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Hellblade II: Senua's Saga - New Trailer | The Game Awards 2021

Sacred

Member
Every single one of those 3 clips is a non-playable part of the trailer, the actual gameplay is broken up quite a bit and pretty much mostly just where she throws the spears which have no impact on the giant at all. The fire effects do look great, that's probably the most impressive part of the whole trailer IMO, the giant doesn't react to anything she does during gameplay.
The first is gameplay, the other two are cut scenes or cut aways.
 

T0minator

Member
Graphically it looks amazing gives us a great idea of where this generation is going. The Matrix game looks realistic too.

The only thing I'm concerned about is the frame-rate and image quality in Hellblade 2. I'm really really hoping we don't have the black bars throughout the entire game like The Order 1886. The gameplay elements look limited there wasn't much in the way of actual gameplay mechanics but it was definitely cinematic. Can't wait to see more 👌🏼
 

GhostOfTsu

Banned
You're acting as if the people who made fun of PlayStation 1P games calling them walking simulators represented the entire Xbox community: they didn't. They never did, and never will. You're also acting like all Xbox gamers are solely Xbox gamers (or vice-versa with PlayStation ones); that isn't the case.

So you've already made two massive, glaring mistakes in the first paragraph alone due to bad assumptions and on top of that are assuming the only people excited by what was shown are Xbox fanboys doing it to hype into some console war nonsense? Maybe some of us are just genuinely impressed by how the game looks. I mean, hell, when I see this:
K. What's your favorite cinematic game?

You are commenting like a fanbase is uniform in their comments/views. It clearly isn't as its a group of people and there are clearly hypocrisy on both sides of the console war.
Sure. I just have to believe they were very quiet for years. Can you name another cinematic game that got this much hype pre-release on Xbox?
 

reksveks

Member
Sure. I just have to believe they were very quiet for years. Can you name another cinematic game that got this much hype pre-release on Xbox?
I am not sure because I don't really haven't paid much attention to xbox exclusive games in my life. I also don't follow the big xbox influencers on twitter.

I am slightly confused at the question. Is it to highlight that some people are being hypocritical? I have no doubt that they are and they were lying to themselves in the xbox one era however my point was that its not a generalisation that you can make of the whole fan base.
 

Leyasu

Banned
If anyone actually believed that reveal trailer was how the game was going to look they must be new to the video games
People only believe it when they can talk about downgrades.

I’ve not even looked at the comments of this thread. Watching the video on YouTube was enough to tell me how this thread would go.

Anyway, obviously not on the same level as the original trailer. I doubt even the beefiest of pcs would be able to run that either. Looks fucking amazing either way.
 

TBiddy

Member
Just when I thought that nothing was going to surpass FH5 for a while, this fucking beast shows up. What in the actual fuck!?

I disagree. This looked maybe on par with the better looking last gen games and with close to zero gameplay interaction at that.

Maybe if they show more (actual impressive) stuff I will change my mind but as is I was not impressed.

Ok, I need to ask. What was your old account called?
 

James Sawyer Ford

Gold Member
No need to war people. This game is the best looking game shown so far. Marrix looks better but it’s just a tech demo.

Let’s hope they do better with gameplay. This was underwhelming. Ninja theory used to have great combat. I don’t know what the hell they were trying to do here but this was not a good gameplay demonstration. Visually spectacular yes, but come on you can’t have something that feels so on rails.

Lastly and again, stop warring. Be happy that at least one dev is willing to make a true next Gen only game while every one else is busy wasting our time making cross gen shit. Matrix and this game have shown just what these consoles are capable of and how gamers have had an entire year wasted with cross gen trash being shoved down our throat with another year to go. We need to stick together. Green rats, blue bats, purple cats. Fuck the suits. Let’s demand Every game needs to look this good.

this still looks good but other games like H:FW look better overall

this game has great fire effects and lighting, but some other areas like character models and animations weren’t as good. It’s still early days still though.

the downgrade is similar to what happened to TLOU2 imho
 

Bramble

Member
Great visuals, but I can hardly call this gameplay. It probably won't look like this in the end. First one was one of the most boring experiences I ever had and this doesn't look any more engaging to me.
 

kyliethicc

Member
hellblade.png
quite a change since the last trailer
 

Leyasu

Banned
I wonder how many negative comments Hellblade II would have if it was a full cross-platform game and not owned by Microsoft.
I just mistakenly skimmed through a couple of pages lol. What shit show of a thread.

To answer your question. If this was exclusive to another platform, it would be proof of the genius of the system architect or if it was mp, the praise would be universal. We all know how it works on here
 

MidGenRefresh

*Refreshes biennially
Where's the gameplay? Looks like in-game cinematic. She runs in a straight line and throws a spire. Amazeballs. That's next-gen interactivity right there.

I'm going back to playing Halo Infinite.
 

Ozriel

M$FT
this still looks good but other games like H:FW look better overall

this game has great fire effects and lighting, but some other areas like character models and animations weren’t as good. It’s still early days still though.

the downgrade is similar to what happened to TLOU2 imho

HFW doesn’t look anywhere near as good. This is going to be an UE5 showcase, and there’s a reason why Geoff had to stress that we were looking at gameplay.

but…it’s you :messenger_grinning:
 

Ozriel

M$FT
Where's the gameplay? Looks like in-game cinematic. She runs in a straight line and throws a spire. Amazeballs. That's next-gen interactivity right there.

