Support NeoGAF

[Jam Dingo]

I know it's not just me but I can't emphasize enough just how off-putting I found the idea of playing as a crazy woman having a psychotic episode. It has to be one of the most depressing premises for a game ever conceived.

 

[TheInfamousKira]

I know it's not just me but I can't emphasize enough just how off-putting I found the idea of playing as a crazy woman having a psychotic episode. It has to be one of the most depressing premises for a game ever conceived.

This isn't a thread about The Last of Us...

Oh, no, I get it now.

 

[SEGAvangelist]

I know it's not just me but I can't emphasize enough just how off-putting I found the idea of playing as a crazy woman having a psychotic episode. It has to be one of the most depressing premises for a game ever conceived.

It's cool as shit when she goes crazy and screams and shit, though. The presentation and setting are so good in this game. It's really the gameplay that was lacking. Senua looks to address that, so I'll be upset if it never releases.

 

[LordCBH]

Agree, they had all the time and money in the world since 2018 Xbox acquisition.
They released Hellblade 2 and Bleeding Edge.
It's like asking for the studio to be closed.

I completely forgot Bleeding Edge was them. Looks like Guerilla lifted the fat chick character model straight from that game for Hunters Gather.

 

[Sorcerer]

Feels like Matt Booty was just too hands off in general with the entire slate of studios. FIRE MATTHEW VERNON BOOTY!

It seems like Ninja Theory had a sensible approach: I think I am leaning towards Microsoft thought that Ninja Theory was going to give them a God of War:

From Wikipedia:

Operating on a much smaller budget with Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice than their previous games, Ninja Theory went out of their usual ways to film the cutscenes of the game. Instead of going to bigger studios and having a team of approximately 20 people film several actors together, as they did in the past, they filmed only Juergens in a small space, with only three other people needed on set: Antoniades directing and filming, one person to look after the audio, and one person to look after the motion capture process. To save more money, the team used equipment described by Antoniades as "fairly cheap", including material bought at a low price at IKEA and on Amazon.<a further cost-saving measure, they used their own boardroom for the motion capture scenes, rather than using external motion capture studio spac

 

[yurinka]

That being said NT is a small team of what, 50 people? Their size was relatively small and to my knowledge HB2 was AAA done on close to Yotei budget, not a bloated 400+ million mess like new Gears. NT acted as a prestige team (like MM and Asobi for Sony) and not a huge moneysink and it's kinda disheartening to start a purgatory with them and not Turn10 or some other truly expensive failures like 343.

They are around 130+ people.

In AAA games, only a small percentage of the people who work in the game are from the lead dev studio. In case of Hellblade 2, the game credits (which didn't credit the people from support/outsourcing studios, just mentioned their teams) list over 330 people who worked on it.

Were the Senua games successful?

The second apparently not at all, seems to have sold around 500K copies combining Steam + PSN. You should add Xbox copies + PS5 physical sales + whatever it may have generated with GP. Pretty likely in total hasn't generated to the equivalent of 1M copies sold. Bleeding Edge apparently what bleeded was money too.

If they did a sequel, I assume it was because the first one worked better (but not much). But back then they were bragging about being indies and saying they didn't want to work with publishers or to sell, but ended selling the studio to MS, which I assume means their financials back then were in awful shape and their alternative to sell was to shut down.

 

[SEGAvangelist]

It seems like Ninja Theory had a sensible approach: I think I am leaning towards Microsoft thought that Ninja Theory was going to give them a God of War:

From Wikipedia:

Operating on a much smaller budget with Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice than their previous games, Ninja Theory went out of their usual ways to film the cutscenes of the game. Instead of going to bigger studios and having a team of approximately 20 people film several actors together, as they did in the past, they filmed only Juergens in a small space, with only three other people needed on set: Antoniades directing and filming, one person to look after the audio, and one person to look after the motion capture process. To save more money, the team used equipment described by Antoniades as "fairly cheap", including material bought at a low price at IKEA and on Amazon.<a further cost-saving measure, they used their own boardroom for the motion capture scenes, rather than using external motion capture studio spac

It was almost 5 years from announce to release for a sequel to a walking sim with light combat. The game released and had even less depth than the previous game, was in letterbox and ran at 30fps on consoles. The game was probably in development for a total of 7 years. Awful.

 

[LordCBH]

It seems like Ninja Theory had a sensible approach: I think I am leaning towards Microsoft thought that Ninja Theory was going to give them a God of War:

From Wikipedia:

Operating on a much smaller budget with Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice than their previous games, Ninja Theory went out of their usual ways to film the cutscenes of the game. Instead of going to bigger studios and having a team of approximately 20 people film several actors together, as they did in the past, they filmed only Juergens in a small space, with only three other people needed on set: Antoniades directing and filming, one person to look after the audio, and one person to look after the motion capture process. To save more money, the team used equipment described by Antoniades as "fairly cheap", including material bought at a low price at IKEA and on Amazon.<a further cost-saving measure, they used their own boardroom for the motion capture scenes, rather than using external motion capture studio spac

I wasn't a huge fan of the first one, but I respected them for what they put out on that limited budget. I did not respect the second one lol

 

[DeepEnigma]

Rough day for my man @adamsapple

Post in thread 'Asha - We are Xbox'

Apr 23, 2026

Slay queen.

