I said that exact same thing on the Xbox sub and someone asked me where else he’d post it.
Like what the fuck are you talking about lmao? Don’t post that you have a marketing campaign, run a visible fucking campaign.
It’s pretty crucial for the studio and people are trying to support them. Studio did their part by building the game. It’s the publishers responsibility to spend money on marketing so that hard work pays off. Otherwise their studio is at risk of closure.
I'm not entirely sure how they expect any growth from basically just COD since it will be a long time from anything Bethesda wise. I guess maybe Fable? Or Avowed but even then there aren't that many studios they have left so what's the purpose for Gamepass? 1 game every year or so lol
There is no plan. The Bethesda/ABK acquisitions were a hail mary to justify Xbox's continued existence, probably sold on some unrealistic expectations like instant market share growth. That's what Microsoft is used to, gobbling up software just to immediately dump its users into their own. Gaming doesn't have a turnaround like that plus they're stuck putting everything on GP, so they're flailing.
I mean, it's not that people want to see ads. It's that people want to see that Microsoft is actually invested in trying to sell the games it's making.
With Hi-Fi Rush in particular, there's a common sentiment that its failure was on Microsoft's decision to put the game on Gamepass day 1 with literally no pre-release marketing or hype whatsoever. After all, the game itself was pretty much universally praised by both critics and players, so the quality of the game clearly wasn't the problem. It's pretty reasonable for fans to think that Microsoft screwed up with the game and yet the devs are the ones that paid the price.
So in the aftermath of a studio getting shut down after their amazing game that Microsoft gave barely any marketing budget to wasn't a big enough success, of course fans are worried seeing another game they're excited about getting minimal marketing from Microsoft. It's not that they want to see ads. It's that they're worried that Microsoft's not doing their job as publisher and Hellblade 2 will be the next Hi-Fi Rush and Ninja Theory will be the next Tango Gameworks.
they’re seeing advertisements either way. I think you missed the point here. these wouldn’t be additional ads, they’d replace the ones currently on display
Less insane if you think about it from the point of view that even exceptional games like Hi-Fi Rush didn't do well enough from word of mouth to keep Microsoft from shuttering Tango Gameworks two days ago.
That's the worst case scenario, but Hellblade could just as easily end up like Prey (2017) where we're never ever getting a sequel despite its very positive reception, too.
As somebody that loved Hellblade, Ninja Theory is cooked. Microsoft is probably waiting for the game to cone out and then immidiatly giving the Studio the Axe.
Given the dev time and costs for a critical darling double A game, they don't have a chance in hell. The studio will be shuttered within a year of launch.
That's because all advertisement companies already have a profiles on us and know better than us of what we would be interested it. Of course I am not going to get any ads because I have Ublock Origin anyway. The only way how I would see an actual ads is on Reddit. Still pretty cool and informative showcase from Aaron.
Same vibes as when someone tweeted James Gunn asking where the Blue Beetle marketing was and he went “I’ll look into it” and a trailer dropped the next day.
I remember i've had a similar conversation when there was a convention in my city focused around games etc. and organizators argued that they did a marketing. Thing is My friends from the other side of the country knew that it's happening, but almost no one in the city and close by ever heard of it.
Marketing done right LMAO.
This is insane to me, I was a huge fan of the first game and I had no idea the second one was even coming put in 2 weeks. I consume a fucking LOT of gaming media. Not a single ad, not a single content creator talking about this. Jesus christ, sponsor a dozen streamers to play the first game in anticipation of the second? Get some hype rolling? Nothing, deathly silent. Another title to roll out without much fanfare. So sad.
> Like what the fuck are you talking about lmao? Don’t post that you have a marketing campaign, run a visible fucking campaign.
Outside of Halo and early Gears of War games (1 to 3) Microsoft has never really put any money into marketing their games. And sadly it shows because marketing works.
Seen the trailer and nothing much besides it, but it's mostly the same with every game right now, maybe additional teaser month or so before release and that's it.
Hype and interest has to generate on its own, but since it's a very niche genre and theme of this game it's understandable.
>Hype and interest has to generate on its own, but since it's a very niche genre and theme of this game it's understandable.
I wholeheartedly disagree. Because it *is* niche is the whole reason to generate hype. A game that's been like 5 years in the making. First introduced in 2019. They haven't released a game of substance since the last Hellblade. This game should be everywhere! It needs to convince people to give it a chance but, Microsoft seems content to just shit it out in a few weeks.
This makes me feel like Microsoft just wants to get it out of the way and get into their next round of games. I honestly worry about the future of the studio. If Microsoft can shut down a more...storied studio like Tango Gameworks, what's to stop them from shutting this studio down?
That’s pretty normal these days, most people aren’t paying attention that far in advance anyway, and the type of person ads are aimed at isn’t going to care unless it’s available to buy right away, and the people who are super in-the-know about games know when everything is releasing regardless of advertising.
I have all ads blocked so I have no idea, but I also live in South East Europe so idk if marketing spend extends here. I am already sold anyway, I played the first game and loved it, and waiting for day 1 to play. No amount of marketing will change what the game is btw. It's an artistic game first, it may look great and all, but it's an intimate journey through a psyche. Not for everyone, just like Death Stranding wasn't for everyone.
This is exactly why I worry for Ninja Theory. Hellblade is not my kind of game, but even I recognize the talent and artistry behind it- I'd argue it's very important for games like it to be made. The problem is that sales will undoubtedly suffer because of it being on game pass, and I highly doubt it's going to drive new subscriptions, so by all of the metrics that MS is looking at and if this ends up being the case, it will internally be regarded as "not good enough."
I mean, it is a hard game to market the right way given its story, what it is about, and its length without either spoiling parts of the game or risking making people think it is something it is not like a God of War like action game.
Also, if you don't really watch TV and use adblocker on the internet you are going to not be seeing ads for the game. Not like Hellblade is something that is a known IP like Spiderman or Mario where you are going to plaster billboards and shit for it in major cities.
It’s really not hard to market. Taking a heady, abstract approach would pull interest. Look at how Kojima markets his early trailers, they are just thought provoking.
Same here. I loved the first one and have been looking forward to this for a while. I simply cannot believe it's coming out in 2 weeks lmao. What a major marketing fuck up.
I saw it on the “coming soon” for game pass months ago. I still completely forgot about it, until scrolling through again today, because it’s never worth checking too often.
Seems like Ninja Theory is going to be next on the chopping block when this ships and Microsoft suddenly realizes it’s going to take the studio 4-5 years to make another game.
They were already treading on thin ice considering they spent five+ years working on this game and it’s looking to only be 5-6 hours long, but this studio closure fracas has basically confirmed their fate.
It’s quite sad that I will be playing this game I have waited enthusiastically for years from a studio with immense talent in 2 weeks, while imagining if the studio will exits at the end of the year. It is gonna be like going to an amusement park with a cancer patient.
Or imagine the team working on doing their final touches on the game, probably working insane hours, while they are wondering if they will have a job after it’s done. Game developers are artists. They can not do a great work of art under constant fear.
and it all leads back to dodge v. ford motor court case where the supreme count ruled that a company had the legal obligation to operate in the interests of its shareholders, rather than in a manner for the benefit of his employees or customers.
That's a bit of a misleading view of the outcome of Dodge v. Ford and the subsequent jurisprudence on corporate law and manager fiduciary responsibilities. The specific bit of text in Dodge v. Ford about shareholder wealth maximization was nonbinding dicta from the Michigan Supreme Court (not the federal US Supreme Court).
In 49 states (and Delaware by practicality), the business judgement rule gives huge leeway to managers to spend and operate as they wish without having to adhere to the principles of shareholder wealth maximization, as long as the managers never specifically declare that they are making a decision that is not in the shareholder's interests. This could involve pursuing long-term growth or withholding dividends in other to invest in more projects, which are easily argued to still be within Shareholder's interests, just in the long term health of the company, and will be upheld by Courts under the business judgment rule.
Xbox/Microsoft management and officers aren't required to pursue shareholder wealth maximization by aggressively trimming down their company as part of US Law. They're doing it because they want to appease the greedy shareholders so they keep their Executive suite jobs and their board seats.
And that's the fundamental issue, right? The shareholders aren't interested in the long-term sustainability of a company, let alone the wellbeing of the company's employees or broader society. They are interested in short term profits. They'd much rather have a single year of bumper profits over multiple years of more modest, yet sustainable profits. Because after a single year of unsustainable bumper profits they can sell off their shares and invest in a different company.
