The review embargo for Hellblade 2 appears to lift on the same date as the launch of the game, just an hour before it's available.
Ninja Theory outdid itself in Hellblade 2 with the photorealistic visuals and the unreal audio design, but why was the gameplay neglected?
Its a perfect game for Gamepass, i think this is what MS wanted from it to be. IMO spring 2025 PS5/Switch 2 release maybe sooner
its only perfect if the gameplay has something to say or do. turns out this game has neither. nice graphics though
I finished it and I'll start by saying the graphics are amazing!!!!! and I experienced and noticed absolutely zero bugs and ran into no issues with the game so it's highly polished.
In saying that, that's where my compliments end, I slugged my way through this game, thank god it was short.
The most on rails game I've ever played, didn't care for the story or the characters outside of the story for the first giant which I did like. For a game like this story and characters should've been everything and it just didn't hit, I didn't care at all just wanted to finish the game and experience the visuals, that's the only reason I persisted.
Puzzles were absolutely lame an amounted to either trying to find shapes or using land shifting bubbles, all of which were piss easy.
The fights are cool at first and look brutal but again very simple.
Basically no environment interaction besides lighting torches
Checking my last achievement only like 6% of players have finished the game which says a lot considering the length of it. I can't imagine a whole lot of people are playing this either.
Don't understand the higher reviews for this, outside of visuals the game isn't great if any anything it was a slog to get the 7 hrs it's took me.
Many perfect reviews only scores the graphics like the very "unbiased"(lol) reviews of DF and Eurogamer. But saying the gameplay and story is a masterpiece are a bunch of liars.
DF IS MS’s advertising arm. Eurogamer was purchased by IGN, which is a MS mouthpiece. so no surprises there.
Yea it's hard to disagree man, like it's really not a good game.
Since when did games get full marks along with other high scores just for visuals, it's reeiculous.
DF doesn't do reviews as far as I know....they do graphical analyses and ofc being the pixeljunkies that they are, they will absolutely love the graphical aspects of this game.
@storm if they're ms advertising arm then why do they still praise a game like Horizon to the heavens? doesn't pan out my man, but nice try my little pony.
@StormSnooper
The made up Microsoft positive publicity. Even fanboys don't believe those sites are Microsoft leaning.
Weird of them DF to do a game review when their job actually is to review the tech aspects of the game.
It came across as paid sponsored review at times.
Leave the bootlicking stuff to Eurogamer especially now that they got bought the writing is on IGN's wall.
I feel like John got that line crossed a lot I feel, he should start his own channel because the other two stooges and simps at Eurogamer and DF are holding him back a lot.
It's all so ironic coming from a guy who's all about gameplay and frame rate obsessed, many mentioned that they don't give the likes of The Order 1886 the same praise a lot of catches ifs and buts for that game.
I don't have to mention the insufferable Tom Morgan.
It seems like Ninja Theory really were trying to tell an emotional story more than make a game - and that's totally fine. I really miss games like this.
Its nice to see Microsoft venturing into "story game" territory when they quite literally never do so. Other than maybe Lococycle.
Damn, remember Lococycle? https://youtu.be/4uHTEDDVFF...
Order 1886 had graphics that were way ahead of its time. Also had excellent gameplay. But it was absolutely ripped to shreds in reviews based on the shortness of the game and some repetitiveness of some fights. For some reason those things don't apply to HB.
A fair comparison I must say. I will play Hellblade II when it comes to PS5 (provided it gets a physical release) as I can't help but think it's similar to the first game in respect of its shortcomings, and I still got something out of that 1st game (a platinum trophy specifically).
It still applies. The games is a high 6 to low 7. Game writers need access to do their jobs so they they don't follow any kind of criteria that would potentially cut that access.
@ripper
They're not applying it, but it applies when we the consumer actually pays for the product and plays it.
more tinfoil hat galore than youtube comments, insecurities run wild when your plastic box doesn't have the most impressive looking game anymore, not that I'm surprised
Not a single person is upset or even disagreeing that this game has the best graphics. So what are you talking about?
It's naive to think access journalism doesn't exist. Calling it "tin-foil hat" doesn't make it otherwise. If you have been on this world since 89, you would have surely come to this conclusion along with the conclusion that words like "plastic box" and "insecurity" expressed in this way tells us more about you than what my comment is actually about.
It does but there’s not very much of it. There’s a couple good action sequences but the rest it bland
@Ripper, I remember how that game was torn apart even before it was released. I played and agreed with much of the criticism, the end bosses were terrible the game was way too short. But the weapons, gunplay and graphics were phenomenal. Haven't played hellblade 2 but watching it, it looks like you walk on rails the take turns combat is a joke. The graphics look fantastic at times, saw her wadding through water in some underground cave with a torch, impressive. Wish NT would have focused more on bringing real combat/ movement to their impressive graphical presentation. 7 years for a 5-6 hrs game is absurd.
Yeah and considering The Order 1886 was actually a pretty competent TPS but walks and jogs around slays a few enemies one and a time with lame ass puzzles in HB2 is much more to their liking.
Something's fishy here.
I just played the first 3 hours.....the gameplay is extremely basic. Walk a path while you hear voices, then long cutscenes, a simple battle that is almost QTE....repeat.
Ninja Theory's latest is an impressive accomplishment in more ways than one, but it isn't the flag-in-the-ground moment many had hoped it would be.
I didn't give af about The Order to have any thoughts on it. Nobody did. You're projecting my guy.
Steam peak-player count is super low. Lower even than the original. In regards to selling copies/subs and making a profit in some way, I'd bet everything I own on it being a complete and utter failure. But I wouldn't shut them down. They need to expand and be more ambitious and ramp up production. Hope their next game is something special.
this l don't understand. This game is explorative, its not ever going to be a big hit but a very enjoyable short experience. Not every game has to be so many hours. The devs were happy with their end product.
Only certain obscure observers thought it would be. The rest of us could see it was never going to shift systems or be a massive hit.
Great graphics does not mean a great game… it peaks interest but at the end of the day we want both in one! Looking at you GTA VI. Rockstar, come show us how it’s done!
CG writes: We spend around 40 minutes playing the opening of Hellblade II on PC (Gamepass version), running max settings but with DLSS set to Quality. So, effectively playing the game at 1440p despite the render res being set to 4K. As you can see, the RTX 4090 GPU sits around the 70% usage mark using these settings which are capped at 60fps. Aside from the technical details though, we found the opening gameplay a little underwhelming. Sure, audio is top-quality sublime, and UE5 provides some fantastic visual nuances, yet the gameplay just felt sacrificed for cinematic posturing. We are going to assume the gameplay becomes more of a focus moving forwards as the opening here felt less interactive that its predecessor which also begins in/on the water.
I'll wait for someone to record the game and convert it to an FMV for the SEGA MEGA CD port.
Zero confidence
That's not a good sign.
Review codes have been sent out as of 8 hours ago (according to Tom Henderson on X) so at least they aren't withholding those... But you'd think with confidence they'd want positive reviews to get buzz going online the weekend before release.
... But if they're expecting mid reviews, yeah sure lift that embargo when most people are asleep.
Nice. I could speedrun it by midnight and go to sleep after.
Zero marketing and embargo lifts when the game launches?
No confidence from team Xbox.
Oh my!