World Hockey Manager 2026 Reviews

Issue 1 - There has always been an energy discrepancy between how much is used in the game and the corresponding energy card for the same percentage will not refill your energy after the game. For example, if you have 100% energy going into a game, use 25% energy in the game, you would not be able to refill you energy for a 25% card. Instead, you typically need to use a 50% card or two 25% cards which is a tricky way to force you to use more card thus buying card packs if you run out using sponsor packs which is very likely.

Issue 2 - In the latest update, you can no longer accrue more than one sponsor pack at a time. This is an issue because you now have to log in every 4-5 hours to get cards you’ve earned by building your front office. If you don’t, then you miss out on cards you’ve earned and the only way to make up for it is to purchase card packs.

Conclusion - It’s obvious what the developer is doing here. I’m not sure it matters because those that aren’t willing to pay to play will be left in the dust. Either have a 100% paid for version or have ads. This is a shady way to force us to buy card packs.

As you play each game, your team expends energy. In order to recoup energy, you use energy cards that you accumulate. One method of earning cards is by watching ads between games. The latest update removed the ad option to earn cards on my game. That would be fine i suppose, if that was the case for all players. But, within my league, most (but not all) owners still receive ad supported energy cards. The games are now un-winnable for me as I am unable to keep my team together. Once you cannot win, your team quickly loses the ability to accumulate or keep good players. I’ve waited weeks for a corrective game update for everyone to receive ads or everyone doesn’t. I’m good either way (although watching the ads greatly enhanced the game by expanding your gameplay options). This is my last ditch attempt to let the designers know about this issue. I’ll be giving up game in the next few days if the issue is not addressed.

This game is getting out of hand. It use to be fun. Now they’ve gotten money hungry. 1st took the extra coins from social leagues in the card packs. 2nd add more 10% cards then ever. 3rd took away the amount of energy added back to players from the Energy cards. So almost doubling down on the amount of cards used. 4th because of all the added injuries to players that shouldn’t be injured are not and the players that are supposed to get injured do not get injured. Yeah that makes a lot of sense. So because of all the dumb stuff now your into your coins that you only get in social leagues. Beside the generous 2 coins from sponsors. And they even screwed that up. Now if you don’t claim you pack till a few hours later past the games said time you no longer get said pack after the fact. So the time starts again after claiming said pack. I’m at my wits end with this game. They upped the salaries for players. I’m now losing half my good players because I now can’t pay them because you can’t upgrade your facilities fast enough to keep up with your costs. I think I’ve had enough!

**since the most recent update 2.0.0 injury frequency has skyrocketed even higher than my old review below. Also I went from having maybe four to six penalty minutes per game to averaging 20!!! Seriously, after the update my team now takes about 16 extra penalty minutes. And a lot of them are 4 minute penalties. It really looks like the refs are giving out more 4 minute penalties than 2 penalties.**

Promising concept that falls on its face in reality. If you're interested in yet another pay to win game, then maybe this is the game for you. There's no balance in the game. As a fresh team with a tiny outdoor arena and 3 fans and a team rating of 34, they ship in some pro amateur club with a 55 rating and a 16 game win streak just for the heck of it. They pretend like you're advancing through leagues or whatever, but you still meet up against ahl caliber teams your first day in the league. Not fun at all to just sit and watch pay to win ai score on you 11 times in 30 seconds. Oh, and the injuries.. My God. The players heal in real time. I currently have 6 injured players, 3 days, 3 days, 3 days, 6 days, 7 days, 7 days, if this isn't a pathetic attempt at a cash grab I really don't know what is. Steer well clear of this mess unless you plan to invest a small fortune.