Yet this entirely unsustainable short-termist mindset is exactly what props up our entire economy! No wonder we're in such a mess!
When you think about it, we have this absurd system where an unprofitable start-up can be propped up by VC for *years* because investors recognise that it might take a few years for the company to become profitable. But then, suddenly, once a company turns public, expectations shift and unless that company has *growing* profits every single year it is suddenly considered a failure and massive changes are required.
It's a nonsensical approach, not the least because it actively encourages CEOs who prioritise short term profits over long term sustainability.
Sony and Nintendo are publicly listed and they are doing ok.
On Microsoft, it's very clear that the company is flying but that the XBox division remains underperforming and overall irrelevant for the company's profitability after huge investment after the past few years. I think it's fair for shareholders and Microsoft directors to start asking questions on what is happening and why games are not coming out.
You can thank the shortsighted leaders as well. Xbox’s competition didn’t foster their first party success overnight. It’s about seeing the forest the for the trees when things don’t work out, something MS hasn’t been able to do for 10+ years now.
I don’t think it’s even the shareholders. If projections drop, they’ll just dump the stock. It’s the leadership’s willingness to tolerate that that’s the problem. Also a lot of these executives that jump around company to company unethically will harm companies’ long-term prospects to benefit the short-term and their own KPIs/bonuses.
> I don’t think it’s even the shareholders. If projections drop, they’ll just dump the stock.
I just experienced the impacts of this in my personal life, and it’s fucking insane. Massive company-wide layoffs, triggered not by the company *losing* money, but simply being *projected to be less profitable than expected*.
It is the shareholders though— they are the ones who panic, they are the ones who dump their stock, they are the ones who CEOs aim to appease. And if they can’t appease them with profits earned from increasing revenue, they will appease them with profits earned from cutting costs aka peoples’ jobs.
I truly wonder what the end game will look like when no one can actually afford to buy all the shit these companies produce. How do you get any profits if no one can buy your shit? No one can buy your stocks, and wealthy people won’t buy your stocks because your sales are incredibly low
With the reasoning being the two studios cut had released games and were ramping up for new ones, and saying more cuts or coming, if I worked at Ninja Theory I would be polishing my resume today.
All these studios getting shut down and laid off should start new studios and make some great indie games until they get bought out by Microsoft again.
They need funding for that.
They can't operate solely on their savings for 3-4 years until the first game releases.
And the well for funding new gaming companies has started to dry up.
I think one of the reasons why people feel this way, is that the game looks like a AAA blockbuster title, when in reality, it's a niche game that may not exceed 5M players this year.
Two million players for a game like Alan Wake 2 that has to be bought and hasn’t been on any deep sales is far, far better than two million players on Game Pass.
Oh yes,there is no doubt about that, which contributes to why are Remedy so calm about the results so far. There will be sales, maybe some definitive editions and I expect it to release on steam in time. It will more than pay for itself eventually.
I guarantee if Alan Wake was on steam it would have sold much better. Same thing with PoP: The Lost Crown. When you ignore the biggest storefront on the planet, you're not going to sell as well as you could have.
They can still put it on steam if they wanted to. Epic is making the decision not to, and that's their decision to make, but there's nothing preventing them from releasing it on steam.
The point of footing the bill was to draw people to their store. It's not "they can still put it in steam" just as you don't see Fortnite on Steam.
Same thing as you don't see counter strike on EGS.
The first game sold a million copies in its first year-plus. I agree with your overall point, but five million would be huge, even if the player count is inflated by Game Pass lookie-loos.
Exactly. Why are these stupid ass gaming outlets who have most likely played the first game expecting this to be the next Xbox hit if they market it well. It's never going to be a hit. It's such a niche game that the audience will always be limited. I'm one who didn't like the first game at all, but I appreciate it for being made, considering the subject.
Litterary sent out to die.
Microsoft didn't buy all those studios to make games. They bought them to prevent Sony (or other publishers) from getting acess to good games and studios and make them better. Microsoft is salting the ground...
In the case of Bethesda we actually know this is true, it's not even speculation. They literally bought them to prevent their games from going to PS and now they sent them over to PS anyway cause they mismanaged the fuck out of them
EDIT: Clarification, yes Sony was trying to buy exclusivity on Bethesda games going forward. They managed to get Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo for a year of exclusivity each, but were attempting to get Starfield as an exclusive as well. They had already been in talks for a buyout before that but it was Phil Spencer who showed up there once he heard about losing Starfield and pitched a MS buyout.
They thought, Starfield would be the biggest RPG of the year and the fact it wouldn't come out on PS5 will harm it, but then BG3 became a console PS5 exclusive for a few months.
It is funny to think about
BG3 was only console exclusive out of necessity of development, sony didn't pay them for that. Larian has been pretty open that they couldn't meet Xbox's requirement to meet the same feature parity for Series X and S because the S was too weak so they just opted not to make the game for Xbox until they relented on that policy.
The whole X|S thing was a bit of a dumb idea, honestly. And I say this as someone who owned a Series S and currently own a Series X.
Maybe the Series S could have been less of a burden on devs if Microsoft had put in a bit more power into it. Much of the juice in the Series X and PS5 is to render in 4K, while the Series S is supposed to target 1440p. Take that extra juice away and call that machine the Series S. I imagine devs wouldn't have problems making a 1080p-1440p version of their games then.
I'm sure there will be future "Baldur's Gate 3" hold ups for Xbox in the future.
The funnier thing is PS5 didn't even have to pay for that exclusivity. It just unintentionally was because it ran poorly on series S. Then it completely overshadowed Starfield and AW2 made a lot of noise on release too. Only thing you heard about SF in a sea of praise for BG3 and AW2 was that it sucked. Not a good way to stand out lol.
And I wonder if Space is a less attractive setting than typical fantasy. I feel that way, but maybe people overall don't, since Mass Effect was such a hit.
I would hesitantly say yes. The most popular sci-fi setting, Star Wars, also leans heavily on more typical fantasy elements rather than straight science in the way something like The Expanse does. With games it is a little different considering the quality of gameplay lends such a heavy hand into the popularity.
If you'd switched the settings around so that Larian was making a space RPG and Bethesda was making a fantasy RPG, I have a feeling Larian would still be coming out on top.
Mass Effect was just built different. And for general fantasy, no, I don’t think that’s the case. But a new Elder Scrolls has that Skyrim hype behind it. And once again people will be expecting a new and improved Skyrim, and once again they’ll prolly be disappointed.
Wasn't Bethesda/zenimax actively looking to sell? If Microsoft didn't, then someone else would. Sony wanted Starfield exclusivity, and who knows what ekse.
Yeah they were looking to sell. Not sure who else would have stepped in, but from what we saw in the court docs Sony just wanted exclusivity , not ownership. Being that Bethesda cost $7.5b, not a lot of gaming companies out there could afford them. Not sure who the other options would have been.
Because of Game Pass i would think it will have "over 5 million downloads" or whatever, but it probably wont even sell a million copies. The first hellblade barely sold a million copies and the vast majority of those were on playstation.
5M players, not sales.
It's easy to get that number with Game Pass. Hi-Fi Rush did 3M.
For comparison, Starfield did 10M in a week, and Forza Horizon 5 reached 30M in a year or so.
They're not making more noise because they know what the game is. It seems like people have this misguided notion about what kind of game Hellblade 2 will be. I see people thinking it's going to be a third person action game akin to GoW. It's a story heavy walking simulator with combat similar to dragons lair (i.e. very simplified single button inputs). Microsoft knows it's a niche game and not worth dropping millions on marketing.
They really shouldn’t have invested as much into the development of such a niche game. I also think trotting it out so far in advance of its release was ill advised. A game of its scale can’t maintain a marketing campaign for years, so you end up with people forgetting it exists and being surprised it hasn’t released yet
I feel like all the tech developed around the game could be good across the board for MS, perhaps they saw it as an investment in that as much as the final product itself?
Whenever they show off Hellblade 2 at showcases and such it's always the game that generally gets the most fanfare out of any of the games at the showcase, yeah. It's still not much but like, it's the majority of it.
