14 DAY TRIAL // Publisher Electronic Arts has announced that Boston Bruins forward Patrice Bergeron will be the athlete featured on the cover of the upcoming NHL 15 video game.
The company has revealed that Bergeron managed to defeat Montreal Canadiens defenseman P. K. Subban in the fan vote competition for the spot on the cover of the upcoming hockey video game.
The competition gathered in excess of 10 million votes from hockey fans all around the world, ultimately deciding that Bergeron is the most worthy of being featured on the box of the game.
"Being featured on the cover of NHL 15 is a dream come true. The fact that the cover is selected entirely by fans is an incredible feeling. The passion and support from hockey fans, especially Bruins fans, is unlike any other sport and I'm so grateful to everyone who voted for me," Bergeron says in a prepared statement.
"We would like to congratulate Patrice on this incredible honor and to recognize the outstanding fan support that helped him earn the NHL 15 cover distinction. Once again, we were amazed with the level of engagement, creativity and support exhibited by our teams and our fans that truly exemplified the unrivaled level of passion and commitment only found in the NHL," adds Dave McCarthy, NHL vice president of Consumer Products Marketing, on the NHL website.
Bergeron is a notable figure of the hockey world, having represented Team Canada internationally in the past, winning gold medals at the 2004 World Championships, 2005 World Junior Championships, 2010 Winter Olympics, and 2014 Winter Olympics.
The talented hockey player also became a member of the Triple Gold Club in 2011, after the Boston Bruins won the Stanley Cup.
Developer EA Canada intends to deliver a truly next-gen experience with NHL 15, a game built on EA's internal Ignite Engine, the very same one also powering EA Sports UFC, Madden NFL 15, and FIFA 15.
EA is determined to offer a quality experience in the next-gen editions of its sports games, and the videos and screenshots released so far show an amazing level of detail and visual fidelity.
NHL 15's official gameplay trailer, released a week ago, showed some of the shiniest helmets ever seen in a hockey match, and highlighted the improved jersey physics, showing mad cloth waving action, as well as the overhauled shadows rendering, offering a much more realistic feeling to the game.
All the next-gen light reflection tricks are nice, and the unparalleled athlete likenesses rendered in EA's upcoming games truly look like next-gen material, but we'll have to wait and see whether the gameplay manages to equal the presentation before getting excited.
NHL 15 is coming out on September 9, for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 computer entertainment systems from Sony and the Xbox 360 and Xbox One consoles from Microsoft.