I personally thought Gears looked great and am excited to play it when it launches. It will be my first Gears game since they will now be coming to PC. Scalebound did look underwhelming though.

The key word here is "consistently." Platinum is responsible for Metal Gear Rising, Bayonetta 2, and Wonderful 101 all within the past three years. The studio also has Vanquish and the original Bayonetta on its resume, as well as games like the original Devil May Cry and God Hand from its time back as Clover Studios. In other words, they've been heavily involved in the genre over basically their entire existence.

As far as hack and slashes go, Santa Monica has the God of War series, and that's about it. And the last good God of War title they made was almost a decade ago now. They haven't really done anything in the genre since then, and God of War 4 is looking less like a hack and slash and more like a cross between a brawler and TLoU, where the focus is less on style and long combos.

Ninja Theory has produced only two games that could remotely be qualified as hack and slashes over the course of their existence, namely Heavenly Sword and the Devil May Cry reboot. I'd argue both of these games were pretty bad, but even if you consider them the most amazing titles ever made, it'd be hard to say Ninja Theory was consistently involved in the genre. 2 titles over the course of ten or so years of game development isn't exactly consistency.

Gears 4 looks great graphically but Scalebound ehh not that great it doesn't look like it runs that great either

well the conference is actually rated PG... So that explain the lack of gore and R rated stuff... Didn't you notice they literally cut off the sound during swear words in the on stage demo...

Consistently you say? Platinum has made grabage games in recent years, Anarchy Reigns, Transformers Devastation, Legend of Korra and TMNT. They have made four good and four bad games, and the story in all their games has been questionable at the least. The gameplay is vriable, again, far from consistent.

Also, only three of the good games made by Platiinum are hack and slash, while all four that are bad belong to this genre. Scalebound and Nier Automata could go anywhere. They are consistently hit or miss developers.

Santa Monica has CONSISTENTLY made great hack and slash games. 2005 - 2013, not nearly decade ago lol. All God of War games have been excellent, not even one of them I would say is anything below very good. We haven't seen much from the new God of War game to decide its genre, but I wouldn't say a different approach than the usual hack and slash game makes it a non-hack and slash game.

Ninja Theory has made less great games than Santa Monica, but still Heavenly Sword and DMC Devil May Cry are good games, not bad. DMC gets unnecessary hate, its a pretty good game, but is derided by fans due to Dante's design. Its still better than Devil May Cry 1 and 2. Hellblade looks like it could be a great game though.

double post

None of this bolded is even close to relevant. I am simply saying that Platinum is consistently making hack and slash games, whereas the other two are not. Even if they are making games in different genres, with "vriable" gameplay, as you put it, they are still consistently involved in the hack and slash genres, and the vast majority of their hack and slash titles are rated highly. They have two different hack and slash titles with above an 80 or above on Metacritic on this generation alone. No other AAA developer has ANY.

Secondly, neither Anarchy Reigns nor Transformers Devastation are hack and slash games. They're beat 'em ups or brawlers, if anything, descended from the likes of Final Fight and Madworld (which, incidentially, AR is a sequel of sorts to). A key component of the Devil May Cry-esque hack and slash is long combo strings and an emphasis on attack variety, and neither Devastation nor Anarchy Reigns have either of those.

Finally, all of this goes back to the "consistently" part. Even IF we assume that every God of War game ever was amazing (they aren't; Ascension and Chains of Olympus are incredibly mediocre titles), they have produced ONE hack and slash title in the past five years. Platinum has produced four, and that's excluding all of the "bad" titles that you brought up earlier. Santa Monica simply isn't all that active in the genre these days, and even when they were, they only were responsible for one IP. Platinum has numerous different IPs involved in the genre and has been the only developer to consistently produce games for that genre over the past half decade.

Same goes for Ninja Theory; even if you think DmC is just hated because of Dante's redesign (it's not, and all the gameplay features that were changed for the definitive edition to make it more like the old Devil May Cry games should be evidence enough of that), they've had one hack and slash title in the past NINE years. One title over the course of nine years is not consistent involvement by any standard.

And for that matter, one title over the course of five years is not being consistently involved either. The only developer that is consistently producing good hack and slash games for the genre (even if some of their games flop as well) is Platinum. Bayonetta 2, Wonderful 101, and Metal Gear Rising in the past three years. The two companies that you've mentioned which are supposedly really involved in the industry? A grand total of two titles combined over that same timeframe. Platinum surpasses the combined total of Santa Monica and Ninja Theory's hack and slash titles by themselves, and that's not even counting the "bad" games.

I consider Transformers: Devastation and Anarchy Reigns as hack and slash, there is a really thin line between beat em ups and hack and slash. Both are bad.

But you want to bring in scores into this? Okay gotcha, here maybe look at metacritic scores yourself:

Santa Monica's games:

God of War - 94

God of War 2 - 93

God of War 3 - 92

God of War: Ascension - 80

Average - 89.7

Not one game below 80.

Platinum Games (highest rated versions):

Bayonetta 360 version - 90

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance 360 - 82

Anarchy Reigns 360 - 73

Transformers: Devastation PS4 - 77

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan XB1 - 54

The Legend of Korra PS4 - 54

The Wonderful 101 -78

Average - 72.4

With many of them being in 50's and 70's.

Excluding Anarchy Reigns and Transformers it would be even lower.

The quantity of games has no relevance here, if the quality can't match. Number of IP's they work on matters little with such half hearted efforts put into most of them. When Santa Monica makes a game, I know it will be top notch. When Platinum does so, it could easily be good or bad.

Same for Ninja Theory, smaller quanity of hack and slash games but the ones they made were atleast good.

I want to like Scalebound SO MUCH, but that protagonist just drives me crazy. He's conceded, oblivious, douchey and...just listens to dubstep on his HEADPHONES, while fighting armored knights?! It seems like such a hodge podge of western and eastern themes... It's like if Dante, from Devil May Cry, was a playable character in Dark Souls or something.

Yes, it does. In fact, it's the ONLY thing that matters, because, as you'll recall, my original quote was:

"They're the only developer on the market that consistently makes good hack and slash titles..."

The word is consistently. You have to be consistently releasing games in a genre to qualify. Santa Monica has released ONE game that could be qualified as a hack and slash in the last five years. Ninja Theory has ONE in the last nine. Platinum has FOUR in the past three years alone, three of which have a higher than 80 on Metacritic. And, incidentially, my point in bringing in Metacritic scores is not to show that they produce better or worse games than either Santa Monica or Ninja Theory; it's simply to show that they are consistently releasing good hack and slash games. Even if some of their releases are failures, you can count on there being a highly rated Platinum hack and slash game released in any given three year period since the release of the original Devil May Cry. You cannot say the same for either SM or NT.

Your argument would apply if we were debating who the better developer is, but we're not. We're simply talking about who consistently releases good hack and slash games, and if neither of your two counter examples even qualify for the "consistently" part, then it's pretty much a moot point from there.

By the way, as a side note, you left out Bayonetta 2 from your overall list, as well as all of Platinum's highly rated titles before they split up with Capcom (Okami, Viewitful Joe 1 & 2, Devil May Cry, etc.). It's not a particularly relevant detail to this debate, but if you're going to cite the entire scope of scores for a developer, it would be worth making sure you get, well, all of their scores.