The Fall of EA's NHL Series - What Happened?

I made a mistake! NHL 94 DID NOT have fighting. I apologize from the bottom of my heart. I also forgot to mention that 07 introduced the skill stick, a huge feature.

EA Sports: It's In The Greed

man i remember buying NHL 15 for the 360 on release day only to discover it was literally the exact same game, in every single way, as NHL 14, just with Bergeron on the cover

I knew the AI was cheating, there is no way they score some of the goals they do. They also happen to score in the most crucial moments no matter what my defence

I miss NHL 14 so much. I had so many memories, and Gary Throne's commentary really gave off those old school hockey vibes. I still remember my first "Live the live" series. I made myself; A short, defensive, two way center who could deke, dangle, and snipe. I was young and didn't care about passing though lol, so one season I actually had 350 goals just as my created player. I also had an Old Sens series I made too, with Spezza as the captain. I had Taylor Hall on the team with him too. The chemistry with them was awesome.

"A friend" working at EA in 2005 said there was a MAJOR shift away from quality. 2004 was the last time the word "fun" was a priority. It quickly became get it "shippable" This was at the end of PS2 XBOX cycle, add 360, PS3, even PSP. Too many SKUs. Bad products Top management was axed in 2004 (start of downfall), early 2006 10% of staff axed. Many vets. They've never been the same since.

The decline of both the Madden series and the NHL series are basically parallel to each other.

I thought I was the only one who thought that the final 360/PS3 NHL(14) was the last great NHL. That generation made incredible strides year by year and 14 was phenomenal with all its game modes and its perfect gameplay. The perfect mix between realism and arcade.

The mark of a great documentary is to get someone to watch and care about something that they do t care about. I don't care about hockey nor do I care about hockey video games but I was enthralled by the documentary 👏.

One feature I really miss over years, because it creates so much atmosphere, are Entrance scenes from some specific teams. If I remember correctly, there were NHL titles where San Jose came up on the ice through a shark head.

The downfall of EA sports started in 2013 when Andrew Wilson became CEO of EA. After 2014’s Advanced Warfare Andrew saw just how Lucrative micro transactions can make. After that EA games have never been the same. EA sports now is in a period where they take away features, wait 5 years and bring those same features back and make it the main selling point for their yearly releases rinse and repeat. When it comes to sports games ONLY BUY USED. I don’t care if they’re selling it for the same price you can buy it new at Walmart. Never let EA see a penny from you

Dude I never noticed this before. The goal celebrations from nhl10 are the SAME animation at nhl22. WTF. EA is SO lazy. Holy man that is embarssing.

2010-2014 was probably my favorite time with the game.

From a 52 year old guy that has retired from playing hockey on EA a thank you for this video. It brought back tons of memories. It was so fun playing back in the 90s.

Here's how good NHL 09 was for me- I played that game on my PC for more than a hundred hours in my teenage days and I hadn't even watched a single ice hockey match in my life.

I had been playing NHL 21 for a while, but then I decided to take a little trip down memory lane and popped in NHL 15. I immediately noticed that the graphics and shadows were a lot better, and I was kinda confused to see this better output coming from an older game.

2K NEEDS to start making NHL games again

Remember that time when nhl 2k10 allowed you control a ice ring cleaner just because? Shit like that gave that game a great sense of personality something that is extremely lacking in todays nhl games.

Tried playing '20. The difficulty options were "win by 10" or "lose by 10". Didn't play for long

The nhl games became my absolute favorite sports videogames when I was a kid and single handedly made me hockey fan. I'm hoping soon we can get back to something on the level of 14