servers shut down

Everything that needed a connection to EA is gone. That covers Hockey Ultimate Team, World of Chel and every form of online play against other people, along with the online leaderboards and the roster updates that were pulled down from EA each time you booted the game.

Hockey Ultimate Team is the painful one. Squads, cards and pack history in HUT live on EA's side rather than on your console, so a team built over a season is simply no longer reachable. There is no export, no offline version of the mode, and no transfer path into a newer NHL game.

The shutdown applies to both titles at once and on all four consoles. There is no staggered regional rollout and no grace period announced for either game.

What still works offline in NHL 22 and NHL 23

The discs and the digital licences still function. If you own either game, you can install it and play the single-player and local content indefinitely:

• Franchise Mode, run entirely on your own console
• Be A Pro career mode
• Offline exhibition games and offline seasons
• Local multiplayer with a second controller on the same console
• Practice modes and skill drills

What you lose alongside the online modes is roster accuracy. Line-ups freeze at whatever the last downloaded update contained, so trades and call-ups from the current NHL season will never appear. Editing rosters by hand is the only fix, and it is a long evening's work.

Why EA retired two four-year-old hockey games

This is routine rather than punitive. Annual sports games get a fixed support window, and EA's published policy is to retire online services for older titles once the running cost of the servers and their security upkeep stops being justified by the number of people still connecting. NHL 22 launched in October 2021 and NHL 23 in October 2022, which puts both at or beyond the usual retirement point.

The same logic has already emptied out plenty of storefronts and servers this year. Sony ended a publishing deal that pulled 13 Ternox games from the PlayStation Store in August, and subscription libraries rotate on the same unsentimental schedule — the August Game Pass wave added ten titles and removed five on the way through.

Which NHL games are still online

NHL 24, NHL 25 and NHL 26 are unaffected and keep their full online feature sets for now. NHL 26 is the current release and will stay supported through the coming season.

NHL 27 launches on 11 September 2026 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S only, with no last-generation versions this year. Deluxe Edition buyers get early access from 4 September at 9:00 a.m. PT. EA has confirmed Connected Franchise for this entry along with a presentation overhaul covering all 32 arenas, and San Jose Sharks forward Macklin Celebrini is the cover athlete on both editions.

If you were holding on to NHL 22 or NHL 23 purely for online play, today is the day that stops being a reason to keep them installed. Neither is a small install, and that space may be better spent on something from our 2026 release calendar. If you are moving to phone hockey or phone football instead, our round-up of offline football games for Android covers the ones that do not require a connection at all, and Android games with gamepad support will take the same controller you have been using on console.