NHL 2004, developed by the EA Black Box studios, is the successor to NHL 2003, is widely considered to be a major turning point in the series.[who?] The game adds 3 European Elite Leagues - Germany's Deutsche Eishockey Liga, Sweden's Elitserien and Finland's SM-liiga. (This is not the first time that European teams are included in an EA game; EA released both Elitserien 95 and Elitserien 96 for the Mega Drive in Sweden only and Elitserien and SM-liiga 2001 as an expansion pack for PC in Sweden and Finland which included those teams). The ratings of the teams in the Elitserien and SM-liiga were comparable to the NHL rosters, however future installments had the league teams inferior to the NHL.
