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You summed it up perfectly — I agree with everything you said. Couldn’t have said it better myself.

I’d just add one more thing — the graphics. It’s been basically the same for years. No real progress, the cutscenes are short and kind of laughable. There’s zero immersion, no atmosphere. Even visually, the game feels boring. We’ve got powerful consoles now, other games look incredible, but NHL still looks like something from 2010 — stiff player models, awkward stadium scenes, and so on.

That visual side is a huge part of what gives a game its soul, its excitement, its energy. And all of that has been gone for years now. It’s sad.

I’ve been playing NHL for many, many years — from PC to console. Honestly, I bought my PlayStation just for NHL. I love hockey, and 90% of my gaming time is spent playing it. NHL 25 was already a disappointment, but NHL 26 hit rock bottom. The game feels unfinished, broken, full of bugs and weird, illogical stuff.

A lot of people are leaving negative reviews or frustrated comments — and honestly, who can blame them? It’s because they’re right.

Long-time players can’t really enjoy the few good things left, because we’re just tired and frustrated after years of decline. Younger or casual players who don’t play hockey that often — or just play offline with friends for fun — might still enjoy it. They buy the game every few years and think it’s decent. But for those of us who play regularly (especially online — WOC, Clubs), it’s just bad. Plain and simple.

I’m not even going to post screenshots or videos — there’s no point. The devs keep saying they’re “listening” every single year, but nothing really changes. They “revamped” Be a Pro to make it more engaging — and what happened? It’s broken again.
As long as they keep releasing a full-priced game every single year, there’s never going to be real progress. With a small dev team and limited budget, it’s just not possible.

Why doesn’t the global NHL community come together and start putting real pressure on EA, like other gaming communities have done? Those efforts actually worked elsewhere. Here, we just vent our frustration on forums, and that’s it. EA just smiles and gives us another year of updated rosters, new jerseys, hats, and hoodies.

After my online game last night, I shut the game off and uninstalled it. I’m done. It’s literally unplayable — constant hits, cheap and repetitive goals, random penalties that make no sense. I’ve had enough. I’ll still check this forum from time to time to see if things improve, but I’m not playing again, and I’m definitely not buying NHL 27 — not unless there’s real progress across the board.