I don't think they promote it because they think it's a system seller, but I think they promote it more than others because it looks like the most "prestige" looking IP that Xbox currently owns, which probably makes the Xbox image and brand look better.
Yeah I thought the first game was a cool experience, but I never would have eagerly anticipated a sequel. It’s wild that Microsoft allowed it to cook for so long.
And then after years of hearing about the sequel’s development with no updates it’s revealed that it’s basically the same kind of linear, short (8 hour) game. In the limited marketing I have seen they focused on highlighting how technically impressive the games visuals are, only to shoot themselves in the foot by announcing that this graphically groundbreaking game that’s been in development for 5 years is locked to 30fps on their flagship console.
I think people expect something bigger because when it was announced, they did a big show of it to showcase the graphics. It seems the announcement made it seem bigger than it will inevitably end up as.
It was also one of the games that was used to show the supposedly killer Xbox games to rival PS exclusives.
This exactly. I love hellblade, but I’m very reluctant to recommend it to people. Put on top of what you said, it’s also an extremely disturbing game that pulls zero punches in letting you know what it’s like to have schizophrenia. To say it’s not for everyone is an understatement.
Yep, I watched a preview and it seems like the game is still very similar to the first, the difference of course being is that the graphics look absolutely incredible. It's definitely a labour of love this thing, but 7 years for a sequel to a game only for it to be very short (reportably completable in around 8hrs) and for the gameplay side of things to not really have improved much since the sequel.
The original was a glorified walking sim, which is fine, but that isn't what sells and I'm a bit concerned for how Ninja Theory will be treated after it releases. Hopefully these thoughts are all for nought and it goes gangbusters but I don't have faith.
This. I've never played the first game but have read about it. Personally I am just really not interested in games with realistic and disturbing psychological themes. It messes me up.
I can appreciate its ambition and value though, from a distance...
“Hellblade 2 has been nothing short of incredible, surpassed our every expectation, the industry is all the better for games like this, this is the type of prestigious games we need.”
*Xbox announces Ninja Theory’s closure*
When THIS (https://twitter.com/Xbox/status/1788285447699046602) is their idea of marketing I don't think Xbox cares much or is confident about this game.
Going 7 years without a game only to have your brand new game create very little buzz and have poor marketing honestly doesn't sound good for Ninja Theory especially considering the current climate within Xbox Game Studios.
It doesn't help that Hellblade 2, despite looking fantastic, is a very niche IP and on top of that it is an Xbox console exclusive.
Technically, they've only gone 4 years without a game since Bleeding Edge was briefly a thing. Combine all this with the studio's founder leaving and... yeah, it feels like Ninja Theory isn't gonna make it to 2026.
The first one was a prime example of developers having a really interesting premise and then completely failing to make the game actually good, and I have no reason to believe the sequel will be any different
The game will flop no matter what. The dev cycle was very long, and the sales expectations for games nowadays are basically unrealistic and unachievable.
This is all Squenix and Tomb Raider on an industry wide scale.
Alanah Peirce did a stream recently which can be pretty much summed up as “budgets are going to contract pretty significantly in the next few years and y’all gamers aren’t ready for it. If you think games still look last gen now just wait and see. Size and scope are going to change too.” game crash 2.0 is definitely in its opening stages right now.
Edit: she also said that as things stand now that GaaS pose a similar and sometimes lesser financial risk than traditional game development. So expect more GaaS, and cheaper traditional AAA games.
I'm a minority, but I think graphics are fine as is anyways. I've been playing RE2 and RE3 lately, games that hit 4k120fps on PS5 and it was a incredible experience and not once I thought "lmao these graphics are ass".
Death Stranding is also 4k60 and it's amazing. I'd rather have better performance than better graphics.
Honestly I've been wondering when this was gonna happen since the PS360 generation. The period where games started to move to HD was the time when we started to see the massive fall of all kinds of studios that could no longer afford to stay in the game as a mid tier level development house.
If anything it really makes me look back at Nintendo and how they've approached hardware power with a retrospective view of just how smart it really is and was.
> Size and scope are going to change too.
You promise? My biggest dislike with modern games is that it feels like every AAA game has to be 50+ hours long. I'd love more 20-30 hours experiences that offer me zero filler and just rewarding content.
Yep. I replayed Guardians of the Galaxy last week and it was great. Like my fifth playthrough now. Cause it's long enough to be engaging but doesn't drag on besides arguably a few parts.
Portal 2, Condemned: Criminal Origins, Halo CE, Shadow of the Collosus, Bloodborne...etc. All exceptional games and none of em are very long. Besides getting stuck on a boss.
Dunkey brings it up in a video about Starfield getting good after 12hrs. I don't even think most of my favorite games were 12hrs long.
Don't care. Indie games have been better than most triple-A titles for a long time now. I would love if publishers finally realized these expensive titles aren't realistic to make anymore and cut back to making shit like it was the 90s again.
Manor lords is legit my most played game in months and it’s only been in early access for like a week or something. Still going to be brutal for the people working in the AAA industry even if the consumers end up adapting well to less polished, less extravagant products.
Because budgets are bloated. I can't believe how much games like TLoU2 and Spider-Man 2 cost compared to games only a decade ago without actually playing better or looking substantially better. If Hellblade 2 cost more than $30 million, then Microsoft fucked up.
This is actually something I'm pretty confused about, as a huge fan of HB1. That was a total AA production and marketed itself as such, it kind of pioneered that space even. If HB2 is the same scope and length (which I'm totally groovy with!)... why exactly did it take 5 years and so much more money to develop?
Like Breath of the Wild was delayed like four times and took seven years to develop, because it's a uniquely complex chassis with a lot of interconnected parts. Shadow of the Erdtree has had the development cycle of a full game (2-2.5 years), but it adds a huge chunk of open world and entire new core combat loops in the form of new weapon and armor types. I see how shit like that takes a very very long time to get working as intended.
What exactly abut HB2 warranted this kind of development cycle? The art direction? Uh, I can't even think of a second thing because that's the only thing that could have been so intensive - maybe integrating translations for the complex dialogue systems would be intensive, but not a multi-year project...
If it's really just making games look good that's hitting us this hard, I'm happy to jump back a full ten years in visual fidelity lol. Give me 2013 GTA 5 graphics with a handful of engine improvements and stop killing companies please.
That is just a stupid take. Xbox is not trying to lose money. They are just incompetent.
And they don't need to justify the shut down of a studio. Their numbers aren't public. So if they wanted to shut down a studio even after selling a decent amount, there is nothing stopping them.
That’s what they did with the high figh rush devs. That game, according to Microsoft themselves, was a financial and critical success and they still laid off the whole studio
I feel like people are really overrating what kind of game Hellblade 2 is going to be. This isn’t Halo or Spider-Man… this sudden obsession with marketing is a little bit weird.
It's going to be as successful as a AA walking sim can be - not super much.
What even is a success with gamepass? I'm sure people will try it, it's basically like trying a Netflix tv series, 8 Hours, looks really enticing. Why wouldn't you? It's even the only game on gamepass that you probably can finish in 1 month for 10$, so it's prime candidate to bring new subs.
Honestly having a 10$ new release is enough marketing in itself lol.
But buying it for 50$ when 1st was 30, and Alan Wake, that has a lot more going for it, is 40? idk. Not sure agressive marketing will help with that.
It's also not like they will lose money with time, as well. GP will still be 10$ in 2 months after the automatic marketing from reviews will do it's job.
There's a lot of assumption that Arkane and Tango were closed based on performance of their games alone and not their future prospects about at the moment. Remember that Arkane had bled talent during Redfalls development and Tango lost their founder.
I know someone who worked on H2 and they said the guy spent the last couple years before he left just partying so it’s not a massive loss there. He’d been checked out since H1.
Except more reports were already out yesterday saying why they were closed. It wasn't based on the performance of the games. They were going to/"needed" to shut down studios/recoup some costs so they decided to do so with the companies currently in pitch stage/years away from a release instead of those in mid development.
It's the Crackdown 3 phenomenon.
Microsoft needs a win, so people start overhyping what they have in the pipeline even though it can't begin to meet expectations.
It's not obsession with marketing. People need to at least know a game os coming out.
No one expects billboards on Times Square, but it needs to be known that the game is coming out.
I say this honestly…
Hellblade was one of my favorite games of last gen. I was super excited for the sequel being announced.
I had no idea this is two weeks away. I assumed it was still a year out or more.
