NHL's New Seattle Kraken Team Announced, But They May Not End Up In NHL 21

Seattle's NHL team, the 32nd franchise in the league, received its name today. The Seattle Kraken won't play until the 2021-22 season, but we don't know if EA will add the new team to NHL 21 before it launches on October 16. We've reached out to the developer to find out.

EA has already said that they've had to adjust their development timeline due to the pandemic. The franchise's regular September release window was pushed back a month after the studio "had to make major adjustments in developing the game from home" according to a blog post on the official NHL site.

"This transition has been very successful and we’re happy to say that the game is on track and feature-complete against our original vision," the post continued. "We just need a few extra weeks to do the polish, fine tuning and bug fixing."

Adding a new team to a sports franchise like Madden or NHL isn't a quick fix. Uniforms, logos, player names, and other elements need to be created. EA recently announced it will remove the Redskins name from Madden NFL 21, but it still doesn't know if it'll be able to remove all references to the name by its release.

Even though we are limited on NHL 21 details, we know three different editions will be available at launch on PS4 and Xbox One. You can also get some goodies for Ultimate Team if you pre-order any edition of the game.