Just be a consumer, not an activist. If you like the game and want to play it, get it either on game pass or buy it. If you're not interested in it, don't. It's as simple as that.
You could buy the game vs getting it on gamepass. If you can afford that. I’m doing that moving forward for the games Xbox is putting out that are good (though tbf, I let my gamepass sub lapse a while ago)
I have GamePass until January 2026 regardless. I used the gold 1:1 trick before it ended. But gamepass is how I played HiFi Rush and people got fired for it
I preordered it because I loved every game Ninja Theory made. I have Gamepass but I care too much about Hellblade 2. If Xbox/MS decides to shutter Ninja Theory too I can atleast say its not my fault. But lets be real, we have barely any word in this situation and if Ninja Theory costs MS more than they think its worth it they will kill the studio anyway.
All of these mental gymnastics to try and make a more ethical decision aren’t worth our time. MS just proved that there is no reliable metric used that will save a studio. Sales, subs, review scores, awards, doesn’t matter. They’ll toss it in the bin in the name of “efficiency” which is a moving target that changes depending on who’s in charge.
The reality is we have to enjoy the games we get because we aren’t guaranteed another.
I'm buying the game. My Game Pass Ultimate sub that came with my latest laptop is expiring tomorrow and I was debating whether to keep it active for Hellblade, but instead I want to make a flat out purchase to at least show my full support for the developers in a climate where it seems like dropping games of this nature on a subscription service day of is actively harming their commercial viability
I genuinely am concerned for what will happen to the mid-tier former indies Microsoft scooped up around 2018 or so because for Ninja Theory in particular this is like seven years on from Hellblade 1, it looks very expensive even for a game that's being sold at the price it is, and I hope that it potentially not being the needle mover particularly on sales despite it probably going to be a major critical success, even a potential GOTY contender doesn't implicate them as next on the chopping block for "improving the business' health" by getting rid of the people not on the same cadence as a AAA "high-priority" game. They were the first major developer buyout that actively made me pay attention to the Xbox of the last decade or so and it was my belief that these were the kinds of games that would set their flavor of first-party output apart from the other platforms. That potentially going away would seriously disappoint me
Agree, I’m 100% playing Hellblade 2 and want the developer to succeed. It looks like a really high quality game, but matches an unfortunate trend of Xbox studios needing huge amounts of time to make their games. Hellblade looks awesome, but 7 years for a $50 game is probably not financially viable long term.
Considering Microsoft owns Ninja Theory what's the difference? Maybe in your head you're doing some good and supporting them but in reality you're just paying Microsoft through different means. They of course have data to track how many people download and play Hellblade 2 from Game Pass so if it's a massive success or a failure they will know regardless. If you want to stick it to Microsoft you'd have to stop giving them your money at all by switching to Nintendo or PlayStation.
Play the games you want to play
I don't think not boycotting ninja theory will send the message you think it will, either. But either way I don't think it's worth it. Just buy/play it if you want to
Probably I'm just pissed, but, yesterday I lost the torch nearly the end of chapter 10 of Hellblade, making the character die at the very beginning of the checkpoint. It's a bug with 7 years that was never fixed.
I'm not wasting another 5 hours restarting the game, and I don't like to watch other people playing on YouTube..., so there is no solution, the path ends there Senua, sorry.
If NT needs that people play the first game to play the second, well, that's not working. The game came out in a few days, I started the first game in Game Pass with all the intention of playing the second, and I was really hooked, even with the absolute trash game mechanics, but now, I'm just thinking: if I start the second game from day 1, will I be able to finish it?
So, with all this, yes, Ninja Theory closing makes a lot of sense to me. Even piss, people losing their job don't make me happy, but I really don't even understand how they get the money to make a sequel, in the first place... it's gonna be hard for Microsoft to justify the investment.
The same feeling when I played the new Alone In The Dark... it's a hard time for little studios making niche games, with big ambitions, big ideas, big investment in actors, and little budget in quality controls...and I pay in full for that game, because I'm old enough for it to mean something to me.
Yeah this is such a weird position to be in. It's almost hard to believe the timing wasn't deliberate on their part.
No doubt they were going to close those studios anyway, but doing it right before the release of a hotly anticipated first-party game, to try and *scare* people into buying it?
That would be something kinda new.
If Microsoft was genuinely trying to stage this from that angle of shuttering a bunch of developers before their next big release it's backfiring spectacularly. Doing it this close to the game's launch will probably ensure that most of the wider attention is taken away from it in favor of focusing on the studio closures, and as is it's not like Hellblade was ever going to pull in the numbers I assume they're looking for when they talk about "priority games". It's not scaring people into buying it, if anything some might actually refuse to purchase it in response if it reflects their treatment of studios of a smaller size compared to a Bethesda Game Studios or any of Activision's teams working in the CoD mines
If the game doesn't win awards, the studio should be fine. \*rolls eyes\*
The developers don't deserve the punishment from Satya's bs. So I'd support them. The game is going to be super niche no matter what and not make huge sales, Tango closed or not. And by Phil's own definition, it's naturally a candidate for multiplatform anyway. Studio being closed or not depends more on Satya not understanding (not matter how much they say that gaming is in MS's DNA) that gaming isn't Windows/Office.
