• Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.

Kaizer

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
2,093
Holy shit, that was intense! Glad to see Hellblade getting a sequel - the future of Ninja Theory being on Xbox definitely is selling point for me to get a Series X.
 

Alek

Games User Researcher
Verified
Oct 28, 2017
8,467
Pretty sure this is also coming to PC like the other Xbox titles.

I think so, but Senua's Sacrifice is on PS4 and Switch too.

I feel the same way with things like the Adaptive Controller that Microsoft put out. Sony should be supporting that device, there are both software and hardware that exist predominantly to promote positive social change, and I think it's better that those types projects are device agnostic wherever possible.
 

Amir Mirzaee

Member
Sep 9, 2018
89
This goes against everything Hellblade stood for.

Hellblade was made with the goal of representing mental health issues. The Monsters, the horrors, the nightmares, all of them fantasies created by Senua's mind and because of her condition. The game was made to be unsettling, to tell its audience that the monsters are not real.

What I see in front of myself is Ninja Theory ditching all that, treating those fantasies as a real thing, and making a game world out of it; prioritizing franchising rather than their message of promoting mental health awareness.

The biggest problem is bringing back Senua. She's become an icon for mental health awareness. We know her background, some reasons on why she's suffering from mental issues, how she got to the point in the story of the game, and how that story concludes.

There were no fights with monsters; there were no real fights happening at all. All of it was happening in Senua's head.

Another viking action game, or even another Hellblade game would've been okay, but bringing Senua back, considering the story of the first game, only shows that Ninja Theory is capitalizing on her popularity and disregarding everything they worked for in the first game.
 

Xumbrega

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,080
Brasil
I guess so, I played it a little later down the line.

I don't think launching asynchronously is an issue though. Being able to play a game a little later seems very different from not being able to play a game at all. With that said, I think in an ideal world, you want this type of game to be hardware agnostic. I would argue that, for several reasons...

a) If your intentions to promote social change are genuine, then you should inherently want your game to be reached by as many as possible. Sometimes it's not possible for logistical reasons, but I don't think wherever possible the idea of getting this type of game to as many people as possible should prevail
b) These types of games, those that focus in on very sensitive and personal human phenomena, I think they have a lot of power with people. They may not sell all that well, but I think the people that they do resonate with become very personally attached by them, and then to see the sequel to that experience used as a bargaining chip in a console war... it just feels, tacky perhaps? I'd feel the same way if we had a sequel to That Dragon Cancer promoting a new hardware launch.

I'll play this on the next XBOX, but I'd prefer it be released as widely as possible.

This will launch on Xbox consoles, PCs and any mobile device trough Xcloud... this will be way more accessible than the first one tho?
 

KernelC

alt account
Banned
Aug 28, 2019
3,561
cool trailer, could've done without seeing the girl sing but I guess tech demos are meant to show off the new tech. Badass all around, spooky but great song
 

danrbg

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Dec 9, 2018
733
User Warned: Trolling
I guess so, I played it a little later down the line.

I don't think launching asynchronously is an issue though. Being able to play a game a little later seems very different from not being able to play a game at all. With that said, I think in an ideal world, you want this type of game to be hardware agnostic. I would argue that, for several reasons...

a) If your intentions to promote social change are genuine, then you should inherently want your game to be reached by as many as possible. Sometimes it's not possible for logistical reasons, but I don't think wherever possible the idea of getting this type of game to as many people as possible should prevail
b) These types of games, those that focus in on very sensitive and personal human phenomena, I think they have a lot of power with people. They may not sell all that well, but I think the people that they do resonate with become very personally attached by them, and then to see the sequel to that experience used as a bargaining chip in a console war... it just feels, tacky perhaps? I'd feel the same way if we had a sequel to That Dragon Cancer promoting a new hardware launch.

I'll play this on the next XBOX, but I'd prefer it be released as widely as possible.
lol
 

ActWan

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,334
This goes against everything Hellblade stood for.

Hellblade was made with the goal of representing mental health issues. The Monsters, the horrors, the nightmares, all of them fantasies created by Senua's mind and because of her condition. The game was made to be unsettling, to tell its audience that the monsters are not real.

What I see in front of myself is Ninja Theory ditching all that, treating those fantasies as a real thing, and making a game world out of it; prioritizing franchising rather than their message of promoting mental health awareness.

