NHL TeamSports games are much harder to go as a live service because of the Sport Licenses and the fact they would need to remove players here or there when they expire. So it greatly would affect things like HUT and offline modes. People's saved files would end up getting corrupted because players would be removed from games each year for offline play. And if it did become a live service I would think it would be a subscription model And that could be a slippery slope.
They aren't going to make 2 different EASHL type modes. They aren't about to split the community up even more. I mean look they combined Drop-Ins to essentially be EASHL because of complaints of no one finding games. So they addressed that. Even traits are linear among all the modes.
I'm fully expecting NHL 25 to either give us an online franchise mode or they gonna give some life back to HUT with changes. Of course there will be gameplay changes too but I'm not expecting anything special to World of Chel.
@KlariskraysNHLI think it's possible. You just need to remove the offline component of the game completely. Realistically, I know it has been mentioned that down the road they will look at offline modes, but it doesn't make sense seeing the focus is solely on what they can sell (hence the cards, season pass, operators and fortnite type store for your player) You can build a model around selling a season pass and then have an ultimate pass for stuff like online franchise give you access to a server for you and your friends. You wouldn't need much else from the offline side of it.
Is it good... No... but with how the direction has been to make it more of an online/fast paced experience, goofy over the top celebrations and making it overall more flashy, to catering to the average player. I can't see it really going any other way.
Btw these thoughts are coming from a solely offline player (franchise and once be a pro) going back to NHL 94.
