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Frostbite made FIFA's gameplay less enjoyable for a lot of people when they switched over to it a couple years ago, so I don't really see where all the demand for it comes from. Yeah, it makes the game look nicer, but I don't think that's a priority for the NHL franchise at the moment. They probably looked at it and decided it wasn't worth the effort and resources to switch over which is understandable given how little the NHL dev team has to work with. If you are eager to see a switch to a different engine, I think the next couple years are your best bet to see that happen.

"EASHL practice mode You’ve been heard! NHL 21 brings back one of the most requested features for the competitive community. There are now a free skate and team practice mode in EASHL, where you can either test out your builds on an open sheet of ice or play together with you teammates against an AI opponent to sort out various strategies and set plays. In an open practice, teammates can shoot against either a CPU or human goalie." That's great. Now they can remove it for next year and bring it as a new feature ~6 years from now. GM Connected is never coming back. It doesn't have purchasable content and eats away the precious HUT cash generator. Just looking at those purchase options tells everything one needs to know about the franchise.