NHL 25's Grudge Match is the best thing to happen to X-Factors in five years

It was not that long ago that I railed against EA's constant use of X-Factors. But I have to give the devil or perhaps more appropriately, the New Jersey Devils, their due with this new NHL 25 feature. EA's latest hockey sim will introduce a feature called Grudge Match.

This new innovation tracks the matchup history between teams in online and offline play. It introduces Impact Players, who will receive special X-Factors influenced by their performance in previous matchups. There is special commentary and cinematics for these players as well. I love this idea.

We saw something a little bit like this in Madden NFL 25's Superstar Mode. It has a feature in which opposing players can call you out, and they get a free X-Factor in an attempt to humble you. If X-Factors aren't going away, this is a cool way to do them.

After all, a large part of sports is how you will defend the opposing team's star players. The team that does the best job of that usually wins. In some situations, it's the lesser known player that gets the job done.

Maybe the opposing coach cut them, or maybe the team they grew up cheering for passed them over in the draft. Stories like that are the reason we enjoy sports. Sports games, in spite of the ridiculously arrogant villains we often see in career modes, don't always do the best job with these.

Players of open-world features may be reminded of the Nemesis System introduced in Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor. In that title, orcs would remember their battles with and how many times they had killed the main character. Time also passed while your character was respawning. So by the time the orc that murdered you encounter you again, he might be a captain with a whole new loyal army.

The Nemesis System was great, and I was shocked to not see more games adopt some form of it. Clearly somebody at EA Sports was paying close attention.