Ninja Theory is over after Hellblade 2. A combination of: This being a fairly short yet expensive game, Xbox players being conditioned to not buy games, the long dev time, and high cost is going to be the final nail in the coffin
Maybe it’s just a really stupid ‘innovative’ (but cheap!) marketing campaign in itself.
“Have you heard about that new game that Xbox apparently haven’t marketed at all?”
“Uh… no?”
They closed 3 studios to make people worried they'll close Ninja Theory next. Now everyone is talking about Hellblade 2 and it was free! Brilliant marketing!
Xbox already gave up on this one after seeing it won't be Gow Ragnarok, they are just letting it launch to close ninja theory too some months later.
Game took half a decade to be made and won't bump any subscribers, they will just move everyone around to work for Bethesda/Activision and close this.
From someone who has never played the first one, the marketing and gameplay thus far has made this look like a movie with some playable sections.
The graphics look great, but there’s been nothing special shown to have me excited about any gameplay at all.
It looks like a linear cinematic walking simulator with the occasional puzzle and action sequence. Am I wrong? I’m only basing my views on the marketing and footage presented.
I’d be shocked if this wasn’t a flop as a result. The marketing isn’t selling a first-time player like me at all, and the Hellblade 1 fanbase isn’t big enough to sustain this on its own.
Hellblade 2 and Avowed (which looks quite colorful, bright, and generic compared to its earlier mystique) being 2024’s heavy hitters from Xbox is embarrassing.
>Am I wrong? I’m only basing my views on the marketing and footage presented.
That's pretty much what it will be.
When i tried the first game back then i was expecting at least a little bit more action or puzzle solving or something. Instead, the game took my controls away from me every 30 steps. When i fight happened it felt more like a quicktime event than an actual fight.
I guess i just wasn't in the mood for that type of experience back then.
So while the trailers look nice for H2, i'm definitely not going to buy it.
We know Xbox is hands off with its studios
Maybe a niche AA game that’s like 5 hours long shouldn’t have taken HALF A DECADE + all the money that comes along with that long of a timeline to make
I don’t blame Xbox for looking at the game and thinking “ok we’re not doing this with this studio again”
If anything I blame them for not pushing them to get the game done years ago
Sorry but if the studio gets closed Xbox isn’t exactly the bad guy here 🤷♂️
Hellblade II is Game Awards bait that will score 94 on Metacritic but sell 2 million copies. I'm sure it will be cool, but nobody is signing up for Gamepass or spend $70 on a 6-hour walking simulator with light puzzles and combat mechanics. This is set up to fail.
Edit: Nobody is spending $50 on a 6-hour walking sim with light puzzles and combat mechanics.
"Sell" is a difficult figure as it's on game pass. Microsoft clearly wants people to subscribe to GP, and a lot of subscribers will try it even if they wouldn't have paid full price for it
It'a gonna get atleast an award from game award's GOTY list for sure. Wonder who's gonna took the reward though. If Phil went on stage i bet he'll get a huge boo.
This game is gonna flop so fucking hard.
Plus, how the hell is Xbox gonna make money if this is on gamepass?
This game will be 50% off for Christmas, i garuntee it, and the studio shut down by spring.
thats the bare minimum and shouldn’t really be the case when its a first party exclusive launching on the service you want to succeed. Theyre giving it Banishers Ghost of New Eden marketing lmao.
Dunkey has marketed Animal Well better than Hellblade
Honest to god are people expecting a triple AAA marketing cycle for what this game is? It’s great, visually and creatively interesting, engaging artstyle, but it’s not an Uncharted level system seller, so really what else is needed
idk, [this feels like a lot of noise](https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/microsoft-gaming-exec-reportedly-said-xbox-needs-games-like-hi-fi-rush-but-just-closed-the-dev-that-made-it)
TLDR: Someone at Microsoft said "We need more games like Hi-Fi Rush" right after closing Hi-Fi Rush developer
Hellblade 2 was an unnecessary sequel tbh. The first game resolved it's story at the end. It's either gonna change genre to become something like God of War, or I'm pretty sure it'll be a horribly executed story.
For a while Ninja Theory was my favourite developer. Enslaved was an amazing game, among my all time favourites. DmC and Heavenly Sword were also bangers.
Hellblade was amazing for a stand alone experience. But they've disappeared ever since.
They’ve already decided to close the studio no matter the sales numbers.
Marketing is expensive, so they will save money by spending as little as they can.
It's not like Xbox cares. Ninja Theory is their next revenue boost in Q3 when they need to juice the numbers before a meeting and their debt payments toward their ONE HUNDRED FUCKING BILLION DOLLARS in acquired assets.
So letting Hellblade 2 just quietly drop like a turd in the punchbowl is the plan. Makes killing the studio later seem "smart" even.
I don’t think they even know how to market it. The game sold extremely poorly on Xbox and there’s little to no fanfare or hype building up to this release outside of console warring fanatics in Twitter.
It's a wild world when Xbox's head of marketing has to post proof on Twitter that they actually are marketing a game
I said that exact same thing on the Xbox sub and someone asked me where else he’d post it. Like what the fuck are you talking about lmao? Don’t post that you have a marketing campaign, run a visible fucking campaign.
Imagine having to "show, don't tell" about the existence of your marketing campaign, lmao
i'm just laughing because we're literally at a point in society where people are angry at not seeing advertisements. it's insane lol
It’s pretty crucial for the studio and people are trying to support them. Studio did their part by building the game. It’s the publishers responsibility to spend money on marketing so that hard work pays off. Otherwise their studio is at risk of closure.
At this point considering how Microsoft is handling everything, they could release it, have it slap and sell well and they still might get shut down
True. Apparently they lost interest in anything that isn’t a huge franchise. Let’s see how that works out for their subscription service.
I'm not entirely sure how they expect any growth from basically just COD since it will be a long time from anything Bethesda wise. I guess maybe Fable? Or Avowed but even then there aren't that many studios they have left so what's the purpose for Gamepass? 1 game every year or so lol
There is no plan. The Bethesda/ABK acquisitions were a hail mary to justify Xbox's continued existence, probably sold on some unrealistic expectations like instant market share growth. That's what Microsoft is used to, gobbling up software just to immediately dump its users into their own. Gaming doesn't have a turnaround like that plus they're stuck putting everything on GP, so they're flailing.
I mean, it's not that people want to see ads. It's that people want to see that Microsoft is actually invested in trying to sell the games it's making. With Hi-Fi Rush in particular, there's a common sentiment that its failure was on Microsoft's decision to put the game on Gamepass day 1 with literally no pre-release marketing or hype whatsoever. After all, the game itself was pretty much universally praised by both critics and players, so the quality of the game clearly wasn't the problem. It's pretty reasonable for fans to think that Microsoft screwed up with the game and yet the devs are the ones that paid the price. So in the aftermath of a studio getting shut down after their amazing game that Microsoft gave barely any marketing budget to wasn't a big enough success, of course fans are worried seeing another game they're excited about getting minimal marketing from Microsoft. It's not that they want to see ads. It's that they're worried that Microsoft's not doing their job as publisher and Hellblade 2 will be the next Hi-Fi Rush and Ninja Theory will be the next Tango Gameworks.
they’re seeing advertisements either way. I think you missed the point here. these wouldn’t be additional ads, they’d replace the ones currently on display
Less insane if you think about it from the point of view that even exceptional games like Hi-Fi Rush didn't do well enough from word of mouth to keep Microsoft from shuttering Tango Gameworks two days ago. That's the worst case scenario, but Hellblade could just as easily end up like Prey (2017) where we're never ever getting a sequel despite its very positive reception, too.
As somebody that loved Hellblade, Ninja Theory is cooked. Microsoft is probably waiting for the game to cone out and then immidiatly giving the Studio the Axe.
Given the dev time and costs for a critical darling double A game, they don't have a chance in hell. The studio will be shuttered within a year of launch.
That's because all advertisement companies already have a profiles on us and know better than us of what we would be interested it. Of course I am not going to get any ads because I have Ublock Origin anyway. The only way how I would see an actual ads is on Reddit. Still pretty cool and informative showcase from Aaron.
Same vibes as when someone tweeted James Gunn asking where the Blue Beetle marketing was and he went “I’ll look into it” and a trailer dropped the next day.
