Hellblade (PS4) - Ninja Theory

[ariakon]

That looks f***ing great, especially for those of us (ahem, me, ahem) who loved Heavenly Sword and always wanted a sequel.

[detective392]

Looks interesting. Need to see gameplay first.

[Elandyll]

Originally Posted by ariakon

That looks f***ing great, especially for those of us (ahem, me, ahem) who loved Heavenly Sword and always wanted a sequel.

I too loved Heavenly Sword (with the weird Sixaxis sequences aside), so I am pretty stocked about this. The only thing that would make me want this even more is if Anna Torv was to be involved in some way


Additional Art work:

[Show spoiler]

[Elandyll]

The story of Ninja theory, which they just shared bit by bits in their tweeter feed, is very touching and I think emblematic of the hardships of many small studios today who wish to remain independent.

https://twitter.com/NinjaTheory

Here is a recap in chronological order (leading to the reveal of Hellblade)

After Kung Fu chaos (2003 - Xbox/ MS Published) we concepted a game called Kung Fu story.

Kung Fu Story never happened. At the time it was deemed to have limited appeal by publishers.

There is a pattern in AAA development. You have to go big or go home.

The required feature list for AAA games is massive and is just getting bigger.

Years of development experience has been lost in developers who haven't been able to go big.

In 2004 we decided to go big. With Heavenly Sword (PS3 / Sony Published).

But at the time, not many people thought we could make a big game.

We were independent and within days of running out of money when Heavenly Sword was signed.

After HS we we're out in our own again. This is when we began to think about Enslaved.

We signed Enslaved with Namco Bandai. We improved efficiency massively in making Enslaved.

If we could have made an Enslaved sequel, we would. But we didn't own the IP.

DmC launch trailer. This was a personal project of mine that still shoots adrenaline through my body whenever I see it. (Dom)

We had released 3 AAA games. 79, 82 and 86 meta critic. But no IP.

After DmC, digital was rising and bets on AAA were few and far between.

After DmC we wanted to test our next-gen capabilities. We did this in a video short internally called Beautiful Corner.

We also wanted to test our hand at mobile development, so a small team made Fightback.

We learned a lot and it's safe to say that the mobile market is tough.

We also prototyped online melee combat. We took the concept around to publishers but it wasn't picked up.

We then prototyped a next-gen title, aiming to hit the AAA required feature list. This game was called Razer.

I'm finding this quite cathartic.

We just showed the Razer trailer, which received a great round of applause.

And a gameplay pre-vis video for Razer.

In Razer players would come together to battle a monster that has taken over the planet.

Razer didn't survive the greenlight process

We'll be sharing all of the Razer materials, including all design documents, online next week.

The conditions of the AAA market mean that creativity can be restricted.

People will always want to play creative games.

We will make a game that feels and looks AAA, but will be smaller, lower priced and delivered independently.

We will be announcing our Independent AAA game here at Gamescom. Today.

We owe a lot to our publishers and are working on several projects with publishers. This isn't a "stick it to the man" talk.

We're going to lift the curtain on development. Sharing as much as we can with you.

End of the talk. Thanks for reading.