Hellblade hits 1 million sales across all platforms

Good! I assume they need every sale they can get to keep the lights on.

I'm kidding, btw.

But I am so happy to see them prove an indie studio can succeed without the traditional AAA model. Can't wait to see how their next self-published indie title does!

I just have this gut feeling that Ninja Theory is going to go to the next level with their next game. I'm not saying Naughty Dog levels, but I just have a feeling in the next 5-10 years they will be looked at as one of the "top" developers, along with Playground.

edit: Just read the thread... is this how every Ninja Theory and Compulsion Games threads will go? "Man this looks/is a nice game, too bad MS bought them" it's going to get real annoying. People do realize all of their games will be available for PC and Xbox right? You have a way to play these if you don't have an Xbox.

Zhukov said:

Yes, they greenlit the family-friendly open-world multiplayer GaaS game. "Social experiment". Don't make me fucking laugh.

Long jump from that to a miserable, mourning, nigh on broken Pict lady in the grip of a psychotic break cauterizing her own face with a broken sword.

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Sure because SOT is a real board room idea right, Hellblade that story focused linear campaign with AAA production values that Sony is good at. See how it works both ways.

Congrats NT! So deserved!
I finished it about a week ago, on the X, and it just blew me away in so many ways, I so wasn't prepared for the story, cinematic excellence and crazy good sound design, in the end it'll probably be one of the last games I'll forget about from this generation. Can't believe it was made by about 20 people and on a tight budget!

Need to play this still, keep seeing it on sale for $20 which is a very fair price and have yet to pull the trigger.

Thats some decent sales numbers though!

huh i thought it would have already done

guess sales were slower than i thought

anyway, congratulations to ninja theory. they made a great game

Zhukov said:

I can just see it now:
"That sounds great, but maybe you should consider making it open world." Yet we still get games like Halo 5, Gears, QB, Ori, etc.
"WIll there be a battle royale mode?" Which MS game has a BR mode?
"Our focus group indicates that a male protagonist would be better." Right, when Gears 5 has a female lead.
"Hang on, I don't see where the microtransactions will fit in." Yet Sea of Thieves or State of Decay don't have any. Granted SoT will get some in the future, SoD2 will not feature any microtransactions.

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Why are you so concerned?

Phil's gotta eat

JINX said:

Sure because SOT is a real board room idea right,

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I'm not sure I'd call it a board room idea, but "family friendly pirate adventures with your friends oh look here come the microtransactions" is very board room friendly.

Hellblade that story focused linear campaign with AAA production values that Sony is good at. See how it works both ways.

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For one, Hellblade wasn't close to AAA production. They did a lot with a relatively small budget, but the cracks were very much visible.

Secondly, Hellblade wasn't risky in it's gameplay design. It's a linear game with visual puzzles and melee combat. You have a light attack, a heavy attack, a block, a block-breaker and a dodge. It's actually very vanilla in that regard.

It was risky in its themes and presentation. A straight up and authentic (or at least an earnest attempt at authentic) depiction of full-on mental illness is the exact fucking opposite of board room friendly.

Zhukov said:

I'll believe it when I see it. I shall be happy to be proven wrong.

Until then, I shall remain aggressively skeptical. How many executives do you think would greenlight something like "game about the experience and effects of psychosis told through the eyes of a Pict woman"?

I can just see it now:
"That sounds great, but maybe you should consider making it open world."
"WIll there be a battle royale mode?"
"Our focus group indicates that a male protagonist would be better."
"Hang on, I don't see where the microtransactions will fit in."


I said absolutely nothing about consoles. I have a PC. I can play whatever Microsoft games I want.

Please stop assuming this is some childish console wars bullshit. I have no patience whatsoever for that tiresome drivel.

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this is a pretty darn dumb post. Have you actually followed what games MS has been releasing, like, at all?

I don't get how people think they won't continue to make single player story driven games. You do realize MS needs variety for their gamepass plans to work. They brought in Ninja Theory more than likely because of this. It gives variety to the program which is needed to thrive. Just like Netflix has a lot of variety in their originals but focus on sci-fi and others. MS will have a strong focus on multiplayer games, but they will need strong single player story games to offer on gamepass.

Zhukov said:

I'm not sure I'd call it a board room idea, but "family friendly pirate adventures with your friends oh look here come the microtransactions" is very board room friendly.

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Not in the board room you depict, thats for sure.

For one, Hellblade wasn't close to AAA production. They did a lot with a relatively small budget, but the cracks were very much visible.