Game could have been good but every aspect of it is built around micro transactions and paywalls you got a good player and want to keep them signed to your team gunna need gold for that, you wanna train your team to be better gonna need gold for that too, you want to sign a new player cuz the game robbed you of your old one cuz you didn’t have enough gold to re-sign them well too bad your going to need gold to even look for a replacement player then more gold to sign them, oh you want to train your team to bad you need special cards for that that you can only get with gold, then even when you do all those things your team will still do completely random in games playing against ppl higher or lower it’s like rating doesn’t matter at all.. but if you find all these things fun and you want to spend money on this game then I suggest clicking the starter pack in the store as fast as possible because it will glitch out and keep asking you to buy that pack just keep buying it over and over for 2 bucks easy way to get even with these ripoffs, if you only click it once and buy It it will immediately disappears and they are 5$ or more after that and you don’t get half as much as the starter pack

I’ve played this game for more than 4 years. It is clearly a pay-to-win game, but it is interesting nonetheless. But, it is far and away the busiest app I’ve ever used. Things simply don’t work the way every other app does. It crashes constantly. It frequently won’t connect to the game’s servers even when every other app on my phone works. Half of the times the updates lock me out of my team or simply don’t work. It’s designed a that players have to constantly log into the game to collect rewards, etc. to avoid losing ground. This is impossible when WorldHockeyManager2026 simply doesn’t work for some users. Right now, the game won’t load for me so I guess I’m not playing this weekend’s tournament that is about to begin, because I will lose too much ground. Every day when I try to login, I know that there’s a high probability that I simply won’t be able to access my account because the game is fragile. After 4+ years I really thought that ie would work like a normal app by now.

A player gets injured just about every game. One of the tips says that playing with low energy increases the likelihood of injuries. I always play with nearly 100% or full energy, and just about 2 out of 3 games there is a player who gets injured for 7 days. It’s impossible to train and improve players if they’re constantly injured. No realistic hockey game would allow half of your roster to be hurt within the span of a week, but currently I have 7 injured players, and I’ve used injury cards to heal another 4 or 5, gone and signed new players to replace injured ones in the meantime, and now the new players are getting hurt! It’s a joke. If the injury situation isn’t resolved in the next update I will be giving this game up for sure. Also, you can’t play the game for more than 5 minutes without losing connection (and I’m always connected to reliable WiFi). Inconsistent results, I just tried to play a challenge game, closed and opened WorldHockeyManager2026 4 different times, and still when I hit PLAY it will not let me play a challenge game. It’s just not going. Kinda annoying that I have full energy, would like to play a game, and cannot. It’s like the more you try to play this game, the more it screws you. Definitely will not be spending a cent on it until it improves, and if it doesn’t get updated soon I’m just deleting it before my whole roster is on the injured list.

This game used to be a very fun game to play and a little more user friendly. Then the devs released and update and now I have at least one payer injured every game meaning I have to swap out star plays for 3-10 days or use injury cards which are not super common. Along with that update came a change to how you train people and now with that you can only train a select few people and that hardly levels people up, but it is even worse for the academy where it used to be players gained levels quick in the academy because they were new and young now when you train you can’t even train all your people in the academy and again you don’t get to pick but it seems like they do not gain the same amount of stats as they did before the update. Overall this new update was an attempt to force/entice you to spend money to make your team better.

I think there are a lot of good things about this game but if there is one thing I dislike about mobile games is the time-based elements keep the progression of the game on the developer’s clock, not yours. I enjoyed periodically playing this game and training players. If you are a casual player that’s fine with playing this a few times a week but not every day, you might eventually find your lineups with missing players because of contracts ending. It wouldn’t be an issue if you were to extend contracts of players well before they expire but in order to do so, it costs coins. I would much rather pay for the game up front than be on the hook routinely to play the game to keep the progress I have made. Best of luck to current/future players and the developers.

I’ve been casually playing this game for years. It’s nice that it doesn’t require a lot of time commitment to enjoy it. There are, however a lot of areas that could/should be improved or else I would 5 star WorldHockeyManager2026 in a heartbeat.

