Ninja Theory - developer of the Hellblade series - is shutting down as part of today’s Xbox cuts. Its proposed buyers pulled out, resulting in the closure.
Ninja Theory - developer of the Hellblade series - is shutting down as part of today’s Xbox cuts. Its proposed buyers pulled out, resulting in the closure.
Lesson 1: You can do a strange game if you want, it will be acclaimed if done without obvious bugs. But you won’t get much money from that. Especially when you’re under the corporate boot and should give away most of the income anyway.
Lesson 2: You can’t skip lesson 1, make ANOTHER strange game and expect to stay in business.
Cyan, makers of Myst:
Because the 1997 games market is EXACTLY THE SAME as the 2026 market.
Duh.
One would think the market is more susceptible to strange games in 2026. Everyone loves their hyper niches with other forms of media.
If one thought that, one would be creating stories unburdened by grounding facts and reality
Never let reality get in the way of a good story
Myst had classical “adventure” gameplay. Slightly different UI and rather crazy plot, but under the hood it was just an adventure game with puzzles. Hellblade 1-2 was a walking simulator without even a cool plot. The only “killer feature” was the face animation of the main personage.
I haven’t played 2 yet, but gonna have to defend 1 here… I thought the plot, while not mind-blowingly good, was both engaging and good. In fact I’d say it carried the game more than the gameplay.
Game: the most compelling and accurate representation of genuine psycosis ever created, with extensive documentation on engaging with real people with those psychoses to ensure a true-to-life representation; expressed as an epic fantasy dark adventure through hell.
This guy: its boring bro.
I thought it was interesting enough of a premise that I played the first game. The audio design was top notch, especially the voices in her head of course. But the plot went absolutely nowhere, and it doesn’t have anything to say about psychosis or the causes and consequences of it. And the combat is bad. The game is mostly walking through linear levels with occasional graphical stuttering, occasional pressing of square to fight, and very basic puzzles. There was no world where I would have played the second game unless it reviewed differently.
You should really watch the documentary they made about the making of the game. The game itself is literally a commentary about psychosis.
What does it say about the game, that you need to recommend supplemental material so one can get this supposed message?
Its more like “here’s a reference that will get you past being intentionally obtuse on the topic”.
You know people can disagree with you without being intentionally obtuse, right?
At the bare minimum people can actually be obtuse, and that would not be their choice, unlike yours to be condescending and unlikeable, thereby also making people less likely to agree with you regardless of how right you think you are.
You gonna also comment on how mind-numbingly pedestrian the combat was? The uninspired puzzles? Or did you just watch the game on YouTube?
Like, I’m glad the game changed your life, but we’re here to discuss video games and you’re surprised someone called a glorified walking simulator boring?
Walking simulators aren’t even a bad genre if the story is good enough, but the story didn’t have much to say either.
They were independent when Senua 1 was released. Xbox bought them between 1 & 2.
Except the problem was that’s exactly what they were told to do and told they were supported to do by Microsoft. Spencer told them to go make another expensive weird game because he thought the broadening would enhance Gamepass etc. he was wrong, and was replaced, but it still wasn’t ’their fault’.