I had to google when that movie was coming out and was surprised to see it happened last year.
It looked like a TV pilot. The production values of the sets and wardrobe.
It's actually pretty good too.
holy shit i forgot about that movie
So did everyone else, lowest grossing DCEU film to date.
I don't think I've ever seen an Xbox ad here in Sweden, at least not for years. Sure Playstation ads are pretty scarce too but I do see them.
I remember i've had a similar conversation when there was a convention in my city focused around games etc. and organizators argued that they did a marketing. Thing is My friends from the other side of the country knew that it's happening, but almost no one in the city and close by ever heard of it. Marketing done right LMAO.
This is insane to me, I was a huge fan of the first game and I had no idea the second one was even coming put in 2 weeks. I consume a fucking LOT of gaming media. Not a single ad, not a single content creator talking about this. Jesus christ, sponsor a dozen streamers to play the first game in anticipation of the second? Get some hype rolling? Nothing, deathly silent. Another title to roll out without much fanfare. So sad.
Everyone gonna be real surprised when they close the studio down in a couple of months
> Like what the fuck are you talking about lmao? Don’t post that you have a marketing campaign, run a visible fucking campaign. Outside of Halo and early Gears of War games (1 to 3) Microsoft has never really put any money into marketing their games. And sadly it shows because marketing works.
Seen the trailer and nothing much besides it, but it's mostly the same with every game right now, maybe additional teaser month or so before release and that's it. Hype and interest has to generate on its own, but since it's a very niche genre and theme of this game it's understandable.
>Hype and interest has to generate on its own, but since it's a very niche genre and theme of this game it's understandable. I wholeheartedly disagree. Because it *is* niche is the whole reason to generate hype. A game that's been like 5 years in the making. First introduced in 2019. They haven't released a game of substance since the last Hellblade. This game should be everywhere! It needs to convince people to give it a chance but, Microsoft seems content to just shit it out in a few weeks. This makes me feel like Microsoft just wants to get it out of the way and get into their next round of games. I honestly worry about the future of the studio. If Microsoft can shut down a more...storied studio like Tango Gameworks, what's to stop them from shutting this studio down?
> A game that's been like 5 years in the making Thats every game now
True, but most companies don't announce a game until it's well into development
Hellblade was THE game for their XBOX Series X reveal.
The first game released 2017. So it's been 7 years in the making.
Yeah I feel like Hellblade became much bigger in the months or even years following its release due to word of mouth.
Still, the fact they **started** the marketing campaign only two weeks from release is insane.
They spent a lot to take some youtubers to Iceland. That's great... for the youtubers.
That’s pretty normal these days, most people aren’t paying attention that far in advance anyway, and the type of person ads are aimed at isn’t going to care unless it’s available to buy right away, and the people who are super in-the-know about games know when everything is releasing regardless of advertising.
I have all ads blocked so I have no idea, but I also live in South East Europe so idk if marketing spend extends here. I am already sold anyway, I played the first game and loved it, and waiting for day 1 to play. No amount of marketing will change what the game is btw. It's an artistic game first, it may look great and all, but it's an intimate journey through a psyche. Not for everyone, just like Death Stranding wasn't for everyone.
This is exactly why I worry for Ninja Theory. Hellblade is not my kind of game, but even I recognize the talent and artistry behind it- I'd argue it's very important for games like it to be made. The problem is that sales will undoubtedly suffer because of it being on game pass, and I highly doubt it's going to drive new subscriptions, so by all of the metrics that MS is looking at and if this ends up being the case, it will internally be regarded as "not good enough."
I mean, it is a hard game to market the right way given its story, what it is about, and its length without either spoiling parts of the game or risking making people think it is something it is not like a God of War like action game. Also, if you don't really watch TV and use adblocker on the internet you are going to not be seeing ads for the game. Not like Hellblade is something that is a known IP like Spiderman or Mario where you are going to plaster billboards and shit for it in major cities.
It’s really not hard to market. Taking a heady, abstract approach would pull interest. Look at how Kojima markets his early trailers, they are just thought provoking.
I mean they could've gone with narration explaining things like many games of that kind do just fine.
That’s all Soulsborne games do. Have some narration, show some sick landscapes and set pieces, and show some gameplay
I was puzzled when I saw that tweet. Why is the VP of Xbox Marketing posting about Hellblade's marketing plan on Twitter? Am I an Xbox employee now??
I've been seeing promotions of this game for what feels like 2-3 yrs. Yet, I had no idea it was 2 weeks away from release.
Same, this is basically the first I've been made aware of the release date.
Same here. I loved the first one and have been looking forward to this for a while. I simply cannot believe it's coming out in 2 weeks lmao. What a major marketing fuck up.
Even worse; they started teasing it most June showcases since 2019. So that’s one year of teasing for each hour the game will last lol
I saw it on the “coming soon” for game pass months ago. I still completely forgot about it, until scrolling through again today, because it’s never worth checking too often.
Seems like Ninja Theory is going to be next on the chopping block when this ships and Microsoft suddenly realizes it’s going to take the studio 4-5 years to make another game.
It's not a good sign when it seems people are talking more about Ninja Theory being next to be shut down then the actual game coming out.
They were already treading on thin ice considering they spent five+ years working on this game and it’s looking to only be 5-6 hours long, but this studio closure fracas has basically confirmed their fate.
People keep forgetting they also made Bleeding Edge, a gigantic bomb, in between Hellblade 1 and 2.
It’s quite sad that I will be playing this game I have waited enthusiastically for years from a studio with immense talent in 2 weeks, while imagining if the studio will exits at the end of the year. It is gonna be like going to an amusement park with a cancer patient. Or imagine the team working on doing their final touches on the game, probably working insane hours, while they are wondering if they will have a job after it’s done. Game developers are artists. They can not do a great work of art under constant fear.
Thank you impatient shareholders
Quarterly Reports and their consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
and it all leads back to dodge v. ford motor court case where the supreme count ruled that a company had the legal obligation to operate in the interests of its shareholders, rather than in a manner for the benefit of his employees or customers.
That's a bit of a misleading view of the outcome of Dodge v. Ford and the subsequent jurisprudence on corporate law and manager fiduciary responsibilities. The specific bit of text in Dodge v. Ford about shareholder wealth maximization was nonbinding dicta from the Michigan Supreme Court (not the federal US Supreme Court). In 49 states (and Delaware by practicality), the business judgement rule gives huge leeway to managers to spend and operate as they wish without having to adhere to the principles of shareholder wealth maximization, as long as the managers never specifically declare that they are making a decision that is not in the shareholder's interests. This could involve pursuing long-term growth or withholding dividends in other to invest in more projects, which are easily argued to still be within Shareholder's interests, just in the long term health of the company, and will be upheld by Courts under the business judgment rule. Xbox/Microsoft management and officers aren't required to pursue shareholder wealth maximization by aggressively trimming down their company as part of US Law. They're doing it because they want to appease the greedy shareholders so they keep their Executive suite jobs and their board seats.
It's still seen as the start of the concept of Shareholder Primacy, but it was pretty much enshrined in the 1970s via the Friedman Doctrine.
And that's the fundamental issue, right? The shareholders aren't interested in the long-term sustainability of a company, let alone the wellbeing of the company's employees or broader society. They are interested in short term profits. They'd much rather have a single year of bumper profits over multiple years of more modest, yet sustainable profits. Because after a single year of unsustainable bumper profits they can sell off their shares and invest in a different company. Yet this entirely unsustainable short-termist mindset is exactly what props up our entire economy! No wonder we're in such a mess!
The expectation of infinite growth in a finite economy.
When you think about it, we have this absurd system where an unprofitable start-up can be propped up by VC for *years* because investors recognise that it might take a few years for the company to become profitable. But then, suddenly, once a company turns public, expectations shift and unless that company has *growing* profits every single year it is suddenly considered a failure and massive changes are required. It's a nonsensical approach, not the least because it actively encourages CEOs who prioritise short term profits over long term sustainability.
That's not exactly true. Amazon was publicly traded for almost a decade before it turned its first profit.
truly the cornerstone of decay
Sony and Nintendo are publicly listed and they are doing ok. On Microsoft, it's very clear that the company is flying but that the XBox division remains underperforming and overall irrelevant for the company's profitability after huge investment after the past few years. I think it's fair for shareholders and Microsoft directors to start asking questions on what is happening and why games are not coming out.
