These Hellblade threads are filled with people who obviously didn’t play the first. I think they assume it’s more like GOW and less 75% visualization puzzles that it actually is.
True. In respect to the confused responses though, the first game was called "AAA indie", something with big production values but indie design sensibilities. It was focused in what it was trying to do, and it was (mostly) clear in the marketing that its production values were high but its play systems were in service of an intimate experience. (It was also priced $30, which was an indicator to most people that this wasn't the next GoW or AC or whatnot.)
The marketing for Hellblade 2 has been more nebulous in this early run. It was the first game ever revealed for Xbox next-gen hardware. It has been featured in 3 mass-market showcases, twice at TGAs and once in Microsoft's E3 event. It is produced by Microsoft, and for a time was the featured game (alongside Halo) of reasons to look forward to purchasing a new Xbox. It's clearly bigger in scope than the original, with an introductory trailer showing grand landscapes over flyovers from sea to land and through the world of an entire culture... But then, it's also the sequel to an intimate game about mental struggle. It's from a company that has begun listing their creations as "art" rather than games or even interactive entertainment.
"We pride ourselves on hiring the best talent in the industry to craft life changing art with game changing tech", says the Ninja Theory company bio. When it announced Hellblade 2, it talked about the game as being alongside Project Mara and The Insight Project, all three of which are part of the team's exploration into "mental terror", and "treating mental suffering and encouraging mental wellbeing". This is all very different from the usual promotion of a game, where usually you see promotional info listing out X number of levels and Y number of combat moves and whatever else is usually on the bulletpoint list of games these days. Ninja Theory has said that Hellblade 2 is bigger than the first game, but what exactly that means is a point of confusion between those who loved the small, personal story of the first game versus those coming fresh at the second game's trailer and seeing a new Xbox cornerstone epic, and there's no clarity yet as to which of those two camps is more right about what they're looking forward to...
I agree, people should temper their expectations and not start imagining something like DMC or Enslaved, with deep/varied combat and a grand adventure story to enjoy, in the sequel to of all things Hellblade. MS may be allowing Ninja Theory to do another small-scale "AAA Indie", even though it's an internal project and a name-brand game now. However, it's bound to be a bigger canvas this time (just the two videos we've seen so far show something different and wider, with this small band of NPCs alongside Senua and an encounter that uses custom weapons beyond her sword.) And the spotlight and pressure is on this project to be compelling for a much larger audience than before. I describing the project, creative chief Tameem Antoniades says,
"We didn't want to do a straight sequel, we wanted to do something extra-special, and so, we're making our lives as difficult as possible in that pursuit."
So we can say what Hellblade 2 should be based on the fans and the first game, and we can say what Hellblade 2 looks to be from what we've seen and been told so far, but I would say we don't yet have a picture of what Hellblade 2 will NOT be.