I'm going back to playing Halo Infinite.

The clear focus for this was the visuals and atmosphere. Not gameplay mechanics or the combat that’s supposed to be massively improved

They’ll keep more spectacular stuff for E3 2022.
 

MidGenRefresh

*Refreshes biennially
The clear focus for this was the visuals and atmosphere. Not gameplay mechanics or the combat that’s supposed to be massively improved

They’ll keep more spectacular stuff for E3 2022.

I believe it when I see it. The first one was barely a video game. This trailer doesn't really doesn't really encourage confidence that sequel will be any different.

We all knew that graphics will be bonkers. It's UE5. For a trailer labelled as "gameplay" this is one of the weakest I've ever seen.
 

Tripolygon

Banned
No it's actually a bad idea to use them interchangeably, because they refer to very specific things.
It is neither bad nor good to use them interchangeably. CGI literally just means computer-generated imagery as opposed to live-action, the distinction we are making here being between offline rendered CGI and online rendered CG. Has nothing to do with the use of NURBS or Polygons or how much hardware you use to render which is a function of how powerful and fast you want your render-farm to be. Disney's prman and Sony's arnold render micropolygons and not NURBS. This is a similar concept Epic is trying to adopt with UE5 to facilitate the use in Film and TV production to smooth out the workflow. I can use blender to render out a couple of frames of animation using their real-time renderer and it would be CGI the same way if I used cycles which can take much longer to render a single frame. This is not a pedantic discussion I wanna engage in, it was hilarious to watch on BY3D, and I'm not having it here either.
And again it's not even saying there's a downgrade that's the problem, it's people either being very exaggerated with it, or thinking they can just post some screenshots and call it a day, or come up with claims like "janky running animations" (what, are they expecting someone on fire to run like a normal person not on fire would? Are they trying to imply Senua's run is bad? She's jogging, it's not a full run, it's raining so the ground's going to be less conductive for a faster, sturdier run etc.) that are just pulled from their ass.
What has any of that got to do with me? Is really my question. Again all I said was this trailer looks good but the first trailer looks better which is true. There were lots of amazing lighting and composition in the first trailer that is not present in this one. If I meant to say downgrade I would say downgrade but I did not. I didn't nitpick the trailer, I didn't call it a downgrade, in fact, I complimented how good it looks but the first trailer looks better to me. Why is that hard to accept that? If you want to engage people calling it a downgrade you can do so, why am I being lumped in?
 
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Every single one of those 3 clips is a non-playable part of the trailer, the actual gameplay is broken up quite a bit and pretty much mostly just where she throws the spears which have no impact on the giant at all. The fire effects do look great, that's probably the most impressive part of the whole trailer IMO, the giant doesn't react to anything she does during gameplay.

Holy shit, please learn about Newton's third law because you clearly have no grasp of it. Maybe also learn about this thing called adrenaline and how it affects neural response in targets afflicted by strikes.

K. What's your favorite cinematic game?


Sure. I just have to believe they were very quiet for years. Can you name another cinematic game that got this much hype pre-release on Xbox?

It kind of depends; Uncharted 4 was and still is a great one visually speaking. The Order 1886 was even better visually but had little in way of gameplay.

As for your other question: yes, there was a good deal of buzz for both Quantum Break and Rise of the Tomb Raider before they were released.

this still looks good but other games like H:FW look better overall

On a technical level this easily surpasses Horizon: Forbidden West. It's not even up for discussion to be perfectly honest, and that's no slight at Horizon or Guerilla but, it's still a cross-gen game with old hardware in mind. Hellblade II is not.

Now on an artistic (subjective) level? Comes down to personal taste. The aesthetic direction for these two games are vastly different and therefore not directly comparable. Horizon is obviously going for much more saturated color palettes and a vibrant, more high fantasy vibe. Hellblade II is going for a much more dystopian approach, more grounded fantasy and light sci-fi elements with horror mixed in.

I prefer them both for different reasons subjectively, but it's easier to find other games doing what Horizon: Forbidden West is doing versus what Hellblade II is doing. At least IMO.

this game has great fire effects and lighting, but some other areas like character models and animations weren’t as good. It’s still early days still though.

People keep mentioning character models and animations but where is the proof? Where is the articulation of that proof? These feel like buzzwords being thrown around now. Someone posted a shot of Senua's face from the 2019 trailer and new one and I made a detailed observation on all of the similarities and in some cases, increased detail in the new model shown.

Animation, likewise, looking on-point and very in-line with the 2019 reveal. People keep pointing to facial animations but unless Senua is making the exact same facial gestures (which she isn't), then you're not going to get a 1:1 replica of that very specific animation.

the downgrade is similar to what happened to TLOU2 imho

Except TLOU2 didn't really have a downgrade and in some parts looked better in the final game compared to its initial demo. Also, Hellblade 2 is still at least a year away; this is the first actual gameplay we've seen as the 2019 trailer was in-engine, and it's already frightenedly close to the first trailer. Further development and optimizations should see any discrepancies (most of which are quite small) cleaned up, if anything.

quite a change since the last trailer

Not really; obviously some things like her face paint are different. The lighting is different, and some of her clothing is different. Her expression is different as well, of course.