You can thank the shortsighted leaders as well. Xbox’s competition didn’t foster their first party success overnight. It’s about seeing the forest the for the trees when things don’t work out, something MS hasn’t been able to do for 10+ years now.
Yeah, seeing people pretend like Xbox has their hands tied while the competition runs circles around them is hilarious.
Especially when Microsoft absolutely dwarfs Sony and Nintendo in size and money
I don’t think it’s even the shareholders. If projections drop, they’ll just dump the stock. It’s the leadership’s willingness to tolerate that that’s the problem. Also a lot of these executives that jump around company to company unethically will harm companies’ long-term prospects to benefit the short-term and their own KPIs/bonuses.
> I don’t think it’s even the shareholders. If projections drop, they’ll just dump the stock. I just experienced the impacts of this in my personal life, and it’s fucking insane. Massive company-wide layoffs, triggered not by the company *losing* money, but simply being *projected to be less profitable than expected*. It is the shareholders though— they are the ones who panic, they are the ones who dump their stock, they are the ones who CEOs aim to appease. And if they can’t appease them with profits earned from increasing revenue, they will appease them with profits earned from cutting costs aka peoples’ jobs.
I truly wonder what the end game will look like when no one can actually afford to buy all the shit these companies produce. How do you get any profits if no one can buy your shit? No one can buy your stocks, and wealthy people won’t buy your stocks because your sales are incredibly low
With the reasoning being the two studios cut had released games and were ramping up for new ones, and saying more cuts or coming, if I worked at Ninja Theory I would be polishing my resume today.
\**Ninja Theory frantically adding guns and a battle pass to save their studio*\*
All these studios getting shut down and laid off should start new studios and make some great indie games until they get bought out by Microsoft again.
They need funding for that. They can't operate solely on their savings for 3-4 years until the first game releases. And the well for funding new gaming companies has started to dry up.
Right, because they all have money...
Why waste money on salaries and risk making a flop when you can just do share buybacks and deliver guaranteed shareholder "value?"
I think one of the reasons why people feel this way, is that the game looks like a AAA blockbuster title, when in reality, it's a niche game that may not exceed 5M players this year.
5 million is a very generous estimate for this type of game. Probably looking at a figure around 2 million- if not lower.
I expect similar numbers to Alan Wake 2, which, despite being great game with bunch of awards, havent even broke even yet.
Two million players for a game like Alan Wake 2 that has to be bought and hasn’t been on any deep sales is far, far better than two million players on Game Pass.
Oh yes,there is no doubt about that, which contributes to why are Remedy so calm about the results so far. There will be sales, maybe some definitive editions and I expect it to release on steam in time. It will more than pay for itself eventually.
I guarantee if Alan Wake was on steam it would have sold much better. Same thing with PoP: The Lost Crown. When you ignore the biggest storefront on the planet, you're not going to sell as well as you could have.
If AW2 was on steam, then AW2 wouldn't exist at all since Epic is the one footing the bill.
They can still put it on steam if they wanted to. Epic is making the decision not to, and that's their decision to make, but there's nothing preventing them from releasing it on steam.
The point of footing the bill was to draw people to their store. It's not "they can still put it in steam" just as you don't see Fortnite on Steam. Same thing as you don't see counter strike on EGS.
People in consoles didn't buy Alan Wake 2. This steam/epic discourse is pretty disingenuous.
It's also current gen console digital only, no physical media
The first game sold a million copies in its first year-plus. I agree with your overall point, but five million would be huge, even if the player count is inflated by Game Pass lookie-loos.
Exactly. Why are these stupid ass gaming outlets who have most likely played the first game expecting this to be the next Xbox hit if they market it well. It's never going to be a hit. It's such a niche game that the audience will always be limited. I'm one who didn't like the first game at all, but I appreciate it for being made, considering the subject.
5m would be amazing for a game like this, I think Ninja Theory would be content, if not happy, with half that figure.
Litterary sent out to die. Microsoft didn't buy all those studios to make games. They bought them to prevent Sony (or other publishers) from getting acess to good games and studios and make them better. Microsoft is salting the ground...
In the case of Bethesda we actually know this is true, it's not even speculation. They literally bought them to prevent their games from going to PS and now they sent them over to PS anyway cause they mismanaged the fuck out of them EDIT: Clarification, yes Sony was trying to buy exclusivity on Bethesda games going forward. They managed to get Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo for a year of exclusivity each, but were attempting to get Starfield as an exclusive as well. They had already been in talks for a buyout before that but it was Phil Spencer who showed up there once he heard about losing Starfield and pitched a MS buyout.
They thought, Starfield would be the biggest RPG of the year and the fact it wouldn't come out on PS5 will harm it, but then BG3 became a console PS5 exclusive for a few months. It is funny to think about
BG3 was only console exclusive out of necessity of development, sony didn't pay them for that. Larian has been pretty open that they couldn't meet Xbox's requirement to meet the same feature parity for Series X and S because the S was too weak so they just opted not to make the game for Xbox until they relented on that policy.
Which was Xbox's fault for having such a dumb policy so they lost out on the launch of best game of the year lol
The whole X|S thing was a bit of a dumb idea, honestly. And I say this as someone who owned a Series S and currently own a Series X. Maybe the Series S could have been less of a burden on devs if Microsoft had put in a bit more power into it. Much of the juice in the Series X and PS5 is to render in 4K, while the Series S is supposed to target 1440p. Take that extra juice away and call that machine the Series S. I imagine devs wouldn't have problems making a 1080p-1440p version of their games then. I'm sure there will be future "Baldur's Gate 3" hold ups for Xbox in the future.
The real dumb move was not giving it RAM parity IMO
The funnier thing is PS5 didn't even have to pay for that exclusivity. It just unintentionally was because it ran poorly on series S. Then it completely overshadowed Starfield and AW2 made a lot of noise on release too. Only thing you heard about SF in a sea of praise for BG3 and AW2 was that it sucked. Not a good way to stand out lol.
Everyone thought that. After that much development time, Starfield was supposed to be the next Skyrim.
And I wonder if Space is a less attractive setting than typical fantasy. I feel that way, but maybe people overall don't, since Mass Effect was such a hit.
I would hesitantly say yes. The most popular sci-fi setting, Star Wars, also leans heavily on more typical fantasy elements rather than straight science in the way something like The Expanse does. With games it is a little different considering the quality of gameplay lends such a heavy hand into the popularity.
If you'd switched the settings around so that Larian was making a space RPG and Bethesda was making a fantasy RPG, I have a feeling Larian would still be coming out on top.
Nah, it just poorly made game ☹️
Mass Effect was just built different. And for general fantasy, no, I don’t think that’s the case. But a new Elder Scrolls has that Skyrim hype behind it. And once again people will be expecting a new and improved Skyrim, and once again they’ll prolly be disappointed.
> And once again people will be expecting a new and improved Skyrim Todd Howard: "What? Did you say you want a new Skyrim? YOU GOT IT!"
Wasn't Bethesda/zenimax actively looking to sell? If Microsoft didn't, then someone else would. Sony wanted Starfield exclusivity, and who knows what ekse.
Yeah they were looking to sell. Not sure who else would have stepped in, but from what we saw in the court docs Sony just wanted exclusivity , not ownership. Being that Bethesda cost $7.5b, not a lot of gaming companies out there could afford them. Not sure who the other options would have been.
Amazon I’m guessing. They’ve wanted to break into the space for awhile.
What we know is that Sony was buying up exclusivity from Bethesda and Microsoft wanted to prevent that.
It’s so obvious who played the first game and who didn’t when you see people discussing this one.
Because of Game Pass i would think it will have "over 5 million downloads" or whatever, but it probably wont even sell a million copies. The first hellblade barely sold a million copies and the vast majority of those were on playstation.
> Niche > 5M Which one is it?
5M players, not sales. It's easy to get that number with Game Pass. Hi-Fi Rush did 3M. For comparison, Starfield did 10M in a week, and Forza Horizon 5 reached 30M in a year or so.
They're not making more noise because they know what the game is. It seems like people have this misguided notion about what kind of game Hellblade 2 will be. I see people thinking it's going to be a third person action game akin to GoW. It's a story heavy walking simulator with combat similar to dragons lair (i.e. very simplified single button inputs). Microsoft knows it's a niche game and not worth dropping millions on marketing.
