Despite a marketing campaign heavy on references to EA’s NHL ’94, V7 Entertainment’s Karthik Venkateshan told Stevivor that its game, Old Time Hockey, “should be viewed more as a complementary product rather than a substitute.”

While it’s hard to deny a similar look and feel between the two titles, V7 is going for a different style of hockey game altogether.

“We have always felt aggressive hockey has been under represented in the simulation video game,” Venkateshan, the game’s director, continued. “Simply put, we felt we couldn’t play the way the great Broad Street Bullies played back in the day. But NHL video game design decisions are more a by-product of the league cleaning things up. These factors got us thinking about the time period when guys would routinely clear the bench and maybe a couple minor penalties would result out of the scrum. That was our inspiration for Old Time Hockey.”

It’s better to compare Old Time Hockey to the classic film Slap Shot rather than any other video game.

“We want to take the fans back to that time when things were more gritty and raw and not as technically structured. We want to take the fans back to the good old 70s, before hooking, grabbing, and clutching were removed, and when stick fights and goalie fights were more common and went unpunished.”

All this and a one-handed ‘beer mode’ control scheme too.

Expect more with V7’s Venkateshan and Producer Mike Torillo ahead of Old Time Hockey‘s release on PC and PS4 in March. The title also heads to Xbox One and Nintendo Switch at later dates.