EA Sports has announced that NHL 21 will launch in October of this year, which breaks the franchise's September launch tradition. The upcoming hockey sim is slated to launch on PS4 and Xbox One, and if you already know you're going to pick it up, NHL 21 pre-orders are available now for multiple editions.

While the game has already been announced, NHL 21 will get a full, proper reveal sometime during August--we expect to learn new details about features and improvements made to the sim in the latest entry. In addition to getting an exact release date, we also expect to learn which hockey star will grace the cover. It's worth noting that the Microsoft Store currently has NHL 21 listed to release on October 16.

While EA didn’t provide an official NHL 21 release date, they let everyone know the game is going to be coming out later than expected. EA tweeted out a development update via their Twitter page with a link to EA’s NHL portion of the website. On that webpage, they note that the game will be released in October of this year. Traditionally, the NHL games arrive in September.

EA Sports said that the slight delay was caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, but the studio promised that the game is "feature-complete," and all that's left to do is iron out bugs and fine-tune the experience. If you want to know where to Buy NHL 21 Coins, z2u.com will be your best choice.

Another major detail revealed in EA’s announcement is with regards to the game’s availability for the next-generation consoles. Based on their statements, the game will be playable on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. However, that will be due to “forward compatibility” that the PS4 and Xbox One versions will have on the next-gen consoles.

For NHL 21, we made the decision to focus on adding innovation and new features rather than the resource-heavy task of porting the game to new console technology. You’ll still be able to play NHL 21 on the next-gen consoles through forward compatibility but we are fully focused on launching NHL 21 on the Xbox One and PS4 and look forward to the opportunities the next-gen systems will bring in the future.