Secondly, Hellblade wasn't risky in it's gameplay design. It's a linear game with visual puzzles and melee combat. You have a light attack, a heavy attack, a block, a block-breaker and a dodge. It's actually very vanilla in that regard.

It was risky in its themes and presentation. A straight up and authentic (or at least an earnest attempt at authentic) depiction of full-on mental illness is the exact fucking opposite of board room friendly.

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Well thats obvious, I said production values not a AAA production, the presentation is of a very high level. Your second point just agrees with the point I was making, your last point also shows why being reductive for either game is stupid.

Zhukov said:

Yes, vaguely.

I usually forget about it within ten seconds though, since none of their output is remotely enticing or interesting to me.

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Well this shows me that this conversation and your posts are a waste of time.

BernardoOne said:

this is a pretty darn dumb post. Have you actually followed what games MS has been releasing, like, at all?

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Yes, vaguely.

I usually forget about it within ten seconds though, since none of their output is remotely enticing or interesting to me.

hydrophilic attack said:

huh i thought it would have already done

guess sales were slower than i thought

anyway, congratulations to ninja theory. they made a great game

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It actually sold way faster than they anticipated and the break even point was at 500.000 iirc. It was a AAA digital only budget release with a small team. The lead actress is their own video editor, with no acting done previously! Everything about this game is amazing when you think about it. :)

Somnia said:

I just have this gut feeling that Ninja Theory is going to go to the next level with their next game. I'm not saying Naughty Dog levels, but I just have a feeling in the next 5-10 years they will be looked at as one of the "top" developers, along with Playground.

edit: Just read the thread... is this how every Ninja Theory and Compulsion Games threads will go? "Man this looks/is a nice game, too bad MS bought them" it's going to get real annoying. People do realize all of their games will be available for PC and Xbox right? You have a way to play these if you don't have an Xbox.

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It's almost like people dislike exclusivity.

Zhukov said:

Like I said, I shall believe it when I see it.

*sidelong glance at Bioware who were acquired as a developer of single player RPGs/ARPGs are now making a co-op GaaS Destiny knock-off*

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Good to know Ninja Theory was actually acquired by EA.

A nice round number, great for such a low cost production with such AAA values.

Zhukov said:

Good on 'em.

Nice to see such an oddball game find success.

I was saddened to hear about the developers being bought out by Microsoft. We won't be seeing anything more like this from Ninja Theory.

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concern intensifies.

Zhukov said:

Like I said, I shall believe it when I see it.

*sidelong glance at Bioware who were acquired as a developer of single player RPGs/ARPGs are now making a co-op GaaS Destiny knock-off*

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Any chance Bioware wanted to make ANTHEM themselves and take the next evolutionary step as a studio by any chance or are we just chucking everything that one doesn't like, of as a corporate greed trying to to wrestle away every single cent we have.

Studios and people working there evolve and try new things, maybe you too should try it you just might like it instead of being so grumpy and dismissive before even trying out the game.

less than I expected,such a unique experience.

Akronis said:

It's almost like people dislike exclusivity.

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Guess we should complain in every Naughty Dog thread then since Sony bought them originally.

Anyways this doesn't have to do with the topic at hand. Congrats to Ninja Theory on the 1 million and the amazing game! PLAY THIS WITH HEADPHONES PEOPLE

Akronis said:

It's almost like people dislike exclusivity.

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It's almost as if we don't live in a utopia where there's no such thing as exclusivity and consoles thrive anyway and all developers make games for all consoles.

Zhukov said:

Like I said, I shall believe it when I see it.

*sidelong glance at Bioware who were acquired as a developer of single player RPGs/ARPGs are now making a co-op GaaS Destiny knock-off*

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Anthem looks fucking amazing. Destiny is such shit that Bungie had to dispel rumors that they didnt want to work on Destiny 3 to quell fans on Twitter. Your posts are starting to get ridiculous in this thread.

tryDEATH said:

Any chance Bioware wanted to make ANTHEM themselves and take the next evolutionary step as a studio by any chance or are we just chucking everything that one doesn't like, of as a corporate greed trying to to wrestle away every single cent we have.

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The second one. I'm definitely doing the second one. Because the trend-chasing is blatantly obvious.

Studios and people working there evolve and try new things, maybe you too should try it you just might like it instead of being so grumpy and dismissive before even trying out the game.

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I don't have time or indeed the money to try out every game. Do you?

I dismiss shit all the time. I'd be genuinely amazed if you don't.

Zhukov said:

Yes, vaguely.

I usually forget about it within ten seconds though, since none of their output is remotely enticing or interesting to me.

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Not a single of their game has a battle royale mode
They've released several single player cinematic games, not every one of their games is open world
Similarly, they've had no issues releasing games with female or minority protagonists.