• adamsapple

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

 

[DEAD ORIGINAL]

Ahsa visiting Ninja Theory.

 

[yurinka]

I was also angry at Sony for BP but wasn't there a report from ex BP devs who said that it was BP who decided to work on that?
Also management internally wasn't that great.

I surely blame Sony for not letting them go forward with Bloodborne remake because FromSoftware didn't like the idea of someone else doing it.

There are reports from BP studio heads mentioning when they were selling the studio (after Demon's Souls remake release) that they didn't want to work in more remasters or remakes after Demon's Souls (maybe due to the low sales they had) and that they wanted to work on new games going forward instead, as we later saw it was the case with God of War Ragnarok.

There was also a quote from Miyazaki saying that he liked the Demon's Souls remake and that he didn't see the point on remastering/remaking Bloodborne this generation, that he prefered to keep two generations of difference, as they did with Demon's Souls, to keep a bigger difference between both versions.

So pretty likely the reason of not having a Bloodborne remaster/remake wasn't because of Sony, but instead because Bluepoint and FromSoft didn't want to make it.

DmC is the best Devil May Cry game when it comes to replay value. I don't make the rules. RIP Ninjas.

The redesign of the characters (particularly Dante) was awful, and the framerate when released was too low. But other than this, it was a great game. But well, there was Capcom there too overviewing and asking for changes, as I assume also happened in Heavenly Sword with Sony or Bamco with Enslaved.

 

[Sorcerer]

I wasn't a huge fan of the first one, but I respected them for what they put out on that limited budget. I did not respect the second one lol

It was weird. The first one works as a onetime experiment. The story is resolved. Then they try to make Senua a "Hero of the People" her issues are still there, and the dad still seems to be around???

 

[yurinka]

That's why people parroting the "record profits" are mostly useful brand idiots. When you actually dig into their "record" profits it's bleak as fuck. They're milking their current customers, aren't making new customers, and aren't selling games. When the majority of your profits are from subscriptions and MTX that's not a sustainable business model, much less something worth bragging about.

Their fiscal reports show as a fact that they're having record profits this generation, to deny it is to be a gaming flatearther. These record profits come from different sources, like record revenue in hardware, accesories or off-PS first party revenue, but mainly because of the increase in addons and subs, because they are a perfectly sustainable and profitable business model for them.

These reports also show that are making new customers because they are also having the biggest active userbase any console brand ever had in gaming history. And that's in PlayStation, isn't counting new users they did in other platforms like mobile or PC.

Regarding their first party games, extrapolating the revenue from their full game units sales plus percentage of first vs total sales, plus add the off-PS revenue, and consider they also must be making way more revenue from addons, their first party games appear to be generating around twice the revenue they generated a generation ago. Matching an estimate Jim Ryan mentioned as goal for around March 2026 in an interview after announcing the PC+GaaS push back in 2021.

Addons (microtransactions+dlcs+passes) is the main revenue not for Sony or PS, but for all the gaming platforms and main publishers except maybe Nintendo.

 

[Fbh]

Sucks for those affected, but I never got the point of acquiring them.
I thought they wanted a team that could deliver cinematic Sony style experiences, give MS their own game in the style of GOW 2018 or TLOU or something like that.
Instead they just made a short walking simulator.

I know it's not just me but I can't emphasize enough just how off-putting I found the idea of playing as a crazy woman having a psychotic episode. It has to be one of the most depressing premises for a game ever conceived.

I really liked the first game. The setting, visuals and the entire premise of being psychotic and having voices in your head (specially playing with headphones) made it a unique and memorable eperience to me.
It's just that it really didn't need a sequel, much less to become a franchise. It felt like a very one off experience to me. It's like if they tried to make a movie franchise out of The Shawshank Redemption or Memento, it's just not that type of IP.

 

[simpatico]

The redesign of the characters (particularly Dante) was awful, and the framerate when released was too low. But other than this, it was a great game. But well, there was Capcom there too overviewing and asking for changes, as I assume also happened in Heavenly Sword with Sony or Bamco with Enslaved.

It ran at 60fps on launch. Framerates beyond 60 weren't commonplace at the time. It's not like the characters in Devil May Cry were ever good, our interest in them is nostalgic. Not like an actually good design.

 

[Idleyes]

We are witnessing the consequences brought from 10+ years of west coast developers chasing a demographic that doesnt play console games. This is their own fucking fault.