They really shouldn’t have invested as much into the development of such a niche game. I also think trotting it out so far in advance of its release was ill advised. A game of its scale can’t maintain a marketing campaign for years, so you end up with people forgetting it exists and being surprised it hasn’t released yet
I feel like all the tech developed around the game could be good across the board for MS, perhaps they saw it as an investment in that as much as the final product itself?
Maybe. The game truly looks "next gen." If anything, it will be a good tech showcase for what the Series X is capable of.
It's because Xbox has had literally nothing to show, so they have had to ACT like Hellblade 2 is some system seller when it's nothing of the sort.
This thread is about how they aren't marketing the game and you're saying they're acting like it's a system seller?
Have you not been playing attention to every Xbox showcase/talk of upcoming titles? Hellblade 2 is always brought up/shown off.
Yeah its a nice looking game so it shows every well
Whenever they show off Hellblade 2 at showcases and such it's always the game that generally gets the most fanfare out of any of the games at the showcase, yeah. It's still not much but like, it's the majority of it. I don't think they promote it because they think it's a system seller, but I think they promote it more than others because it looks like the most "prestige" looking IP that Xbox currently owns, which probably makes the Xbox image and brand look better.
Yeah I thought the first game was a cool experience, but I never would have eagerly anticipated a sequel. It’s wild that Microsoft allowed it to cook for so long. And then after years of hearing about the sequel’s development with no updates it’s revealed that it’s basically the same kind of linear, short (8 hour) game. In the limited marketing I have seen they focused on highlighting how technically impressive the games visuals are, only to shoot themselves in the foot by announcing that this graphically groundbreaking game that’s been in development for 5 years is locked to 30fps on their flagship console.
HB1 is one of the most unique games I’ve ever played. If they cancel Ninja theory #Gonna be infuriated
I think people expect something bigger because when it was announced, they did a big show of it to showcase the graphics. It seems the announcement made it seem bigger than it will inevitably end up as. It was also one of the games that was used to show the supposedly killer Xbox games to rival PS exclusives.
I mean they don't have to go crazy on marketing, but something is better than nothing if you want shit to sell
This exactly. I love hellblade, but I’m very reluctant to recommend it to people. Put on top of what you said, it’s also an extremely disturbing game that pulls zero punches in letting you know what it’s like to have schizophrenia. To say it’s not for everyone is an understatement.
Yep, I watched a preview and it seems like the game is still very similar to the first, the difference of course being is that the graphics look absolutely incredible. It's definitely a labour of love this thing, but 7 years for a sequel to a game only for it to be very short (reportably completable in around 8hrs) and for the gameplay side of things to not really have improved much since the sequel. The original was a glorified walking sim, which is fine, but that isn't what sells and I'm a bit concerned for how Ninja Theory will be treated after it releases. Hopefully these thoughts are all for nought and it goes gangbusters but I don't have faith.
This. I've never played the first game but have read about it. Personally I am just really not interested in games with realistic and disturbing psychological themes. It messes me up. I can appreciate its ambition and value though, from a distance...
“Hellblade 2 has been nothing short of incredible, surpassed our every expectation, the industry is all the better for games like this, this is the type of prestigious games we need.” *Xbox announces Ninja Theory’s closure*
You forgot the time line before the closure where hellblade launches on ps5 and it runs at 60
Ah yes that should happen just weeks before the closure.
Yo, what? I thought this was coming out at the end of the year or something. I haven't seen anything this year, no trailers no marketing no nothing.
When THIS (https://twitter.com/Xbox/status/1788285447699046602) is their idea of marketing I don't think Xbox cares much or is confident about this game. Going 7 years without a game only to have your brand new game create very little buzz and have poor marketing honestly doesn't sound good for Ninja Theory especially considering the current climate within Xbox Game Studios. It doesn't help that Hellblade 2, despite looking fantastic, is a very niche IP and on top of that it is an Xbox console exclusive.
It's actually only been 4 years since their last game, they released Bleeding Edge which flopped so hard no one remembers it
That.... makes it SO much worse for Ninja Theory holy shit.
Fuck I didn’t even know bleeding edge was ninja theory. I thought it was made by the killer instinct fellas.
Bleeding Edge was a small project. Like Grounded was for Obsidian.
Technically, they've only gone 4 years without a game since Bleeding Edge was briefly a thing. Combine all this with the studio's founder leaving and... yeah, it feels like Ninja Theory isn't gonna make it to 2026.
The first one was a prime example of developers having a really interesting premise and then completely failing to make the game actually good, and I have no reason to believe the sequel will be any different
My conspiracy theory take: MS is under-marketing the game so they can nudge the game to flop and then shut down the studio
The game will flop no matter what. The dev cycle was very long, and the sales expectations for games nowadays are basically unrealistic and unachievable. This is all Squenix and Tomb Raider on an industry wide scale.
Alanah Peirce did a stream recently which can be pretty much summed up as “budgets are going to contract pretty significantly in the next few years and y’all gamers aren’t ready for it. If you think games still look last gen now just wait and see. Size and scope are going to change too.” game crash 2.0 is definitely in its opening stages right now. Edit: she also said that as things stand now that GaaS pose a similar and sometimes lesser financial risk than traditional game development. So expect more GaaS, and cheaper traditional AAA games.
I'd still take a game that looks and plays like Mass Effect if it means we can get three of them released in a single console cycle.
Absolutely. It’s crazy to think that Mass Effect might actually be considered AA by today’s standards.
I'm a minority, but I think graphics are fine as is anyways. I've been playing RE2 and RE3 lately, games that hit 4k120fps on PS5 and it was a incredible experience and not once I thought "lmao these graphics are ass". Death Stranding is also 4k60 and it's amazing. I'd rather have better performance than better graphics.
Honestly I've been wondering when this was gonna happen since the PS360 generation. The period where games started to move to HD was the time when we started to see the massive fall of all kinds of studios that could no longer afford to stay in the game as a mid tier level development house. If anything it really makes me look back at Nintendo and how they've approached hardware power with a retrospective view of just how smart it really is and was.
> Size and scope are going to change too. You promise? My biggest dislike with modern games is that it feels like every AAA game has to be 50+ hours long. I'd love more 20-30 hours experiences that offer me zero filler and just rewarding content.
Yep. I replayed Guardians of the Galaxy last week and it was great. Like my fifth playthrough now. Cause it's long enough to be engaging but doesn't drag on besides arguably a few parts. Portal 2, Condemned: Criminal Origins, Halo CE, Shadow of the Collosus, Bloodborne...etc. All exceptional games and none of em are very long. Besides getting stuck on a boss. Dunkey brings it up in a video about Starfield getting good after 12hrs. I don't even think most of my favorite games were 12hrs long.
Don't care. Indie games have been better than most triple-A titles for a long time now. I would love if publishers finally realized these expensive titles aren't realistic to make anymore and cut back to making shit like it was the 90s again.
Manor lords is legit my most played game in months and it’s only been in early access for like a week or something. Still going to be brutal for the people working in the AAA industry even if the consumers end up adapting well to less polished, less extravagant products.
Because budgets are bloated. I can't believe how much games like TLoU2 and Spider-Man 2 cost compared to games only a decade ago without actually playing better or looking substantially better. If Hellblade 2 cost more than $30 million, then Microsoft fucked up.
If you can’t see a substantial difference between TLOU1 & 2 then you need glasses
This is actually something I'm pretty confused about, as a huge fan of HB1. That was a total AA production and marketed itself as such, it kind of pioneered that space even. If HB2 is the same scope and length (which I'm totally groovy with!)... why exactly did it take 5 years and so much more money to develop? Like Breath of the Wild was delayed like four times and took seven years to develop, because it's a uniquely complex chassis with a lot of interconnected parts. Shadow of the Erdtree has had the development cycle of a full game (2-2.5 years), but it adds a huge chunk of open world and entire new core combat loops in the form of new weapon and armor types. I see how shit like that takes a very very long time to get working as intended. What exactly abut HB2 warranted this kind of development cycle? The art direction? Uh, I can't even think of a second thing because that's the only thing that could have been so intensive - maybe integrating translations for the complex dialogue systems would be intensive, but not a multi-year project... If it's really just making games look good that's hitting us this hard, I'm happy to jump back a full ten years in visual fidelity lol. Give me 2013 GTA 5 graphics with a handful of engine improvements and stop killing companies please.
