Hellblade 2 Dev Confirms There Were 'No Tricks' In The Gameplay Reveal

I think it's starting to hit home now good Xbox has become, with games like Hellblade 2 leading the front of next gen gaming. You know I was thinking about why have certain fanboys taken to the comment section to shout downgrade or to try convince everyone it's rubbish because it's on Xbox and all I can think of is, fear. I think they're scared that Xbox might change things up too much and change can be scary for people. Buying games and playing the traditional blockbuster use to be Sony but now Xbox is stepping up, like they did in 2001. They're not dreamcast, they refuse to die off, but with their aggressive tactics and heaps of money it must scare certain fanboys that they'll dwarf the competition. Why else be so angry about Xbox getting better at games? Game pass is video game of Netflix and we hear a lot about comedians joke about owning physical media now, I recall people saying DVD's were a fad, and VHS won't die. I'm not saying Sony will die, I think PlayStation will be around for a very long time but I do think Sony fanboys don't truly believe that themsleves. With game pass and Xbox exclusives looking as good as hellblade they don't have much room for justified negativity like, remember Xbox has no games, funny how that argument went deaf. Then it was Xbox has no good games, huh, that's gone too. Now Xbox does have good games and now they're revolutionizing gaming with cloud gaming and game pass, it does seem like a massive shift and people aren't good at adapting to massive shifts.

Guess what I'm saying is, the fanboys trying to muddy the waters are just worried about their preferred console. Don't be guys. Sony will adapt too. Change isn't always bad.

Visually it looks great and its exactly what I want to see being pumped out of the Series X.

One thing MS should be doing, as highlighted in this persons tweet, is selling their 3D audio more. Sony did this very well with the launch of the PS5, so much so that you now have people thinking only PS5 has 3D audio within its games which simply isn’t true. It’s a little trick I feel MS hasn’t capitalised on.

I’ve said before I didn’t enjoy Hellblade 1 that much, I found it annoying, but I’m willing to try the sequel. It’s on Gamepass and is going to look incredible.

That segment of Game-play certainly looked above any other 'game-play' trailer I have seen. Its clearly a step up from these 'cross-generational' games that have released on these 'next-gen' consoles.

There were noticeable things in the trailer that you would be unlikely to get in a high quality pre-rendered CGi trailer even if the general look of the game has a pre-rendered CGI quality to it. The fact that its doing it all in Real Time, as well as processing all the 'game-play', physics, AI, input response etc is very impressive.

I still have questions - like the Hardware it was running on, how much was 'player' controlled, how much scripted, what about frame-rate? 30fps or 60fps and if both, what hit to visuals can we expect to get 60fps? etc but there is still plenty of time to get answers before release.

It bodes well for the future as Unreal has been the engine of choice for a LOT of developers and UE5 will certainly continue to be a popular engine. Ninja Theory (and the Coalition) are very experienced and talented Devs so I am sure they can get a LOT out of UE5, help it evolve and become more optimised - the Coalition handled the Series version of the Matrix tech demo which is mind-blowing to think that can run on a Series S - no way it could run on a XB1X like that...

I'd love Ninja Theory to do another play through of that sequence with a different moves. That entire sequence, with no HuD or on-screen prompts does make it look like a CGi sequence - testament to the visual quality - but does raise questions about how much player control was in that. It looked like just the walk into the cave, with a scripted sequence followed by perhaps player controlled spear throwing at 'set' points as you run out the cave. Certain parts looked 'scripted' (not saying they were or not) but another look at just this sequence (so not spoiling anything) could answer a LOT of questions and actually make the whole sequence be even more impressive than it initially appears.

The issue is that we have seen MANY games say 'in-engine' footage, say its 'game-play' and look really good etc and then when the game releases, it looks a lot worse. Watchdogs is a great example and that first game-play demo really impressed too but the final game on Console (and PC too) looked rough by comparison - so we have become 'distrustful' or be 'disappointed' come release.

I have no doubt Ninja Theory will deliver on its 'promise' and that this will not disappoint (at least Visually). I hope they do put another Video out of Game-play with HuD etc to 'stand out' from all the CGI trailers (being followed by Star Wars: Eclipse didn't help as that looked 'incredible') and leave no doubts about what was player controlled or scripted. I'm sure it would have gotten more attention after the Game Awards had they done this but it almost went under the radar with 'new' CGI game reveals. It seemed that few really talked about this outside of Xbox fans and most 'hype' seemed to go more to CGI trailers. How Star Wars: Eclipse got so much coverage I don't know when Ninja Theory actually showed game-play...

I'm kind of surprised people didn't think this was actual gameplay. Ninja Theory has always made super pretty games. Heck Heavenly Sword came out early on PS3 and I'd argue visually it looks just as impressive as some PS4/Xbox One games. Hopefully my computer can run this one! If not this might give it a shot on the cloud.