1.) BUG - the first is an issue after one of the previous updates where the stats screen is no longer functional. All I can see is my goalie’s stats, and the rows/columns are all skewed. I cannot scroll down to view any player stats.

2.) Improvement - Player stats, in addition to a fix to view the player stats within the current season I would love if we were able to see career stats. It would make the game feel more connected. For me (and I’m sure many others) I like to develop players and play them until they retire. It would be nice to see how well they’ve done in their career with the team. Couple this with maybe adding an all time team leader section (goals, assists, points, PIM, sv%, etc..) and that would be next level.

3.) Improvement - Player stat data analysis. It would be AWESOME to be able to download a spreadsheet format of your roster and stats. That would take managing a team to a new level being able to actually analyze how well each player is performing.

Thanks for taking the time to read and hopefully consider!

I really enjoy this game, and it’s certainly unique and basically the only hockey app on the market. The fact that it’s a managing hockey app is even more fun. However, the latest update seemed to make WorldHockeyManager2026 run worse and crash a lot. I was looking for an app like this for a really long time. It’d be neat if they could get the NHLPA to allow them to use real players, I think that would make it one of the best on the market. In game there’s some balancing things that are questionable. Like leagues that seem to have huge steps. One league you dominate and win every game, the next you lose every game. There is no happy medium. I also tend to end up with a ton of extra cash (currently at $1.3 million) while upgrades only cost about $15-$20K and upgrade times are really long. I make $15-$20K in one sponsor pack. Besides WorldHockeyManager2026 becoming a bit harder to use and more finicky after this update, and a few balancing issues, it’s one of the best on the market-especially if you enjoy hockey.

Absolutely fun game. I check in every day week in and week out to play this game. I care about my players, even though theyre just little dots on the screen, and I like to try and always keep a young squad going with great potential.

Only request I have is that when I'm looking at my players stats (their +/-) I wish I could also look up each lines +/- as a whole. I believe(I could be wrong) it would paint a good picture for which people may just need a line shuffle or maybe a different tactic that might help them. For example I have a second line that has great stats all around, lots of goals, assists, etc. but they also let in quite a few goals. I'd assume the defense would be what's in question, but they have a better +/- then a couple of the forwards. I hope this makes sense. Great game!

This game is v solid. I have spent a few bucks and really enjoy playing and seeing how I stack up against other teams. I only wish that they would consider adding a couple things…such as a player comparison section within your own squad. A page where you can see your players full stats against another player (same position) within your team to help find the best possible lineups. I also wish there was a true trade feature where you can trade players that you bring up through the ranks and invested in. It’s sad that if you invest in a great player your only options are to pay their quick increase in salary or release instead of potentially getting a fair trade on the player with another team.

I find it almost painful trying to manage the tactics side of this game. Its hard to see how these adjustment I make affects each player. Theres stats by each line and each player after the game but I wish I could see an analytical affect from lines that play more minutes. How the style of play affects an individual player. Theres a player rating after each game but for example I changed on of my lines to counter. I saw a huge jump for 2 games from two of my guys, then they had the worst games Ive ever seen them play for the next three. And the stats jumped a lot. I dont know if this is from the opposing tactic counter their line? If their stats didnt vibe with that tactic and they got lucky the first two games. I didnt have the information I felt I needed to make an informed decision and im stuck wonder what can I do to have my team take that next step. So I guess it does accurately simulate what its like to manage a team. But its still lots of fun to make these choices and see how your team plays iut over the course of months not days like other apps. Lots of fun.

The game itself I find is a very enjoyable but I have two main points of criticism. 1. The injuries are WAY too frequent. About half of my team is injured, some for over a week, and is killing the game. 2. Challenges are the only way to play besides ranked matches. There should be a way to play a story mode where you go through 5 or so teams and get a prize a the end, games getting progressively harder as you advance.

Edit: Whether I was just very unfortunate with my injuries or the developers have changed injury frequency, they have been substantially reduced for me. I have bumped my review up to a 4/5 from a 3/5 because of this. Also, I really appreciate the response for my review. I am glad the developers acknowledge user criticism. I’m looking forward to this game’s future improvements!

