Play speaks to Ninja Theory's Tameem Antoniades about Enslaved, Heavenly Sword, working with Sony and much more.
Ninja Theory's latest trailer for their highly anticipated narrative action-adventure Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 is absolute cinema.
Like I said before, buying Ninja Theory was one of the smartest moves by Microsoft. Games looks incredible.
Unfortunately, their games aren't big sellers. Will MS shut them down if hellblade 2 sells below expectations?
The game may be a critical hit & still can get shut down. I highly doubt most XB owners will buy this game including the fact that it's digital only at $50. Most folks that have Gamepass will play the game through the sub service. If the reviews tomorrow are just average to low then that's another problem.
"Like I said before, buying Ninja Theory was one of the smartest moves by Microsoft. Games looks incredible."
Indeed.
Just a few hours to go
I can´t wait!
badass. already installed via gamepass. if its as great as the first one I will pay for the whole game.
if you choose left, turn to page 39, if you proceed forward, turn to page 43, to turn right, page 209, you finished the book early,
no but seriously this looks like Microsofts first hit, or should I say, first game of standout quality.
If it's anything like the first game, you will spend a lot of timing walking and solving puzzles, with some fights thrown in.
LOL! Didn't send any shivers down my spine but I'll demo it after midnight tonight through Gamepass to see what it's giving.
After the midnight? I see...
Day one as expected for another game that you said you had zero interest.
Finally making a re-appearance. When the heat was on about XB closing studios you were crickets on all articles. Now that the heat has died down all of a sudden you're here on an XB exclusive article or should I say a timed exclusive...lol!! If you must know I can demo this game at midnight because the University I work at is closed for the summer so I can play video games until my heart's content until the end of August when I go back to work. That's what Gamepass is for, knowing I would not spend $50 on Hellblade 2 because the first one I thought was boring so I'm going to see if this one is still boring or is it interesting by demoing the game.
Why not I have a year subscription to Gamepass, I don't have to spend $50 on a digital only game that I may not like including I'm on a lengthy vacation from work.
It looks amazing, I’m hoping the reviews are solid. You can tell the studio really poured their heart and soul into this one.
Following the closure of 4 studios, many are now worried for the future of Ninja Theory once Hellblade 2 is released.
How is it going to sell well when it's also releasing on gamepass 🤔
Meant better to sell the studio and not closing it 🤦🏻 not to sell more games….
and games are sold anyways, you can buy it on xbox (not recommended if you got gamepass) but many pc gamers prefer to buy on steam than deal with the xbox app or pc gamepass!
On a side note to OP, the sales of studios wont happen though, especially when they want to retain the IPs, and well nobody is gonna buy a studios without its IPs; the other publishers that want a certain dev from the studio that are closing on their team can try to grab them as soon as they see they notice of the studio.
@Sephiroushin
Well hypothetically speaking, Ninja Theory can be sold to Sony at a lower rate sans the Hellblade IP.
Sony can then welcome them to work on the Heavenly Sword IP, which they still own.
Will be a nice proposition for Sony who can continue to offer a God of War-like hack n slash in their portfolio via Heavenly Sword 2, whilst Cory Barlog & co. decides to take a break from the God of War IP & venture some other genres.
On top of that, Ninja Theory was also interested in a sequel to Enslaved: Odyssey to the West and such Sony can come to a deal with Namco Bandai regarding the Enslaved IP.
selling the studio wouldn't be an attractive offer unless they come with their IPs. MS wants to keep these IPs, so even if MS is selling just the studio, no one would wants them
Because they're next come next year. HB2 won't hit some impossible metric within MS so they're getting axed in 2025. Leave gaming now MS.
Every xbox studio is in danger now because there’s just no way they’re gonna rake in big money from game sales because of gamepass, even CoD was rumored to not come to gamepass because it would canibalize their sales number.
If they are smart they don’t put COD on GP day one. It’s one of the best selling games on yearly basis
Satya will make sure that doesnt happen. As you rightly put it; why kill the cash cow?
But then again, it is MS after all.....
I agree and disagree. They should not put it on GP, but CoD makes real money from the overpriced MTX that people buy for over a year. They also have it all linked up to the Mobile CoD, which will incentivize Twitch spending from consumers.
Software
That’s true but keep in mind COD is the best selling or top 3 selling game every year. So yes micro transactions money is there but so are billions more
They should have tiers of GP subscriptions and the higher end tier received AAA games while everyone else gets them in 60 days
Wouldn't putting it on Gamepass be smarter? Cod is typically played, I believe, for far longer than 6 months.. if you get everyone playing the game for a year, on Gamepass, you've essentially doubled your profit. $10 a month for a year $120 compared to selling the game once for $60.