The biggest problem is bringing back Senua. She's become an icon for mental health awareness. We know her background, some reasons on why she's suffering from mental issues, how she got to the point in the story of the game, and how that story concludes.

There were no fights with monsters; there were no real fights happening at all. All of it was happening in Senua's head.

Another viking action game, or even another Hellblade game would've been okay, but bringing Senua back, considering the story of the first game, only shows that Ninja Theory is capitalizing on her popularity and disregarding everything they worked for in the first game.
Pretty much exactly my thoughts...
We'll see if the next trailers can redeem it a bit, because this one was certainly worrying.
 

Shpeshal Nick

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
7,856
Melbourne, Australia
I guess so, I played it a little later down the line.

I don't think launching asynchronously is an issue though. Being able to play a game a little later seems very different from not being able to play a game at all. With that said, I think in an ideal world, you want this type of game to be hardware agnostic. I would argue that, for several reasons...

a) If your intentions to promote social change are genuine, then you should inherently want your game to be reached by as many as possible. Sometimes it's not possible for logistical reasons, but I don't think wherever possible the idea of getting this type of game to as many people as possible should prevail
b) These types of games, those that focus in on very sensitive and personal human phenomena, I think they have a lot of power with people. They may not sell all that well, but I think the people that they do resonate with become very personally attached by them, and then to see the sequel to that experience used as a bargaining chip in a console war... it just feels, tacky perhaps? I'd feel the same way if we had a sequel to That Dragon Cancer promoting a new hardware launch.

I'll play this on the next XBOX, but I'd prefer it be released as widely as possible.

Can't tell if serious.
 

Iwao

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,781
Nah Naughty Dog have used faciel capture since Uncharted 4.
Naughty Dog uses facial capture data to hand animate character faces, taking liberties in constructing facial expressions depending on what is directed. It's done in post. What Ninja Theory does is different - they have a mounted camera that embeds the live performance - their actual face - straight into UE4's Sequencer Editor tool used for cutscenes. It's crazy.
 

Danteyke223

Banned
Oct 24, 2018
937
Game gets a sequel and is a singleplayer game published by MS. Comments here: This is just a cashgrab, or why is this even a sequel ...

Ah well. MS always loses
 

DFG

Self requested ban
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
3,591
This goes against everything Hellblade stood for.

Hellblade was made with the goal of representing mental health issues. The Monsters, the horrors, the nightmares, all of them fantasies created by Senua's mind and because of her condition. The game was made to be unsettling, to tell its audience that the monsters are not real.

What I see in front of myself is Ninja Theory ditching all that, treating those fantasies as a real thing, and making a game world out of it; prioritizing franchising rather than their message of promoting mental health awareness.

The biggest problem is bringing back Senua. She's become an icon for mental health awareness. We know her background, some reasons on why she's suffering from mental issues, how she got to the point in the story of the game, and how that story concludes.

There were no fights with monsters; there were no real fights happening at all. All of it was happening in Senua's head.

Another viking action game, or even another Hellblade game would've been okay, but bringing Senua back, considering the story of the first game, only shows that Ninja Theory is capitalizing on her popularity and disregarding everything they worked for in the first game.
I thought initially it was someone else, not her. Why did NT go thos route? Hellblade is one of my fav games because of the themes it explored. I'm so incredibly disappointed.
 

Haint

Banned
Oct 14, 2018
1,361
Graphics are fantastic, but does anyone else find NT's over the top wildly exaggerated style of performance capture/acting incredibly grating and cringey? It seems so forced and fake like a Highschool drama play.
 

Crossing Eden

Member
Oct 26, 2017
53,304
This goes against everything Hellblade stood for.

Hellblade was made with the goal of representing mental health issues. The Monsters, the horrors, the nightmares, all of them fantasies created by Senua's mind and because of her condition. The game was made to be unsettling, to tell its audience that the monsters are not real.

What I see in front of myself is Ninja Theory ditching all that, treating those fantasies as a real thing, and making a game world out of it; prioritizing franchising rather than their message of promoting mental health awareness.

The biggest problem is bringing back Senua. She's become an icon for mental health awareness. We know her background, some reasons on why she's suffering from mental issues, how she got to the point in the story of the game, and how that story concludes.

There were no fights with monsters; there were no real fights happening at all. All of it was happening in Senua's head.

