Hellblade 2 is perhaps the most visually remarkable Xbox title to date, but is ultimately undermined by its emphasis on fidelity over story and gameplay.
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, developed by Ninja Theory, continues the journey of Senua, delving deeper into her psychosis and exploring themes of trauma, resilience, and self-discovery. This highly anticipated sequel builds on the foundation laid by its predecessor, with a focus on narrative depth, visual excellence, and immersive sound design.
Ninja Theory writes: "We've added some fixes to improve the game experience"
"Misaligned peach fuzz around Senua's neck and face has been corrected"
ahh, just the patch ive been waiting for, can jump in now, safe in the knowledge, misaligned hairs have been aligned...
what a Day to be alive
Wasted visuals, the game is interesting only at the 4th chapter, dumb ending
rushed and unfinished story
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 launched last week to solid reviews from both fans and players. But its playercount? That's another story.
That's awful. This combined with the really low Steam numbers paint a disastrous picture imo. Really bad timing too because Tango was closed down for a similar thing. Great reviewed game, and low sales and/or player count. Hi-Fi Rush reviewed a hell of a lot better and it was widely loved by everyone, Hellblade 2 nowhere near that.
I know the rumor is that the studio has their next game already green-lit, but if I worked at Tango, I would be furious. "Why do they survive while we get binned?" I'd be telling myself.
But the suit woman will have you believe "Oh we have different metrics for the success of one studio compared to another studio. We judge each studio and game on their own set criteria" or something like that, I'm paraphrasing here but you get the idea. But no one who works there knows what the hell that even means. I mean the DLC for Redfall was getting worked on days before they even got the news their studio was getting dumped in the trash. So what are these mysterious metrics to let studios survive and others perish? I bet this is all hogwash, I bet MS don't even really know. They just had to make cuts and certain studios just found their way on the chopping block. Someone had to bite the dust, why not you?
Well I bet all this does nothing for the confidence of other employees in other studios. The truth is you have no idea where your career will be in a year from now working at one of their studios that aren't the mega big ones. MS just have too many studios to manage efficiently. "We'll just throw money at them and buy them and worry about the details later on. I mean we can do it, we're Microsoft."
If this game cost more and took longer to develop than Hi-Fi Rush, then I would worry if I were Ninja Theory. Projects may have been greenlit, but the increased scrutiny over at MS may very well put them on the chopping block. The incredible irony here is that it was PlayStation players that pushed the original game passed its 1 million copies sold milestone. With that purchasing power cut out, and the Game Pass effect having trained Xbox players to not purchase games, it seems that the sequel may have been set-up for failure.
Fidelity over story and gameplay? “Extremely minimal gameplay with simple puzzles and flat combat.” - Wow that's pretty damning. I'm still going to check it out though. It will be an experience
someone wrote: "IGN 8 but Gamespot 6, so it is 7" lol
Confirms what we already knew.
As I said monthy..even years ago. It was a clear sign that they showed almost zero gameplay during the last 4 years, since its first trailer. Its more like a beautiful tech demo than anything else I bet.
Feels we’re split between two camps with these reviews
Those giving it perfect or almost near perfect scores only really talk about the graphics with how impressive it is. It’s the main core topic discussed.
The other talks about everything else while not getting sucked into how pretty it is.
Feels like it’s early 2010s where graphics were everything