But that is more or less the extent of it. Model geometry is practically the same, texture work is also essentially the same. Keep in mind it's raining in the shot to the left, water on the skin is going to have a different effect versus something more dry as in the shot to the right, not to mention the lighting differences plus her facial expression resulting in some subsurface skin details like the forehead vein being much less pronounced in the shot to the left.
 

b0uncyfr0

Member
So is Senua still suffering from psychosis? The people around her can see the giant too so are they all ill as well...or do we actually have giants now??
 

reksveks

Member
The aesthetic direction for these two games are vastly different and therefore not directly comparable. Horizon is obviously going for much more saturated color palettes and a vibrant, more high fantasy vibe. Hellblade II is going for a much more dystopian approach, more grounded fantasy and light sci-fi elements with horror mixed in.

I prefer them both for different reasons subjectively, but it's easier to find other games doing what Horizon: Forbidden West

What this guy said.
 

cormack12

Gold Member
I loved Helblade I after not playing it for so long, cannot wait for this.

Want to see the one v one or hand to hand combat mechanics and hopefully new style of puzzles but this looked great.
 

James Sawyer Ford

Gold Member
HFW doesn’t look anywhere near as good. This is going to be an UE5 showcase, and there’s a reason why Geoff had to stress that we were looking at gameplay.

but…it’s you :messenger_grinning:

the reason Geoff had to stress it was gameplay is because there was like 1% gameplay and 99% cutscene

I wish it was the opposite because it looked really boring for a gameplay showcase. But that’s…you (who are you?) :)

like I said, cool lighting and fire but other than that plenty of next gen stuff that looks at the very least comparable overall and better in areas this title is weaker at

I’m not too upset about the downgrade because I totally expected it
 
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wolffy71

Banned
Talk about overanalyzing something. Do you really feel the need to analyze a game frame by frame? I thought it looked interesting but strangely i feel no need to inspect every tiny detail before i commit.
 

Yoboman

Member
Looks good, I dont like the blurring effects they have all over the frame though, and the changes from gameplay to cutscene felt a bit weird but maybe it works better in game
 

James Sawyer Ford

Gold Member
On a technical level this easily surpasses Horizon: Forbidden West. It's not even up for discussion to be perfectly honest, and that's no slight at Horizon or Guerilla but, it's still a cross-gen game with old hardware in mind. Hellblade II is not.

what technical level?

the animations, world scale, enemy designs, and interactivity are all better in H:FW

Hellblade is much smaller and more confined. The character modeling is weaker and animations aren’t nearly as good. It has good lighting and fire effects certainly.

there are pros and cons to each, i don’t see hellblade being a step up at all technically, it’s doing far less on screen

and artistically it’s not even close to me personally I much prefer the vibrant tropical look over the gray and colorless vibe in Hellblade

both games are at the top of what we’ve seen though overall, but I give HFW the nudge

Except TLOU2 didn't really have a downgrade and in some parts looked better in the final game compared to its initial demo.

It had a huge downgrade in facial detail and animations. Massive. This isn’t even up for debate

I think they still managed to capture the essence of what the initial trailer was trying to suggest, and I liken Hellblade to that as well.
 
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Orta

Banned
Scripted gameplay but it looks beautifully grim. Hope the series S version holds up because I sure as shit don't have a pc to handle that at 60fps
 
The voices are. Then what shes you aren't completely sure of
I think in the end-game for the first one all that trip to Nordlands was in her head. This giant dude and the others must be manifestation of her mental disease, I don't know the word in English, I think is visual hallucinations.
 

Raekwon26

Member
People only believe it when they can talk about downgrades.

I’ve not even looked at the comments of this thread. Watching the video on YouTube was enough to tell me how this thread would go.

Anyway, obviously not on the same level as the original trailer. I doubt even the beefiest of pcs would be able to run that either. Looks fucking amazing either way.
(52) Senua's Saga: Hellblade II | NeoGAF

(52) Senua's Saga: Hellblade II - A Saga In The Making | NeoGAF

.......but yeah, victim complex and all that............
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
The overall graphic look incredible but was her face downgraded compared to the older video where she tries her best imitation of the screaming woke chick??

This trailer gives me a strange the order feeling, both in a positive and negative way...
 

BootsLoader

Banned
I will be honest, I loved the first game and I would like to play the next.
But this is nowhere near the “real-time” trailer they showed us back then, nowhere near. Don’t pretend it’s the same.
 

Skifi28

Gold Member
I was hoping to see some combat, easily the worst part of the first game. I guess the wait continues, but I did like the visual style.
 

NahaNago

Member
I really am not sure what to think of this trailer. When comparing it to the reveal trailer, then yes it would be a downgrade. I still think it is very impressive. That trailer was a pain to watch since I wanted a clearer look at the game. The style of this game is great.
 
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