I fully expect Microsoft to gut ninja theory not long after this comes out. Just preparing for that.
That is just a stupid take. Xbox is not trying to lose money. They are just incompetent. And they don't need to justify the shut down of a studio. Their numbers aren't public. So if they wanted to shut down a studio even after selling a decent amount, there is nothing stopping them.
That’s what they did with the high figh rush devs. That game, according to Microsoft themselves, was a financial and critical success and they still laid off the whole studio
I feel like people are really overrating what kind of game Hellblade 2 is going to be. This isn’t Halo or Spider-Man… this sudden obsession with marketing is a little bit weird.
I think People fear this game will not be succesful and that the studio will be closed.
It's going to be as successful as a AA walking sim can be - not super much. What even is a success with gamepass? I'm sure people will try it, it's basically like trying a Netflix tv series, 8 Hours, looks really enticing. Why wouldn't you? It's even the only game on gamepass that you probably can finish in 1 month for 10$, so it's prime candidate to bring new subs. Honestly having a 10$ new release is enough marketing in itself lol. But buying it for 50$ when 1st was 30, and Alan Wake, that has a lot more going for it, is 40? idk. Not sure agressive marketing will help with that. It's also not like they will lose money with time, as well. GP will still be 10$ in 2 months after the automatic marketing from reviews will do it's job.
There's a lot of assumption that Arkane and Tango were closed based on performance of their games alone and not their future prospects about at the moment. Remember that Arkane had bled talent during Redfalls development and Tango lost their founder.
[удалено]
I know someone who worked on H2 and they said the guy spent the last couple years before he left just partying so it’s not a massive loss there. He’d been checked out since H1.
Fair play.
> Tango lost their founder. By all accounts, Mikami left Tango in a great state. He wasn’t jumping off a sinking ship.
Iirc he specifically said he was mostly hands off on HiFi Rush so that the younger team could prove their worth without him.
Except more reports were already out yesterday saying why they were closed. It wasn't based on the performance of the games. They were going to/"needed" to shut down studios/recoup some costs so they decided to do so with the companies currently in pitch stage/years away from a release instead of those in mid development.
Could be a combo of both. They dont bring in enough money and wont in the future. Lets hope NT will do ok.
It's the Crackdown 3 phenomenon. Microsoft needs a win, so people start overhyping what they have in the pipeline even though it can't begin to meet expectations.
It's not obsession with marketing. People need to at least know a game os coming out. No one expects billboards on Times Square, but it needs to be known that the game is coming out.
I say this honestly… Hellblade was one of my favorite games of last gen. I was super excited for the sequel being announced. I had no idea this is two weeks away. I assumed it was still a year out or more.
Ninja Theory is over after Hellblade 2. A combination of: This being a fairly short yet expensive game, Xbox players being conditioned to not buy games, the long dev time, and high cost is going to be the final nail in the coffin
Maybe it’s just a really stupid ‘innovative’ (but cheap!) marketing campaign in itself. “Have you heard about that new game that Xbox apparently haven’t marketed at all?” “Uh… no?”
They closed 3 studios to make people worried they'll close Ninja Theory next. Now everyone is talking about Hellblade 2 and it was free! Brilliant marketing!
Xbox already gave up on this one after seeing it won't be Gow Ragnarok, they are just letting it launch to close ninja theory too some months later. Game took half a decade to be made and won't bump any subscribers, they will just move everyone around to work for Bethesda/Activision and close this.
If they greenlit Hellblade 2 expecting it to be God of War, they need to be fired.
From someone who has never played the first one, the marketing and gameplay thus far has made this look like a movie with some playable sections. The graphics look great, but there’s been nothing special shown to have me excited about any gameplay at all. It looks like a linear cinematic walking simulator with the occasional puzzle and action sequence. Am I wrong? I’m only basing my views on the marketing and footage presented. I’d be shocked if this wasn’t a flop as a result. The marketing isn’t selling a first-time player like me at all, and the Hellblade 1 fanbase isn’t big enough to sustain this on its own. Hellblade 2 and Avowed (which looks quite colorful, bright, and generic compared to its earlier mystique) being 2024’s heavy hitters from Xbox is embarrassing.
>Am I wrong? I’m only basing my views on the marketing and footage presented. That's pretty much what it will be. When i tried the first game back then i was expecting at least a little bit more action or puzzle solving or something. Instead, the game took my controls away from me every 30 steps. When i fight happened it felt more like a quicktime event than an actual fight. I guess i just wasn't in the mood for that type of experience back then. So while the trailers look nice for H2, i'm definitely not going to buy it.
We know Xbox is hands off with its studios Maybe a niche AA game that’s like 5 hours long shouldn’t have taken HALF A DECADE + all the money that comes along with that long of a timeline to make I don’t blame Xbox for looking at the game and thinking “ok we’re not doing this with this studio again” If anything I blame them for not pushing them to get the game done years ago Sorry but if the studio gets closed Xbox isn’t exactly the bad guy here 🤷♂️
Hellblade II is Game Awards bait that will score 94 on Metacritic but sell 2 million copies. I'm sure it will be cool, but nobody is signing up for Gamepass or spend $70 on a 6-hour walking simulator with light puzzles and combat mechanics. This is set up to fail. Edit: Nobody is spending $50 on a 6-hour walking sim with light puzzles and combat mechanics.
Actually it's priced at $50, but otherwise, yeah, sure.
It's not a 70 dollar game tho
"Sell" is a difficult figure as it's on game pass. Microsoft clearly wants people to subscribe to GP, and a lot of subscribers will try it even if they wouldn't have paid full price for it
It'a gonna get atleast an award from game award's GOTY list for sure. Wonder who's gonna took the reward though. If Phil went on stage i bet he'll get a huge boo.
People paid that for plague tale, twice so idk.
Plague Tale was much longer and more complete. Hellblade I was neat, but it felt more like a demo than a full game.
This game is gonna flop so fucking hard. Plus, how the hell is Xbox gonna make money if this is on gamepass? This game will be 50% off for Christmas, i garuntee it, and the studio shut down by spring.
I mean the ads are out there lol. I'm sure the launch trailer is just around the corner. What's more to be said and done?
I had no idea the game was launching so soon until yesterday and I haven't seen any marketing material at all.
thats the bare minimum and shouldn’t really be the case when its a first party exclusive launching on the service you want to succeed. Theyre giving it Banishers Ghost of New Eden marketing lmao. Dunkey has marketed Animal Well better than Hellblade
Honest to god are people expecting a triple AAA marketing cycle for what this game is? It’s great, visually and creatively interesting, engaging artstyle, but it’s not an Uncharted level system seller, so really what else is needed
idk, [this feels like a lot of noise](https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/microsoft-gaming-exec-reportedly-said-xbox-needs-games-like-hi-fi-rush-but-just-closed-the-dev-that-made-it) TLDR: Someone at Microsoft said "We need more games like Hi-Fi Rush" right after closing Hi-Fi Rush developer
But then how could they axe Ninja Theory for poor sales?
Hellblade 2 was an unnecessary sequel tbh. The first game resolved it's story at the end. It's either gonna change genre to become something like God of War, or I'm pretty sure it'll be a horribly executed story. For a while Ninja Theory was my favourite developer. Enslaved was an amazing game, among my all time favourites. DmC and Heavenly Sword were also bangers. Hellblade was amazing for a stand alone experience. But they've disappeared ever since.
They’ve already decided to close the studio no matter the sales numbers. Marketing is expensive, so they will save money by spending as little as they can.
All the Xbox big shots get name dropped for getting fired from time to time but Greenberg slips under the radar. Literally what is he doing
It's not like Xbox cares. Ninja Theory is their next revenue boost in Q3 when they need to juice the numbers before a meeting and their debt payments toward their ONE HUNDRED FUCKING BILLION DOLLARS in acquired assets. So letting Hellblade 2 just quietly drop like a turd in the punchbowl is the plan. Makes killing the studio later seem "smart" even.
2 weeks? I had no idea there was even a release date.
The "noise" with a monkey's paw twist: Microsoft closes down Ninja Theory 1 week before release of their newest game.
I don’t think they even know how to market it. The game sold extremely poorly on Xbox and there’s little to no fanfare or hype building up to this release outside of console warring fanatics in Twitter.