Xbox |OT|

[Ryuu96]

shikamaru317 said:

Ryuu96 said:

Really is nothing like journalists putting unnecessary and unrealistic pressure onto developers at Xbox, Lol. Journalists inventing their own hype and marketing, Xbox or Ninja Theory never said or even implied in the slightest that Hellblade II would be this. Can't wait to hear from IGN next being like "Hellblade 2 must be an 11/10! If it isn't then Xbox is doomed!"

And this is not to say it shouldn't be a good exclusive, all exclusives should deliver and be of a good quality but can journalists stop with this utterly stupid "This is the most important exclusive ever!" rhetoric for every game? It's unfair to the developers and just making up fake hype in order to drive consumers to disappointment and giving trolls the ability to label a game a failure because it wasn't "best/biggest ever"

I seriously question who actually played Hellblade I or remembers what it was when people push Hellblade II as being a huge project on the scale of God of War and it will be a mega blockbuster...That wasn't even anywhere close to what Hellblade I was and what I assume Hellblade II will be, Hellblade I was an intimate experience about mental health battles with a strong narrative but not overly flashy.

I believe Hellblade II will be bigger but it's still a 130ish team and I expect they'll still focus more on it being a intimate experience over some huge flashy experience. Improve the puzzles and combat, sure, but it's not going to be some big 20-30 hour experience with a blockbuster budget and on a massive scale, c'mon now.

Complete revisionist history to paint Hellblade I as important for Sony (as an exclusive) in the same year which Sony released/had Horizon Zero Dawn, Nioh, Nier Automata and Uncharted Lost Legacy. Hellblade was a great game, won a few awards and sold well, I expect the same for Hellblade 2. If anything though, I expect Avowed will be bigger than Hellblade II in almost every aspect (budget, scale, players, etc).

But I better keep that quiet otherwise they'll be articles saying "Avowed is Xbox's Most Important Exclusive Ever; Can It Surpass Elder Scrolls?" I can feel the "I'm disappointed by Hellblade 2" articles written up already, Lol. People just setting themselves up for disappointment. Can't wait for 2025, it'll be "Fable is Xbox's Most Important Exclusive Ever" and then in 2026 it will be Perfect Dark, then in 2027 it will be Blade, Lol.

Hellblade II to me would be better comparable to something like Alan Wake 2 or a Plague Tale Requiem, follow-ups to great titles with a strong narrative focus, Alan Wake 2 being more of an artsy game, Plague Tale being a more intimate experience, they both received strong critical receptions to their sequels but they don't hit mainstream appeal or have huge sales.

Yeah, people are definitely putting way too much pressure on Ninja Theory with these Hellblade 2 expectations. They are a small studio for a AAA (though they have supposedly like quadrupled the size of the dev team for the firet game), and Hellblade 1, though a graphics and audio design masterpiece, came up short in most other areas from the actual length of the game, to the combat, to the puzzles, to enemy variety. It also was only a moderate seller for an indie AAA game, selling 1m+ copies after the first 10 months and no sales updates since (which makes me think it never hit 2m).

People should not be going in expecting Hellblade 2 to be Xbox's next big killer app/system seller, or Xbox's counter to God of War Ragnarok.

Reasonable expectations for what Hellblade 2 will be are:

1. A gorgeous graphical showcase title for the capabilities of Xbox Series consoles and Unreal 5 (which so far hasn't been properly utilized by many devs)

2. Longer than the first game's 8 hour or so campaign, but likely not some 30+ hour open world game with tons of side quests and such

3. Moderate improvements to the weak areas of the first game, combat, puzzles, and enemy variety.

4. Continued strong audio design, showcasing Senua's psychosis through the hearing of voices, coupled with a strong soundtrack 

5. A moderate player count success. Probably at least 5m players lifetime, though probably less than 12m players lifetime.

I think all these expectations are reasonable 👍

Mostly mine would be the same, an amazing graphical showcase and audio design, a decent bit longer than the 1st (I'd say around 10-20 hours) and improvements to the combat and puzzles with a story which is again more of an intimate story rather than a full blown fantasy, crazy battle-fest. I actually thought the length was good for the 1st game.

Quality wise? Likely critically scores well, in the mid-80s region (1st was in the low 80s) but commercial I would expect around the same amount of players lifetime as the first game, it's more of an artsy game than a game with mass market appeal which is why I compare it to Alan Wake 2 in that respect. I fully expect Avowed to be bigger in every metric than Hellblade II.

But I wouldn't want journalists to suddenly hype Avowed up as Elder Scroll's killer so, Lol.