This. ^^^ All day. It doesn't matter how people feel about it; it's just reality. You can't build a successful platform around a demographic that represents only a tiny percentage of the population. Broad appeal across multiple demographics is what keeps a platform healthy and growing.

Unless, of course, your long-term plan is to watch your studio get shut down.

 

[MALpractice311]

Hopefully they'll reverse the decision tomorrow.

Underrated comment. Well played, sir.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Closing down ninja theory isn't the end of the world, hellblade 2 stained hellblade 1.

 

[yurinka]

It ran at 60fps on launch. Framerates beyond 60 weren't commonplace at the time. It's not like the characters in Devil May Cry were ever good, our interest in them is nostalgic. Not like an actually good design.

No, it did run at 30fps at launch in PS3 and 360, while DMC3 and 4, released before it, were 60fps.

Back then a Capcom representative's quote saying that it was going to be 30fps but that was going to feel like 60fps became a meme.

It didn't get 60fps until it got the Definitive Edition for PS4 and XBO.

 

[mckmas8808]

Also, wasn't it reported that Bluepoint pitched the GoW live service game? It wasn't Sony who made them to do it, though they deserved criticism for saying Yes.

Correct on both accounts. People don't want to have that conversation though, due to hate and console wars.

 

[Jibran#one]

Tell me if microsoft is not run by some idiots ,
Why announce a new game if ur closing the fucking studio u dumb fucks
Just to have another game on the show ?
How does that benifit anyone

 

[Embearded]

I haven't played Hellblade and never really liked any of their previous games.
I think Hellblade 2 is an overrated tech demo, showing as few assets on screen at a time as possible for them to draw some of the highest fidelity assets in video games.

But I'd happily have them around, taking risks with games not for the masses, than having studios making GaaS shit with the shovel.

 

[rkofan87]

finally Devil May Cry fans get the Revenge of that stupid DMC reboot

 

[Madserb2023]

Shame, I enjoyed the first Hellblade and even though the sequel was disappointing, it was graphically impressive and had one of the most impressive set pieces I have ever seen. I was hoping that they could have delivered with the third game. If they mess up the third one, then fine, get rid of them.

 

[simpatico]

No, it did run at 30fps at launch in PS3 and 360, while DMC3 and 4, released before it, were 60fps.

Back then a Capcom representative's quote saying that it was going to be 30fps but that was going to feel like 60fps became a meme.

It didn't get 60fps until it got the Definitive Edition for PS4 and XBO.

Yeah but if you were serious about playing it you could have just played it on PC. I had no idea it was even 30fps on consoles. That's more of a technicality.

 

[Schnauzer]

Another reason why I ignore Xbox showcases/announcements at this point.

 

[DeVeAn]

Good riddance of bad rubbish lol.

 

[sodstall]

Kung Fu Chaos, you will be missed

 

[JohnnyFootball]

This isn't a thread about The Last of Us...

Oh, no, I get it now.

You got to shoot things in the Last of Us.

 

[SEGAvangelist]

Oh man. I wonder if Matthew Ball's "no comment" in the Christopher Dring interview was actually because he knew the game might be cancelled at that point.

They may have made that call directly after the Xbox Showcase when they realized no one cared about the game.

 

[Js562]

 

[Odinnii]

Correct on both accounts. People don't want to have that conversation though, due to hate and console wars.

Bluepoint just pitched what Sony was greenlighting. Jim Ryan wasn't hiding the fact that GAAS is all he wanted to see.

A GoW live-service is such a retarded idea though it's a shame we didn't even see a trailer of what that might have looked like.

 

[Filben]

So, Xbox has no real bangers, let alone exclusives, and now they close the studio of one of the few games that also seem to improve on the feedback and wants to be more game again than the predecessor.

Yeah, but Xbros keep telling themselves "We're so back" in YT's comment sections just because some transparent plastic around the same hardware.

Microsoft and Xbox is an utter clown show.

 

[Spukc]

what donkey was responsible of buying gaming studio's? was it some old fucking fossil that had no clue?
my god sony and microsoft buying so much shit that fucking failed

 

[DenchDeckard]

Oh man. I wonder if Matthew Ball's "no comment" in the Christopher Dring interview was actually because he knew the game might be cancelled at that point.

They may have made that call directly after the Xbox Showcase when they realized no one cared about the game.

Holy shit, you nailed it.

 

[mckmas8808]

Bluepoint just pitched what Sony was greenlighting. Jim Ryan wasn't hiding the fact that GAAS is all he wanted to see.

A GoW liver-service is such a retarded idea though it's a shame we didn't even see a trailer of what that might have looked like.

The bolded is what BP has to take the blame for. It was retarded lol.

 

[mckmas8808]

Holy shit, you nailed it.

I think he did nail it! lol

 

[violence]

I think E3 helped games course correct. Just seeing how an audience reacts for what you're doing can be huge. Otherwise you might be building the wrong stuff.

Checking out that Matt Fanny interview now