Xbox's Handling Of Hellblade 2 Is Casting A Huge Doubt Over Future Of Ninja Theory

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.

[anast]

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.

[solideagle]

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.

[anast]

This makes sense

[S2Killinit]

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.

[dumahim]

"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.

[1Victor]

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.

[outsider1624]

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.

[Cacabunga]

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.

[Sonic1881]

They should have stayed independent and should have never gotten involved with MICROSOFT

[anast]

I agree

[DOMination-]

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.

[Neonridr]

financial security sometimes trumps "trying to walk the line". Nature of the business.

[S2Killinit]

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.

[anast]

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.

[DOMination-]

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.

[S2Killinit]

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.

[MrBaskerville]

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.

[PrecursorOrb]

Xbox’s handling of Xbox is casting a huge doubt over the future of Xbox

[Barlos]

Truth

[Einhander1972]

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.

[Hofstaderman]

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.

[Deeeeznuuuts]

A shameful suppressed one 😂😂😂
28514;😂 fucking quality 😂😂😂

[Hofstaderman]

I try to work in Freudian concepts.

[Aloymetal]

Lmao!

[MrBaskerville]

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.

[RNTody]

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.

[notachance]

Yeah apparently the ABK acquisition is not that good of a decision for them. I reckon that now after paying for ABK, MS higher ups have way more leverage than xbox team expected and that many decisions were made forcefully by MS. That would explain the blatant 180 degree turns on their strategy after years of building this image of xbox and gamepass as a safe haven for creativity.

And the strange silent from Xbox teams, best we got is a vague statement from Sarah Bond and I reckon that only happened because her schedule to show up on that show was fixed before the closure decision was made. Literally no one from Xbox executives made a public appearance to explain things, when usually they’d compete to have a say when something happened.

[zaanan]

My theory is that they bought ABK to make COD etc exclusive (see Bethesda/Starfield). Then when the tide of public opinion turned against them, they panicked and committed to at least a decade of multiplat.

COD was going to be the big stick with which they finally beat the masses into submission to Xbox. They depended on it, bc multiple generations of their own hardware ecosystem failed to grow their core audience beyond a subset of US and UK gamers. So now that the stick has been taken away, they have to cut costs (reduce headcount) and maximize profits (sell software to other platforms).

[MrBaskerville]

Acquisiont might also have been more expensive than expected. Not sure how it works, but that year of legal battles can't have been cheap?

[Psychonaut85]

Start job hunting now.

[XiNatsuDragnel]

Ninja theory I love y'all but Microsoft about to shut you guys down.

[z2g]

This is just pile on journalism. Xbox has dumped 27 metric tons of cash into NT and this will be one of the biggest Xbox releases that will actually push the quality bar on AAA games (finally). I seriously doubt they are going to tank this studio all things considered.

I could see why if they had to chop studios they chose the ones they did (purely from a spreadsheet perspective, not accolades perspective). That doesn’t make it better but they were business decisions and it doesn’t mean they are just going to axe a ton of studios. Just bc MS has more money than god doesn’t mean Xbox has all that money. They have operating budgets and forecasts just like every other company. Their revenue is down. Adjustments are made. This is surgery not demolition. They still need key developers and NT is bringing far more to the table across the board (even from a technology perspective) than Tango was. I’m sad for them but it’s true.

Everybody loves a good pile on tho.

[IAMRealHooman]

If hell blade doesn't sell new gamepass subscriptions, new xbox's or copies of its own game, it will be shuttered.

Hifi celebrated 3 million player. Now we don't know how the split between GP and sales is, yet that still wasn't good enough to save Tango.

GP does canabalise sales, no matter what they say. Also their is less player investment. It being " free" removes urgency or commitment, a player is more liley to download and forget it.

[Zeref]

Slow news day? People were literally complaining about how much they showed of Hellblade 2 lol

[Redgrave]

Where?

Where were people complaining and where is the footage they were complaining about?

I saw the article recently about the "visual upgrade" but beyond that, where's the marketing? Where's anything that a typical bread and butter "big time" release usually receives? Where's all the "finish the fight" tagline and stuff we saw leading up to Halo Infinite?

This is supposed to be "the" game after Starfield, the other "best game ever" which received more promotion than this.

[Zeref]

Are you gonna play the game?

[Zeref]

No answer? Interesting...

[Redgrave]

I can't reply to you directly, but why would I provide you an answer to your question when you answered none of mine?

My personal position in playing it or not doesn't change that the game might as well be shadow dropping with the lack of mention.

I did enjoy the first game, and I liked NT's previous offerings - DmC and Enslaved in specific - so I trust you will be able to extrapolate accordingly whether I'm playing or not

[Plague-Doctor27]

It's been shown at every xbox show for the last 5 years but in the month leading up to release there has been radio silence. I'd argue most gamers don't even know it's coming out next week. It's #191 on Steam top sellers. Compare the marketing Hellblade is getting to Stellar Blade or even Rise of the Ronin.

I don't think the lack of marketing is due to Xbox's lack of faith in the game. It's due to them laying off their entire marketing team

[MrBaskerville]

They could have attempted to use the game to drown out all the negative attention after the shutdowns.

[Markusb33]

book mark this articles of screen shot it for 6 months time

[Barlos]

If I worked for any studio owned by Microsoft I'd be looking for work. I would be expecting the hammer to drop at any time.

[Kratos_Kart2007]

are there any commercials for this game?? With gameplay? I would love to see it

[Hofstaderman]

Nada. Zilch. Nein.

[DaleCooper]

Ninja Theory is a great developer that never really had an enormous hit. Unfortunately, that's similar to the other development companies that got shut down by MS. Hopefully, NT can buy itself back like Toys For Bob did after the acquisition.

[Hofstaderman]

The amount of alt accounts on these threads are hilarious. I'm having a field day, this one clown is going absolutely mental...

[Aloymetal]

Indeed, he's in a world of hurt now that he's practically watching his favorite and irrelevant brand going down the toilet. It's just a matter of time before all is set and done. The green brand is on life support.

[coolfool]

I wish this game was on the PS5. I would buy it / play it then.

[HyperMoused]

They should be worried, being a dev under MS banner is now like being a general in Putins army, they dont like disappointment

[Miacosa]

Looking at the financially history its been spotty even though their games have seen okay reviews. Before getting purchased they were forced to become a smaller guerrilla style studio using tech to compensate for size while still aiming to make AAA games (HELLBLADE 1) on a budget. So the studio does falls into the same bucket as Tango and Arkane Austin, they make games people tend to like but no one buys them until they're on a fire sale. Likewise, key leadership roles have also departed the company ahead of launch in the co-founder Tameem Antoniades and main Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice writer. The signs are there that if the game comes out and does not move Games Pass sub count or produce sales it could mean layoffs at the studio in the least.

HELLBLADE II - ??
BLEEDING EDGE - 66
HELLBLADE - 81
Dexed - 65
DmC - 86
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West - 72
Heavenly Sword - 79

[aaronaton]

Heavenly Sword was a great PS3 launch game, they've kinda fallen far from those old days.

[Redgrave]

Enslaved deserves a revisit if anything

[PS3gamer4life]

Need enslaved 2

[MrBaskerville]

Would have been a perfect launch title. I think it will do well enough because it's probably good, but can't imagine it will make enough money to justify what must be a gargantuan budget by now. Feels like they expected it to be God Of War, but in reality it's a fairly niche title due to it being a primarily narrative driven experience with a heavy subject.

[Tzuno]

walking simulator

[Auron]

Ninja Theory doors will close.

[Domkakop]

Matt Assy