Josh West: "I visited Ninja Theory to get behind-the-scenes insight into one of the most important Xbox exclusives of the year."
Ninja Theory's upcoming action game, Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2, won't need a day one patch based on information shared in a new interview.
No wonder the review embargo ends at release day.
Best of luck to team ninja I hope the game sale as much as its predecessor or way more
its gotten so common to have a day1 patch woth newer games, that devs even advertise their games with "no day 1 patch" haha.
The pre-load for Xbox Game Studios and Ninja Theory's Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 is now available, and the download size has been revealed.
When is this game releasing? There's no hype for it, no promotion..and this game looks good. Wth MS?
I saw there was some new video of it uploaded on Xbox's YouTube channel the other day but I didn't bother watching it, that's something though, I guess.
Here's a link if anyone's curious:
https://youtu.be/D1KCTl_tCg...
Xbox's handling of the marketing for Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 is casting a huge doubt over the future of its developer, Ninja Theory.
They should be worried. They we told they were free to be creative to dev. a walking sim, and now Phil and the Lady are walking that back.
let's look at the other side of the coin. why did HellBlade 2 which is a short game took more than half a decade to develop? If a game is taking millions upon millions to make then expectations will grow and when those expectations fail to meet then decisions are made.
I am not defending MS here, above is just my humble opinion.
In other words MS were never interested in the people that made the ip, MS only wanted their ip…
MS knew everything you said before they bought Ninja Theory.
"why did HellBlade 2 which is a short game took more than half a decade to develop?"
They're a smaller studio that has had a number of other projects they've been working on in that time as well.
This 2 comments from Microsoft worries me
“ Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios, mentioned in an email to employees that the company is now looking to prioritize “high-impact” titles and “identify the opportunities that are best positioned for success.” Similarly, Xbox president Sara Bond talked about identifying industry trends and transitioning towards them during her recent interview with Bloomberg. ”
One is saying it will prioritize high impact games like CoD and service games while she basically saying they’re going to follow trends AKA the leader AKA Sony.
We all know that to succeed in the gaming industry you need to be a trends setter not a follower 🤦🏿.
Microsoft have learned nothing they still think that the 360 era of buy, absorb, destroy is the way to succeed in the video games industry.
I've said before, and I'll say it again. If MS wants Hellblade 2 to be a success, they must release it for PS5 too, both physical and digital. Not saying as a fanboy or anything but success depends on it's sales.
Just remembered this is on GP too right if i recall correctly? I really don't know then. Good luck to them.
They will close the studio, mark my words. HB2 is a pure single payer experience, took forever to release and won’t sell tons.. MS isn’t interested in these kind of games.
They should have stayed independent and should have never gotten involved with MICROSOFT
It wasn't that easy. Ninja Theory were down to less than 20 employees and were forced to making a MOBA of all things (Bleeding Edge) in order to try and make enough money to survive. That game ended up being a total failure, so without MS, there's a high chance they closed anyway.
The same with Obsidian (ironically, they were on their last legs because they missed a metacritic score by 1 with Fallout New Vegas which would have netted them a huge cash bonus from Bethesda - something they were banking on and financially ruined them for nearly 10 years until being acquired).
Maybe someone else would have come in - but we'll never know.
financial security sometimes trumps "trying to walk the line". Nature of the business.
If MS do close Ninja too, at that rate, we should consider possibility that MS’s end goal is to buy more and more studios and shutter them, keep the ips, then when the game development community is a desert of its former self, use MS’s abundance of capital to recreate gaming space under its own management…
Why shutter them? Maybe because otherwise it would be too obvious that they are creating a monopoly. They are shuttering them while keeping their ips, which allows for purchase of more of the multiplatform industry.
This could be a part of it. I think it has more to do with shareholders, but MS would love the position you are mentioning.
I think it really is as simple as Anast says.
According to that Bloomberg graph, Xbox experienced a few years of massive growth a few years ago and since then, it's been going down each year. Of course, most normal people would put that growth down to Covid but investors live in a different world. They don't see that it's making hundred of millions or even billions. All they see if that it's going down and that's enough to spook them.
Yup, MS is not buying to manage the studios and make games, they are buying them to dismantle and destroy, keep the ips, then go after more studios to dismantle. Once nothing is left, they will use their deep pockets to make studios. Its like telecommunication companies. They merge together and shut down competing services, so now I only have one service provider in my area, and that company is a local monopoly so they treat you however it damn well pleases.
Only issue is that if that happened, people would just make new IP's instead. New Ip's can easily thrive, it's just a more risky.
But in time every big game will be either Marvel or Star Wars, so wouldn't matter anyway. Joking ofcourse. Partly.
Everything they bought is at risk, Game Pass is NEVER going to be able to support all the development for these studios while also maintaining any kind of catalog of new games.
If it wasn't supporting itself before they bought all these studios it's obviously not going to be able to support even more.
Pretty apparent they next on the cutting block. Hellblade 2 is a week out and the only noise from XBOX marketing is akin to a fart. Not even a loud pants-ripping fart....but a shameful supressed one.
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Very possible that they allready planned it, but they obviously can't announce it until the game has been out for a while.
I think they have changed plans a lot. Current MS wouldn't have greenlit Senua 2 and games like Pentiment and avowed. Wonder whether we'll get Outer Worlds 2 or if it will be reworked into a more succesful franchise.
There's no way Ninja Theory stays in business after Hellblade 2.
It's a digital only release, it's been in development for over five years, and it's a Game Pass Day One, which means it's not going to blow any sales charts apart. That's already taking into account that Ninja Theory don't make games that sell multiple millions, they cater to a niche audience.
Ninja Theory has been around for a very long time and they've served their audience well, DmC aside, but I'm betting on them closing or being absorbed soon.
That was not a high bar to beat, from what has been shown of hellblade is dark, does not look impressive at all, the combat is basic, not open world, 30fps which sucks balls, graphics are your usual unreal engine look.
A new standard alright. 30 fps on a Series X....Yeah great job raising the bar..
I’m curious to see how much this actually draws. Granted Xbox is starved for quality exclusives, but I don’t think Hellblade as a property will ever have big mass appeal. It’s great but it’s definitely a bit heavy on the artistic psychological end to be a blockbuster I think. Kinda like the game version of The Northman. Hopefully I’m wrong, Xbox needs a win.
It was made for the S. There will be a ton on rails scripting to hold this game together. It will probably run like a high end mobile game.
Everyone bashing 30fps locked when most performance modes lately are total trash with massive dips down to 30 anyway and a blurry image. Performance modes lately are an illusion.