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[Bernardougf]

The, 7 years in the making, 4 hours tech demo - walking simulator, has few people interested in it ? Noooo Im shocked. Shocked I say.

 

[TVexperto]

It's not shorter. But it sold a lot more than Hellblade. And it is still in early access, and only sold on Steam.
The reality is that there is a market for single player games, as long as they are good.
Hellblade 2 has too many issues, length is just one of them.

The quote is from a guy who said Plenty of shorter single player games sell way more than this thing. so I was just curious which games are even shorter and more successful

 

[DirtyBast8rd]

The era of the "showpiece" are over. Gamers don't care about graphics anymore.

They sure do and will keep on doing so, just not as the only sole selling point. Good, graphics, nice gameplay, and a minimal 60hz is what a game should offer in this day and age.

 

[Three]

It's not shorter. But it sold a lot more than Hellblade. And it is still in early access, and only sold on Steam.
The reality is that there is a market for single player games, as long as they are good.
Hellblade 2 has too many issues, length is just one of them.

Not to go against your point but "only sold on steam" helps inflate steam CCU numbers rather than reduce it.

 

[winjer]

The quote is from a guy who said Plenty of shorter single player games sell way more than this thing. so I was just curious which games are even shorter and more successful

Probably not many that fit that exact description.
But let's be honest, the short length of Hellblade 2 is one of the reasons it flopped so hard.
And even the 6 hours that it has, are so bare bones in gameplay, that it's mostly comparable to a tech demo.

 

[Topher]

which ones?

Top of my head....

 

[Mr Moose]

The quote is from a guy who said Plenty of shorter single player games sell way more than this thing. so I was just curious which games are even shorter and more successful

Resident Evil.

 

[Fess]

Everyone's finished it. Thing's like 45 minutes long

In 45 minutes you’re still on the starter shore. Took me 11 hours to go through it. Longer than Halo 5, that took me 9 hours. But you’re right at the first sentence, once you’re done you’re done. Nobody is playing this thing for weeks and it released over 2 months ago, in that time people have dropped just about everything that isn’t huge and open, a RPG or have a multiplayer mode.

 

[EDMIX]

I mean, I know people generally move on from single player games soon after release, but this is wildly low.

I don't know why you always got so defensive when it comes to xbox topic. And then immediately calling people having an "agenda". I made a poll to discuss whether it's due to dev choice, not to shit on the game. Calm down.

I mean, I get it. People feel the thread exist merely to poke fun at how low the number is, but regardless...a discussion can still be had with what went wrong with this game.

So regardless if its good new or bad news, its still news.

I feel a lot of this came down to the marketing or lack of marketing, a lot of us didn't even know this game was coming out when it was about to release. Even with being business with University, I still keep up with lots of gaming news and i was so surprised when people were like "its out in a week" and I'm like.....ok.

Didn't see anything, really anywhere marketing the game.

Its like they sent this game out to die or something.

I don't even buy that its cause its some single player narrative type games, lots of those types of games have no issue selling. So I do wonder, what was the point of this purchase if the full might of MS wasn't going to be behind the games marketing and promotion? They could have done more and I don't buy the whole slow pace, walking sim type excuse either.

 

[OppaiNinja]

What is even this thread? Both Hellblade games are basically glorified walking simulators with high fidelity visuals.
You "experience" them once and never touch them again unless you just got a new GPU that you would like to benchmark or something.

 

[winjer]

Another thing to consider is that these 51 players, are the current daily peak.
Throughout the day, numbers go even lower.

 

[Vyse]

No GAAS.

Sounds like it ran out of GASS. Get it? It’s not moving. Like it broke down. Is this thing on?

 

[Aion002]

The first one was exceptionally boring.

I have game pass and didn't even bother to try it.

The sequel is way better than the first one.

6 hours only, so it's harder to get boring...

But... Just saying... I hated the first one too and I never finished it, but I was able to finish the sequel and I think that it was a solid 6 hours experience... Maybe you might end up enjoying more than the original too.

 

[OverHeat]

Who care it’s a game you play once and then shelves it.

 

[lh032]

that player count is actually ninja theory staffs "playing" the game to convince Uncle Phil Hellblade 2 is still alive.

 

[cireza]

I don't care for this game and but this KPI is totally dumb for single player, one and done games. You simply can't conclude anything about it for the company which made the game.

 

[SmokedMeat]

No lootboxes no pc gamers

Go back to playing your woke GaaS games.

