From the Devs
It's time for some World Class Hockey!
The
Franchise Hockey Manager series returns for the 2022-23 season with plenty of new additions to the deepest, most authentic hockey strategy gaming experience you can find.
Choose one of dozens of leagues around the world and select a team to guide to glory, including a chance at the ultimate prize: FHM 9 is licensed by the NHL®, allowing you to take the reins of your favorite franchise to capture the Stanley Cup®. Take control of a national team and try for international supremacy. Choose a historical game, where you can begin in any year in NHL® history right back to the beginning in 1917, or play in a legendary international tournament. Or if you'd like to create your own customized league, you can do that as well! Or if you've been playing FHM8 and can't bear to part with your team, import the save into FHM9 and carry on with the addition of FHM9's new features.
However you choose to play, you have control of your team and can oversee finances, select strategies, hire your staff, make trades, sign free agents, and draft the newest generation of stars as you try to build a championship team - and then make it into a dynasty!
All new for Franchise Hockey Manager 9
- College hockey is here! American college teams are now playable, allowing you to run one of over 60 Division I teams. Since college hockey has some unique challenges, we've added a number of special mechanics to college team management, including a unique player recruitment system, details like managing scholarships and academic eligibility, qualification for the postseason tournament, and more.
- Injury Deferral: you can now choose to defer injury treatment for some types of injuries until after the season ends. That will let you keep the injured player in the lineup with reduced performance and a risk of making the injury worse. That will allow you to keep the player in the lineup for key games at the end of the year or in the playoffs, but you'll need to balance that against the possibility of getting the player healthy as soon as possible. And the impact of serious injuries on a player's ratings has been beefed up, so major injuries now have a bigger chance of derailing a player's career.
- The team harmony system has been completely redesigned: "problem" players will now potentially create many more headaches for their General Manager, who'll have to keep a careful eye on their team as off-ice incidents can lead to player conflicts and the formation of divisive factions that can send player morale plummeting.
- New All-Star Games: we've added all-star games (in multiple formats) to leagues outside the NHL, as well as older formats (like the defending champion playing the rest of the league's all-stars) for the NHL in historical mode.
- International play in historical mode has been expanded with the addition of the World Junior Championships tournaments, allowing you to replay all the historical tournaments going back to 1974.
- Bonuses can now be included in player contracts, using the the real NHL bonus mechanics.
- Historical mode now includes pre-set injuries and suspensions, so players who were injured or suspended at the beginning of your first season will begin the game like that - no more unrealistically 100% healthy lineups.
- 2D mode has received some improvements, including the addition of some set-play mechanics, particularly on the power plays, so you can see your offensive tactics unfolding as you intended. We've also introduced some new internal mechanics to make player movement look a little more smooth and natural.
- We've made a number of interface improvements, particularly on the player screens, to make data easier to find with fewer clicks, and fix some omissions and inconsistencies.
- The Tactics screen will now provide much better feedback on whether or not the players in your lineup (or individual lines) are a good fit for your chosen tactics.
- Trading now includes a "Make this Work" option that will instantly tell you which player(s) you can add to a deal to get the opposing general manager to accept it.
- Players with No Trade and No Movement clauses now have individualized lists, displayed with their contract data, of which teams they're willing to waive their clause for, allowing them to be traded.
- Traded draft picks can now be given Protected status, which will defer the pick to the following season if it's higher than a specified level - so you can trade away your first rounder but be secure in the knowledge that you won't have thrown away the #1 overall pick if your season ends in disaster. Of course, Protected picks won't be worth quite as much as a regular one...
- The AI will now more actively seek to trade its players if they're holding out for a new contract. Additionally, it will also weigh players' off-ice attributes more heavily when evaluating their trade value - teams may now be a little more reluctant to take a difficult player off your hands.
- Owner expectations will now be a little more detailed, including a long-term outlook that will give you an idea of how the owner sees the team progressing next season. The season outlook mechanics for AI-run teams have also been upgraded, allowing the team to go into a more aggressive Win-Now or Rebuild modes.
- World Championships roster AI has been adjusted to reflect the large number of players, particularly Canadians and Americans, who opt not to participate in the tournament. So, the Canadian and American teams will no longer dominate the tournament with a group of all-star NHLers.
- Some improvements have been made to stat presentation in player histories and popups: histories now include seasonal averages over the course of the player's career, and the popups show stat projections for the current season.
- Player who have been recently acquired now have a 60-day cooldown period before the "shop player" option can be used for them.
- All staff in a league can now be released at once on the League Edit screen (in addition to the existing option to release all players.)
- The rule that attaches temporary no-movement clauses to players acquired via waivers can now be deactivated in the game options.
- KHL players can now buy out their own contracts if they get an NHL offer, making them easier - but potentially more expensive - for the NHL teams to sign.
- In addition to all of that, there are the usual large variety of smaller and internal changes, tweaks, database changes, and interface improvements!