Regret said:

Anthem looks fucking amazing.

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It looks like Destiny. Except you can fly. So that's neat.

Can't wait to grind those loot drops for 0.3% chance of EPIC GUNZ which make slightly bigger numbers come out of the Bad Aliens when you click on them.

Just bought this during the Steam sale.

CurrY said:

Just bought this during the Steam sale.

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Please play with headphones on :) trust me it makes a HUGE difference.

Zhukov said:

The second one. I'm definitely doing the second one. Because the trend-chasing is blatantly obvious.


I don't have time or indeed the money to try out every game. Do you?

I dismiss shit all the time. I'd be genuinely amazed if you don't.

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Work on ANTHEM started around the conclusion of the ME trilogy and was something the studio wanted to work on as ME drained them according to Casey Hudson. So them being pushed it making ANTHEM is simply just your imagination.

And I too don't have time and money for every game, but I sure as hell am not going around and sh*ting on things and talking from a position of a know-it-all, when you clearly don't.

What's up with everyone thinking MS will chain them to a Gears/Halo/Forza franchise? I'm pretty sure, like Rare and Sea of Thieves, they are going to try to give them the necessary space to work with what they want to do. Devs obviously show more passion to projects they can relate to more and not churning out another Gears/Halo/Forza franchise etc. That's my guess.

I still haven't gotten around to finishing Hellblade yet though, but what I did play was amazing. Headphones are a MUST.

gcwy said:

It's almost as if we don't live in a utopia where there's no such thing as exclusivity and consoles thrive anyway and all developers make games for all consoles.

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lol amazing response champ

it's bad for consumers

Congrats, Microsoft

Not great, people around here made me avoid it too even if I knew it had poor combat but oh no it HAD to be played with headphones lol.

Zhukov said:

Good on 'em.

Nice to see such an oddball game find success.

I was saddened to hear about the developers being bought out by Microsoft. We won't be seeing anything more like this from Ninja Theory.

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Why wouldn't we? I would imagine having a big budget would make things easier.

Glad for them. Game didn't really grab me like I hoped it would, but it felt like a project they really put their heart on.

Still glad I supported them, so no sweat.

i-Lo said:

Congrats to them. Hopefully, I'll buy it by the end of this year on XBX. It is one most visually striking games this gen.

Without spoiling the story, is there a potential for a sequel (which would now presumably be an exclusive)?

EDIT: Kind of interesting in retrospect that their first game was a PS3 exclusive (and for which a lot of us wished for a sequel that would never come).

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Nope. Its Kung Fu Chaos, exclusive to the OG XB.

Hopefully their next game sells 10 times the amount.

I hope that MS let them go wild

congrats. Is this on gamepass by the way?

Good game, definitely felt it overstayed its welcome, though.

Shark said:

It was made by 20 people and had a budget of less than $10 million. It's a huge success.

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Truly. The game's narrative is one of the most powerful I've played this generation. So beautifully crafted and written with so much care. Definitely moved into my top 10 of all time. I hope Ninja Theory takes this new AA model and keeps pushing storytelling boundaries.

Really hope MS goes out of their way to publish a physical version now. I want to check this out and support it, but I just have a hard time buying digital-only for console games.

Fully deserved such a unique and unforgettable experience, you need to play it with a headset .

bought it after MS' conference to see what a NT game was like.
Pretty good. Not a straight up character action game like I expected.

Zhukov said:

Like I said in my previous post, every single developer goes on about how much creative freedom they're still going to have when they get bought out.

I didn't call them anything.

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Any examples besides the recent MS devs?

So this game won't be delisted after Microsoft bought them?

Rumblebones said:

Hopefully their next game sells 10 times the amount.

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What if it's not good tho

jrDev said:

So this game won't be delisted after Microsoft bought them?

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Why would it? It's easy money for Microsoft. Just like Minecraft makes Microsoft money for every PS4 or Switch sale. Easy money.

Glad the game found an audience, I really enjoyed my time with it. The presentation was top notch, and the audio is some of the best I've heard in years, the gameplay in the game leaves a lot to be desired, and the game is short at 7 hours, but I can forgive it, since it was a budget release. I look forward to their next game, be it on PC, or xbox.

That's great to hear. Still kinda sad we'll never get a heavenly sword sequel.. I know I'm in the minority but I really did love that game.

Honestly, I wish the game sold more. It's one of the few single player games I actually finished in the past handful of years.

Somnia said:

Please play with headphones on :) trust me it makes a HUGE difference.

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Listen to this man.