 

[lughnasadh123]

Visual novels, point & click, walking sims, etc can have varying degrees of less gameplay to create an experience that is for some arbitrary reason more accepted than what Hellblade 2 was trying to do. You can argue that it didn't quite hit what it set out to do, but there's a clear double standard at work here for it.

 

[hinch7]

I would disagree with that. A ton of marketing for the PS2 was based on the "Emotion Engine" and Toy Story graphics.

I think the death of the "showpiece mentality" occured around the launch of the XBox One, when Rise Son of Rome flopped and a ton of graphically ugly / simple games rose to unseen heights.

The PS2 sold on the success of the PS1. Not on its graphics or marketing surrounding that. Xbox released one year later that was significantly more advanced and powerful with pixel shaders in game and found a lot of success with games like Halo/2. But pales in comparison in sales. Microsoft caught up with the release of the 360 due to its insane library of games during the first few years and its price; which took Sony off guard.

The average Joe and gamer doesn't care for best graphics or wow factor. Its always been about the playablity of games. The most successful games and consoles have never been about visuals alone, more than the qualities that separates them. There's a reason why Nintendo have been around for this long and will be around for the forseeable future.

You can of course have games that strike a good balance.. and those are usually made by big studios with a lot of talent. That they can and will have top tier presentation in their titles and with gameplay to match.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

The PS2 sold on the success of the PS1. Not on its graphics or marketing surrounding that. Xbox released one year later that was significantly more advanced and powerful with pixel shaders in game and found a lot of success with games like Halo/2. But pales in comparison in sales. Microsoft caught up with the release of the 360 due to its insane library of games during the first few years and its price; which took Sony off guard.

The average Joe and gamer doesn't care for best graphics or wow factor. Its always been about the playablity of games. The most successful games and consoles have never been about visuals alone, more than the qualities that separates them. There's a reason why Nintendo have been around for this long and be for the long forseeable future.

You can of course have games that strike a good balance.. and those are usually made by big studios with a lot of talent. That they can and will have top tier presentation in their titles and with gameplay to match.

To say that the importance of visual fidelity when appealing to the wider market, hasn't drastically diminished over the last 20 years is a folly of the highest order. I award you no point, and may God have mercy on your soul.

 

[mdkirby]

Third option for me, it’s a walking sim, that’s what they wanted to make, I love those games. But they don’t need to look as ridiculous as hellblade2, and they 100% should never spend anywhere near what they spent on it. It’s a niche genre suited to indies on relatively small budgets. Spending a aaa budget on a niche <10h walking sim is a guaranteed commercial failure imo, and is a fairly irresponsible vanity project.

It’s at 32 players right now on a Saturday night. Flintlock is pushing double that right now, which I suppose is a small win for them

 

[Shadowstar39]

How did it take that long to make? Yet they made Heavenly Sword ready for thr ps3 release, a system that was harder to code and had no tools. That game was fun and beautiful and Nariko was hot. They made enslaved odyssey to the west in a few years, another fun game and dmc, not great on characters but fun. Why didn't they continue that route?

 

[VAVA Mk2]

The game is beautiful but very boring. I just couldn't get into it.

 

[balls of snow]

Should have went the Plague Tale route. Expand the shit out of the first game and have a definitive end with a tease of what could be in the future. Requiem did sooo much to improve upon Innocence in so far they push the rat gameplay as far as they could take it. People who played both were left satisfied and remember those games fondly now.
Hellblade 2 flopped because even fans were kinda down on the game. Sorta like Dontnod with Life Is Strange 2.

 

[Alan Wake]

Hellblade II wasn't the game I had hoped it would be, being unveiled at the Xbox Series X unveil and everything made me think it would be bigger, better and more "mainstream". Ninja Theory chose a different path or rather, the same path as the first game with very limited gameplay and ass boring puzzles. It makes me wonder who they made this game for. Themselves?

 

[Kamina]

I tried it on Gamepass the other day.
While the game certainly looks amazing, it plays like chewing-gum that was stuck under a bench for 10 years.
I understand that they wanted to convey a certain atmosphere with Senua‘s schizophrenia setting the mood? but this is too slow for me, so i uninstalled.
It looks like a good youtube movie to watch though.

 

[MacReady13]

This is great, feels like being part of some special club for people with good taste

I agree! Us smart people who have completely avoided this tech demo feels so damn good!

 

[Germuso]

Go back to playing your woke GaaS games.

Salty?

Online games, no thanks.