That’s what I was afraid of. They scan players, but don’t release them until it fits their plan—whether that’s waiting to see if a player develops into an 82+ rating or just stringing us along. We already knew Celebrini got scanned at last year’s draft, yet we had to wait an entire year for him, Michkov, Hutson, and others to finally show up instead of being added in a simple roster update. At this point it feels intentional—like they’re trickling out features and face-scanned players just to keep us buying the next year’s copy. If they’re putting in the effort to scan these guys, it’s not laziness from the dev team—it’s EA’s marketing strategy by design.
BigTimeTimJim Yeah iknow…. its acutally pathetic when u look at it, people getting scanned but not getting in, like connor mcmichael got scanned in his rookie showcase, got in this year. As an franchaisemode-guy myself, i really appreciate likeness in lower rating players and rookies…just so frustrating
I’m totally with you on that one. I don’t play any other modes besides Franchise, and every year I spend hours creating prospects and rookies. It’s incredibly time-consuming. What I really wish if you're not going to put players in that have already been scanned until EA decides, let us edit the generic faces and hairstyles of players already in the game, instead of forcing us to create them from scratch.
For example, William Nylander has had long hair for a while, yet his in-game model still has short hair. Artemi Panarin is still bald in-game. Meanwhile, players like Jack Hughes, Quinn Hughes, and Clayton Keller were given generic hairstyles when they changed their look, rather than being fully rescanned. If EA can assign generic hair to players with real scans, why not give us the option to do the same? That flexibility alone would make Franchise mode much more immersive.
The problem is EA’s business model. If they gave us total customization—like the ability to edit every player’s look, add rookies with scans right away, and update hairstyles—we’d be less dependent on buying the new release every year. I’ll personally keep buying, but EA wants to control customization, player likenesses, and scanned content to nudge us toward annual purchases.
Take EA MVP Baseball 2005 as an example: I played that game for a decade because of how deep its customization was. You could create players right inside Franchise mode, which gave it lasting replay value. That’s what EA is afraid of—they know that ultimate customization would keep many players satisfied for years on a single release.
I’ve even written before that a yearly subscription model could fix this. EA would still get their guaranteed money, and in return we’d finally get the features we’ve wanted for years: full customization, deeper player editing, and all the rookies who’ve already been scanned. Everybody wins.
Hey, I know you’re a big fan of younger players, prospects, and AHL guys having authentic likeness, scans, and equipment — same here.
I just finished a full custom roster where I re-created NHL players with bad generic faces and hairstyles, plus added or rebuilt all top NHL, AHL, CHL, KHL, and NCAA prospects who were missing or poorly represented in the game. In total, 182 players were handcrafted for better likeness and realism.
Honestly, I hope EA hires me someday after all the time I put into fixing their generics, haha.
If you want to check it out, it’s live now under:
Ultimate Likeness Roster (EA Share)
Username: Riggs727
Thanks for spreading the word and keeping the conversation about authentic likeness going!
Community Manager