Another viking action game, or even another Hellblade game would've been okay, but bringing Senua back, considering the story of the first game, only shows that Ninja Theory is capitalizing on her popularity and disregarding everything they worked for in the first game.
The original teaser trailer for the first game also indicated nothing about mental health issues being the subject of the game.


Best not to jump the gun considering how they handled the first game.

Naughty Dog uses facial capture data to hand animate character faces. Taking liberties in animating facial features depending on what is directed. It's done in post. What Ninja Theory does is different - they have a mounted camera that embeds the live performance straight into UE4's Sequencer Editor tool used for cutscenes. It's crazy
What you're describing isn't an ND specific thing. Ninja Theory's animators go in and edit the data as well after it's captured. EVERY game studio utilizing that technology does. What NT did was research a method that could provide really good results before the nitty gritty.
 
Last edited:

Memento

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
8,129
If AAA stuff really looks like this next gen, this will be an fucking incredible new generation

But honestly... I am really doubful

Hope I am wrong
 

Firima

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,471
For real though, Ninja Theory went from worrying about making payroll to blowing the lid off of the next console generation with probably the most graphically impressive trailer ever made.

Xbox division is firing on all cylinders right now and the next couple of years are going to be a fucking ride.
 

rusty chrome

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
8,640
It is confirmed realtime in engine
...Which doesn't mean the gameplay will look like that. A lot of games this gen have gorgeous cutscenes that make the in-game gameplay look far less detailed in comparison. When you're only rendering what's in the cutscene and not the world around it, you can focus entirely on just those models, which allows for more detail than you'd see in actual gameplay. More detail, more animation.
 

Deleted member 2229

User requested account closure
Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,740
This goes against everything Hellblade stood for.

Hellblade was made with the goal of representing mental health issues. The Monsters, the horrors, the nightmares, all of them fantasies created by Senua's mind and because of her condition. The game was made to be unsettling, to tell its audience that the monsters are not real.

What I see in front of myself is Ninja Theory ditching all that, treating those fantasies as a real thing, and making a game world out of it; prioritizing franchising rather than their message of promoting mental health awareness.

The biggest problem is bringing back Senua. She's become an icon for mental health awareness. We know her background, some reasons on why she's suffering from mental issues, how she got to the point in the story of the game, and how that story concludes.

There were no fights with monsters; there were no real fights happening at all. All of it was happening in Senua's head.

Another viking action game, or even another Hellblade game would've been okay, but bringing Senua back, considering the story of the first game, only shows that Ninja Theory is capitalizing on her popularity and disregarding everything they worked for in the first game.
While I definitely get the concern I think it would be best until we know or hear more about the title rather than making harsh declarative statements. I also think that there's also a lot more room for Hellblade to delve into mental health as a whole and while the monsters aren't real in some cases, they can be very real in others and I don't think a game about learning to deal with the real monsters would be all that bad either. But again, it depends on how the whole project shakes out. Maybe they're using the increased budget to really fulfil a vision of the first game that they couldn't really execute on with its circumstances. There's a lot of room to do interesting and cool stuff.
 

rokkerkory

Banned
Jun 14, 2018
14,128
...Which doesn't mean the gameplay will look like that. A lot of games this gen have gorgeous cutscenes that make the in-game gameplay look far less detailed in comparison. When you're only rendering what's in the cutscene and not the world around it, you can focus entirely on just those models, which allows for more detail than you'd see in actual gameplay.

Pls read what i was replying to. Never said anything about gameplay.
 

Alek

Games User Researcher
Verified
Oct 28, 2017
8,467
This will launch on Xbox consoles, PCs and any mobile device trough Xcloud... this will be way more accessible than the first one tho?

That's true. Being on xCloud should help accessibility, but it's worth noting that we don't really know what those services are going to look like, or how good they're going to be. If Stadia is anything to go by, then cloud gaming is still quite far removed from being an good way to play a game for most people.

This goes against everything Hellblade stood for.

Hellblade was made with the goal of representing mental health issues. The Monsters, the horrors, the nightmares, all of them fantasies created by Senua's mind and because of her condition. The game was made to be unsettling, to tell its audience that the monsters are not real.

What I see in front of myself is Ninja Theory ditching all that, treating those fantasies as a real thing, and making a game world out of it; prioritizing franchising rather than their message of promoting mental health awareness.

The biggest problem is bringing back Senua. She's become an icon for mental health awareness. We know her background, some reasons on why she's suffering from mental issues, how she got to the point in the story of the game, and how that story concludes.