I think it's a safe bet any time a trailer says "In-Engine" it's running on a monster PC. If it were "captured on Series X" it would be screaming from the rooftops about that.

It's just a more modern bullshot. Heck early Cyberpunk was "In-engine". Doesn't mean that's what released on consoles or even on most PCs. If we look at what Sony is publishing for "ultra" settings on PCs for God of Horizon, we're talking 16 core CPUs and the like.... Translated means: Don't expect this scene to look like this on your X. or even your upper-midrange PC.

That also doesn't mean it can't be improved. Halo's infamous "in-engine" presentation looked terrible and was running on Monster PCs. Even on Series S it looks better than that did....

Honestly does look amazing but I think what everyone truly wants to know is if that gameplay is actually running off the xbox series X or an high powered computer the devs use?

If its the former then hats off to them, if it's on pc then I'm sure it will be downplayed by people, but either way this is shaping up to be a cracking game and has made me want to boot up the first game this weekend

Looked great, but what about the gameplay? I hope they have more than scripted sequences and minimalistic gameplay.

@themightyant Oh, yeah, I didn't mean the 2018 trailer that I assume is running a different engine entirely and looks nothing like the game. I meant the infamous 2020 launch trailer that went with the console reveal that was in-engine, on PC, and still looked worse than the real release by a mile.

I'd love to know the behind the scenes of how that 2018 trailer was in-engine and then became the trainwreck 2020 trailer in-engine. Either they changed engines, or they lied and 2018 was never in-engine.

Can't wait for this. I really liked the first game and sure I'm going to this one.

@Bdbrady yeah, thay was my thoughts... it's super good looking, crazy good even, but what does the player actually have control of? How much of that was scripted? I do like me some good looking games, but it does need to be fun

@themightyant I just watched the 2018 trailer again, and, yeah, actually the brief "gameplay" few seconds of the warthog going by actually looks pretty close to the final game. The rest was all "in-engine" "magic cutscene rendering" that didn't represent what they even had for the game at the time, I bet.

@Fenbops
Apart from FH5 Xbox marketing is not always the best, especially showing in gameplay. Sony just seem to put the right bits in and the flash if you like to get the crowd pumped up.
I watched the Hellblade 2 gameplay and thought looks ok, but they could have wowed me had they added a bit of variety and went for the boom gameplay, some one on one combat in a bright environment etc. It exists I’m sure it does.
A bit of FH5 type marketing, they went boom with that.
Anyway time will tell and I will there day one.

@Dezzy70 yeah they could improve. MS still show far too many CG trailers. Thinking back to E3 there was that awful looking CG vampire trailer (redfall?) that did it no favours and went on forever, with annoying characters only twitch streamers can relate to. Starfield was CG, Outer Worlds 2 was CG I could probably go on. I’d argue since the PS3 even, Sony have realised gameplay trailers get over the most.

The impressive thing about the Hellblade 2 trailer for me is that I assumed it was a little gameplay switching to CGI at points, which we now know it isn’t. It’s all in engine and the game. The only question now is what was it running on and what frame rate/graphical fidelity we can expect of a game looking that good on series X.

I don't believe this demo was running on series X hardware. That would have been mentioned by now. Excited for the game and liked the first game. If the game ends up looking the bees knees which I have no doubt it will be close then great but I am more interested in the "gameplay" change up. Not a massive fan of long QTE sequences which this trailer hints at.

I never doubted it was actually gameplay, just without a hud. It all remained consistently beautiful throughout the trailer rather than there being a mix of CGI to make the trailer seem "cooler". You can tell when a trailer is obviously CGI.

As for whether it was on Series X or not, they could have said whether it was, but there's also reason to believe the system can't produce a game that looks that good. The vast majority of the games so far have been cross-gen, and new hardware is very rarely ever pushed very far initially. To have a game developed specifically for the Series consoles that has been in development for a long enough time should be able to leap ahead anything that has been put out before it.

@themightyant that’s a very good point. Because all Xbox exclusives and in-house games are going to also be released simultaneously on PC there will be a tendency for Microsoft to show off the best looking version on a monster PC instead of showing it on Xbox Series X.

My personal view would be that Microsoft should use the Series X as the benchmark and always use that to show off new games. All in-game footage should say ‘Xbox’ because that should be their key audience.

And let’s face is, most Xbox users have a Series S. And most PC gamers have a gaming rig that is less powerful than the Series consoles. So it is a good benchmark for them to present without ruining expectations.

This is one thing where PlayStation has a one up on Xbox. Because you know the final result will be what the console produces, and there aren’t different power options between PS5 models.

As amazing as that gameplay shown for Hellblade 2… and it was seriously a wow display, I need to still play the first one 😳