Not to mention MT's, on top of it. Sell on PS5, PC and Switch, keep it on Gamepass for Xbox and PC. Much smarter in my opinion..
Also if you punish a studio for releasing a great critically acclaimed game which won some awards then what chance does anyone have
After this mess, I highly doubt the next installment of COD will be on Gamepass day one. It'll probably land on Gamepass 6 months after release date.
Like I said earlier, I wouldn't even mind. There's a good selection of games on GP already, and it gives me time to play my backlog of games while allowing the games that need to sell millions of copies to make a profit a chance to succeed, a win win scenario.
not putting CoD on GP is sort of a violation of their own marketing though. they said ALL MS 1st party games will be on GP day 1, not some. CoD is 1st party, so to not put it on GP day 1 would be considered as false marketing.
Ninja theory games were never big sellers. I could be wrong, but I doubt hellblade 2 will sell millions. I would rather they go independent and make heavenly sword 2.
heavenly sword is Sony owned IP. this will never happen as original didn't sell enough...
Wikipedia: "In 2008, it was reported that a sequel to Heavenly Sword was in-development at SCE Studio Cambridge, but was canceled due to Sony no longer seeing it as a commercially viable product"
I remember. I feel like the amount of time & technology that has passed would make a sequel a big seller now. The game has enough legacy recognition to build hype.
Former Hellblade director and Ninja Theory co-founder has offered an explanation regarding his departure from the now Microsoft-owned studio.
It is a good studio.. i really enjoyed their dmc game that i platinumed it.
I did not try hellblade, because it doesnt tell me much.. Enslaved was very mehhh
Heavenly Sword was good not great. Amazing graphics back in the day but so repetitive and not so engaging in the long run.
I really enjoyed Enslaved and Heavenly Sword back in the day. Wish they'd return to that sort of game. Hellblade isn't really for me to be honest. Not saying it's not a good game, I just couldn't get into it.
That is fair. I enjoyed Hellblade but can definitely see how it isn’t for everyone.
Would like to see how Heavenly Sword would have turned out if developed today. It’s easy to forget that games like Heavenly Sword were unprecedented and in their infancy.
Enslaved has been their favorite game for me. Loved the atmosphere.
Heavenly sword was a staggeringly good game!! One of the most memorable of the PS3 generation in my opinion.
Heavenly sword was good. It had ambitious graphics and as a result the frame rate suffered and as a result the gameplay suffered. But the story was phenomenal. Great acting, especially Andy Serkis as the king.
"Microsoft" we all read between the lines. We have seen the exact same thing happen with many of their other acquisitions
One thing that pleasantly surprised me, was the Switch port, as back then it was my only console. The graphics were amazing and the artistic design helped a lot to enhance the visuals.I took some really impressive screen shots while playing which I still revisit them from time to time to remind me what a capable developer (QLOC) can achieve with weaker hardware.
This Fall is going to be packed this year, 10x more than 2008.
Edit: On topic, I want this game.
Edit: "Play: The PlayStation studio community seems really strong now though. Did you get a chance to share ideas and air troubles with the likes of Naughty Dog or Insomniac?
Antoniades: Not really, when we were working on PlayStation 3. We were using and sharing tools and I think most of the communication and sharing came from the R&D divisions so we worked really closely on that, but everyone at the time was working on secret projects so we weren’t really seeing too much of each other’s stuff.
We were right at the beginning. We had developed Heavenly Sword for two years before the PS3 was even announced. We were just hoping the PS3 would be announced. We were kind of out on a limb on that game."
Wow, thats rather interesting...
... development is getting easier on the ps3. I'll never get programmers, they bitch and complain for every sony console within the first two years of it's life then the start praising it in 3rd and years beyond. Still it's nice to see NT branch out to Xbox and other consoles and if development is that much easier for them then here's hoping for an even tighter title.
is still one of my favourite PS3 titles and was worthy of a sequel. Hopefully, one day, they can return to the Sony fold and back to producing PS3 exclusives.
Given what a great game HS is and considering they had no notable peer developers to share with (as today) they can certainly be proud of what they achieved.
Meantime, I wish them well with Enslaved.
I really enjoyed reading the interview. It sounds as ifAntioniades is really trying hard to get the actors involved as much as they can in the performances and I am really glad that most of the drama will be in real time instead of numerous cutscenes. Ninja Theory have some breathing room now to create a title so I am real anxious to see how Enslaved will play out and I am glad that the composer from Heavenly Sword (Nitin Sawhney I think it was.) is doing the OST for this game as well.
I will not buy this game until they add trophies to Heavenly Sword.