WorldHockeyManager2026 is by far one of the coolest “Be A GM” simulations I’ve ever used. I love how it works. It’s a perfect balance of challenging but not overly aggravating. Completely awesome overall.
One thing that would make this game pretty cool, is the ability like make a league of your own and scrimmage friends. I’ve recommended a couple friends to use WorldHockeyManager2026, and while they’re enjoying it as well, we all would love to have the ability for our teams to play each other regularly somehow. That would be fantastic. If that was added, it would be awesome.
Also- haven’t had any problems with WorldHockeyManager2026 at all. Never had an instance of like things not working or glitching out really. Fantastic app and (as I already have) I’m definitely recommending this to friends

WorldHockeyManager2026 is so good & I love the idea. This is the best hockey app there is. But I do have a suggestion. What if you could edit a players info like name & origin Country. To make a line up of your friends. I wanna make me & my actual hockey teammates on here it would just give me & im sure a lot of other people a boost on the game like kinda how they do in “big win hockey” that game is fun most because you get to make a line & customize them to be your friends. & it’s cool to see how your friends or your guy would do & you would actually watch the names closer rn I got a good squad but I don’t see reason to try to memorize names because the only thing meaningful about the players to me is the rating not the name. I also love the contract length. Unlike in “big win hockey” you can burn through a entire players contract in a hour but this ive been playing for close to a month & I’ve only had to renew a few. This game is definitely the best hockey game in WorldHockeyManager2026 Store & I love it

I can’t stop playing this game and it’s really fun and addictive. Some have mentioned that there are bugs in the game and after playing the game for 1 week I have not experienced any bug and even if, it is still pretty new. One problem that I do have occasionally but not every time is that when you open the game you have to make an account with your team. After you make your account, you can close WorldHockeyManager2026 . When you open it you are forced to log back in and that becomes a hassle, but after a few days it was very uncommon. One big note is that when you play you only have a game once a day unless you play cup matches. Also don’t play too much because stamina recovery can be upwards of 6 hours after each game and low stamina lowers your Performance. The Next game which will be soccer and I hope it is as good if not better as It’s just got so much potential in this format as the academy would play a huge role but I exited about that no doubt . Overall Great game cant stop playing. It was also great that the company answered my question personally, so I will be making sure to play every game!!!

This game is pretty fun, building/managing a team and creating infrastructure of the arena, ETC. but after playing for over a year it crashed for about two weeks and when it finally loaded again I lost a lot of players due to contracts expiring and lost matches as well. I emailed the customer service team thinking that I all my progress was for nothing and I’d just have to delete it and start over if I wanted to continue using it. To my surprise they reinstated all my lost players and gave me compensation for gameplay in coins and cash. Gary was fantastic in his concern and customer service support!! I wish this experience existed in the outside world, we’d have a better place;). I 100% recommend WorldHockeyManager2026!!

Finally a good hockey managing game! Everything about the core of this game is good, the fact that it doesn’t demand that you be playing all the time or you’ll get dinged, that you can just set your roster and train your players and let it do its thing till the next day. It has a perfect balance of managing to controlling and not going overboard with things to manage or things to play. Some small things I would change however are; make instruction a little more clear. What I mean by this is tell a little more about what certain numbers mean or how to do something. For example it took me a while to figure how to modify my lines and I still don’t know what the numbers by my players mean at the end of the game. I also wish I could go and somehow read through all the tips that it shows as the game is starting as they seem very helpful but I seem to miss them often. On top of this I wish there was more telling what the certain strategies do and how to ideally set them up according to your team and the team you’re playing. Finally, I wish coins were a little more available or cash was more scarce. I always seem to have the cash to do things but never the coins, maybe just my play style, maybe this is by design, I’m not sure. Other than that, great game, hats off to you guys.