There were no fights with monsters; there were no real fights happening at all. All of it was happening in Senua's head.

Another viking action game, or even another Hellblade game would've been okay, but bringing Senua back, considering the story of the first game, only shows that Ninja Theory is capitalizing on her popularity and disregarding everything they worked for in the first game.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. This is what I was worried about when they were acquired, that Hellblade would be designed to entertain, rather than for social change. It misses the point.

With that said, I'm open to being wrong. We've only seen a brief trailer, the game may be very different but the tone of what we've seen definitely seems to miss the mark.
 

Memento

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
8,129
...Which doesn't mean the gameplay will look like that. A lot of games this gen have gorgeous cutscenes that make the in-game gameplay look far less detailed in comparison. When you're only rendering what's in the cutscene and not the world around it, you can focus entirely on just those models, which allows for more detail than you'd see in actual gameplay.

Yeah I remember that Uncharted 3 and TLOU in engine announcement trailers

The final game didnt look like that at all, so yeah, that is why I am skeptical with the in engine wording
 

Talus

Banned
Dec 9, 2017
1,386
This goes against everything Hellblade stood for.

Hellblade was made with the goal of representing mental health issues. The Monsters, the horrors, the nightmares, all of them fantasies created by Senua's mind and because of her condition. The game was made to be unsettling, to tell its audience that the monsters are not real.

What I see in front of myself is Ninja Theory ditching all that, treating those fantasies as a real thing, and making a game world out of it; prioritizing franchising rather than their message of promoting mental health awareness.

The biggest problem is bringing back Senua. She's become an icon for mental health awareness. We know her background, some reasons on why she's suffering from mental issues, how she got to the point in the story of the game, and how that story concludes.

There were no fights with monsters; there were no real fights happening at all. All of it was happening in Senua's head.

Another viking action game, or even another Hellblade game would've been okay, but bringing Senua back, considering the story of the first game, only shows that Ninja Theory is capitalizing on her popularity and disregarding everything they worked for in the first game.
You should play the game first before coming to such conclusions.
 

¡ B 0 0 P !

Banned
Apr 4, 2019
2,915
Greater Toronto Area
This goes against everything Hellblade stood for.

Hellblade was made with the goal of representing mental health issues. The Monsters, the horrors, the nightmares, all of them fantasies created by Senua's mind and because of her condition. The game was made to be unsettling, to tell its audience that the monsters are not real.

What I see in front of myself is Ninja Theory ditching all that, treating those fantasies as a real thing, and making a game world out of it; prioritizing franchising rather than their message of promoting mental health awareness.

The biggest problem is bringing back Senua. She's become an icon for mental health awareness. We know her background, some reasons on why she's suffering from mental issues, how she got to the point in the story of the game, and how that story concludes.

There were no fights with monsters; there were no real fights happening at all. All of it was happening in Senua's head.

Another viking action game, or even another Hellblade game would've been okay, but bringing Senua back, considering the story of the first game, only shows that Ninja Theory is capitalizing on her popularity and disregarding everything they worked for in the first game.

I don't think you can say all that when it's just a teaser. No gameplay or plot points were revealed. For all we know this could be a story about Senua hunting down the vikings who killed her husband and the religious/supernatural stuff like the troll shown in the trailer is all in her head?
 

Pryme

Member
Aug 23, 2018
8,164
I guess so, I played it a little later down the line.

I don't think launching asynchronously is an issue though. Being able to play a game a little later seems very different from not being able to play a game at all. With that said, I think in an ideal world, you want this type of game to be hardware agnostic. I would argue that, for several reasons...

a) If your intentions to promote social change are genuine, then you should inherently want your game to be reached by as many as possible. Sometimes it's not possible for logistical reasons, but I don't think wherever possible the idea of getting this type of game to as many people as possible should prevail
b) These types of games, those that focus in on very sensitive and personal human phenomena, I think they have a lot of power with people. They may not sell all that well, but I think the people that they do resonate with become very personally attached by them, and then to see the sequel to that experience used as a bargaining chip in a console war... it just feels, tacky perhaps? I'd feel the same way if we had a sequel to That Dragon Cancer promoting a new hardware launch.

I'll play this on the next XBOX, but I'd prefer it be released as widely as possible.

Might as well call for them to give out free consoles so everyone gets to play it.

/s

ifs getting a release on xbox, PC and hundreds of millions of phones and ultra books via xCloud.
 

Kingpin Rogers

HILF
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
7,459
Gotta be honest that trailer just pissed me off with seeing her face look so fucking dumb doing that shouting.

Wonder if the games visuals will actually look like that, knowing console launches and "in engine footage" I severely doubt it.
 

GamerDude

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
6,313
I wonder when this will launch. Didn't Phil say "early" or "very early" in development? Probably 2021 then.
 

ghibli99

Member
Oct 27, 2017
17,728
Looked freakin' amazing. I do hope the gameplay is a little more in-depth than it was in the first game (even though it didn't bother me nearly as much as some).
 

HiLife

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
39,625
I've heard and seen gameplay for the first but never tried it. This trailer is enough I downloaded it from Gamepass.
 

rusty chrome

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
8,640
Gotta be honest that trailer just pissed me off with seeing her face look so fucking dumb doing that shouting.
Ninja Theory usually does this. Even back in Heavenly Sword's cutscenes, there was usually some kind of over-acted shouting or screaming to heighten the "emotion" in the scene. It got kind of annoying after awhile lol.
 

Browser

Member
Apr 13, 2019
2,031
This goes against everything Hellblade stood for.

Hellblade was made with the goal of representing mental health issues. The Monsters, the horrors, the nightmares, all of them fantasies created by Senua's mind and because of her condition. The game was made to be unsettling, to tell its audience that the monsters are not real.

What I see in front of myself is Ninja Theory ditching all that, treating those fantasies as a real thing, and making a game world out of it; prioritizing franchising rather than their message of promoting mental health awareness.

The biggest problem is bringing back Senua. She's become an icon for mental health awareness. We know her background, some reasons on why she's suffering from mental issues, how she got to the point in the story of the game, and how that story concludes.

There were no fights with monsters; there were no real fights happening at all. All of it was happening in Senua's head.

Another viking action game, or even another Hellblade game would've been okay, but bringing Senua back, considering the story of the first game, only shows that Ninja Theory is capitalizing on her popularity and disregarding everything they worked for in the first game.
This is word for word exactly what I think about this trailer. I saw the doc they did, and the years of mental health counsel they got to get all the elements of hellblade just right, and for the life of me I cannot see where they could go to further the themes they so brilliantly did in hellblade one, or even what themes they can go for now taking into accountthe senua we saw at the end of hellblade one.

Senua is not a badass warrior, that was the point. She was a prisioner of trauma. This trailer shows her angry and battle ready. Its not the same senua I know.

Man I want to be wrong so much
 

Jaypah

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,866
Don't have any plans for buying the next Xbox but that was the most impressive real-time trailer I've even seen. I'll reserve judgement about the themes of the game until I know more because, duh. Seriously doubt that team would just derp out and go full fantasy killing spree game after how they handled the last game, not only in their game but also in their words and actions after release. But, again, I'll wait and see
 

OneBadMutha

Member
Nov 2, 2017
6,059
That's true. Being on xCloud should help accessibility, but it's worth noting that we don't really know what those services are going to look like, or how good they're going to be. If Stadia is anything to go by, then cloud gaming is still quite far removed from being an good way to play a game for most people.



I agree with this wholeheartedly. This is what I was worried about when they were acquired, that Hellblade would be designed to entertain, rather than for social change. It misses the point.

With that said, I'm open to being wrong. We've only seen a brief trailer, the game may be very different but the tone of what we've seen definitely seems to miss the mark.

  1. Hellblade was a passion project made with a 20 person team. It's naïve to think they would make a niche game with a much more expensive team.
  2. Just because Hellblade 2 expands the fantasy to become more mainstream doesn't mean it can't carry some of the same messaging from the first game. It can be more metaphorical.
  3. Hellblade 1 doesn't cease to exist due to Hellblade 2...regardless of what they do.
I don't think people who want a game to be more approachable and a developer accommodating them are being disrespectful to their original cause. They still made the first game. Donated money. If you give up a weekend donating your time to a charity, does that mean you are doing something wrong if the next weekend you go out drinking with friends instead?
 

nib95

Contains No Misinformation on Philly Cheesesteaks
Banned
Oct 28, 2017
18,498
I have no idea how close the actual gameplay will look in comparison to this trailer, but my word did it look graphically incredible. Very excited to see how it turns out.