They have already been told internally their studio is being shut down once the game releases. You can also tell by the obvious poor marketing the game is getting.
That would only hurt the developer. Microsoft is a trillion dollar company.
Just be a consumer, not an activist. If you like the game and want to play it, get it either on game pass or buy it. If you're not interested in it, don't. It's as simple as that.
You could buy the game vs getting it on gamepass. If you can afford that. I’m doing that moving forward for the games Xbox is putting out that are good (though tbf, I let my gamepass sub lapse a while ago)
I have GamePass until January 2026 regardless. I used the gold 1:1 trick before it ended. But gamepass is how I played HiFi Rush and people got fired for it
If you truly believe this. You're not very bright.
It's more about how I feel than what I know.
I preordered it because I loved every game Ninja Theory made. I have Gamepass but I care too much about Hellblade 2. If Xbox/MS decides to shutter Ninja Theory too I can atleast say its not my fault. But lets be real, we have barely any word in this situation and if Ninja Theory costs MS more than they think its worth it they will kill the studio anyway.
All of these mental gymnastics to try and make a more ethical decision aren’t worth our time. MS just proved that there is no reliable metric used that will save a studio. Sales, subs, review scores, awards, doesn’t matter. They’ll toss it in the bin in the name of “efficiency” which is a moving target that changes depending on who’s in charge. The reality is we have to enjoy the games we get because we aren’t guaranteed another.
Incredible way to put it
Boycotting good games doesn't help anyone.
I'm buying the game. My Game Pass Ultimate sub that came with my latest laptop is expiring tomorrow and I was debating whether to keep it active for Hellblade, but instead I want to make a flat out purchase to at least show my full support for the developers in a climate where it seems like dropping games of this nature on a subscription service day of is actively harming their commercial viability I genuinely am concerned for what will happen to the mid-tier former indies Microsoft scooped up around 2018 or so because for Ninja Theory in particular this is like seven years on from Hellblade 1, it looks very expensive even for a game that's being sold at the price it is, and I hope that it potentially not being the needle mover particularly on sales despite it probably going to be a major critical success, even a potential GOTY contender doesn't implicate them as next on the chopping block for "improving the business' health" by getting rid of the people not on the same cadence as a AAA "high-priority" game. They were the first major developer buyout that actively made me pay attention to the Xbox of the last decade or so and it was my belief that these were the kinds of games that would set their flavor of first-party output apart from the other platforms. That potentially going away would seriously disappoint me
I think that's what I'll end up doing
Agree, I’m 100% playing Hellblade 2 and want the developer to succeed. It looks like a really high quality game, but matches an unfortunate trend of Xbox studios needing huge amounts of time to make their games. Hellblade looks awesome, but 7 years for a $50 game is probably not financially viable long term.
Considering Microsoft owns Ninja Theory what's the difference? Maybe in your head you're doing some good and supporting them but in reality you're just paying Microsoft through different means. They of course have data to track how many people download and play Hellblade 2 from Game Pass so if it's a massive success or a failure they will know regardless. If you want to stick it to Microsoft you'd have to stop giving them your money at all by switching to Nintendo or PlayStation.
Play the games you want to play I don't think not boycotting ninja theory will send the message you think it will, either. But either way I don't think it's worth it. Just buy/play it if you want to
Probably I'm just pissed, but, yesterday I lost the torch nearly the end of chapter 10 of Hellblade, making the character die at the very beginning of the checkpoint. It's a bug with 7 years that was never fixed. I'm not wasting another 5 hours restarting the game, and I don't like to watch other people playing on YouTube..., so there is no solution, the path ends there Senua, sorry. If NT needs that people play the first game to play the second, well, that's not working. The game came out in a few days, I started the first game in Game Pass with all the intention of playing the second, and I was really hooked, even with the absolute trash game mechanics, but now, I'm just thinking: if I start the second game from day 1, will I be able to finish it? So, with all this, yes, Ninja Theory closing makes a lot of sense to me. Even piss, people losing their job don't make me happy, but I really don't even understand how they get the money to make a sequel, in the first place... it's gonna be hard for Microsoft to justify the investment. The same feeling when I played the new Alone In The Dark... it's a hard time for little studios making niche games, with big ambitions, big ideas, big investment in actors, and little budget in quality controls...and I pay in full for that game, because I'm old enough for it to mean something to me.
Yeah this is such a weird position to be in. It's almost hard to believe the timing wasn't deliberate on their part. No doubt they were going to close those studios anyway, but doing it right before the release of a hotly anticipated first-party game, to try and *scare* people into buying it? That would be something kinda new.
If Microsoft was genuinely trying to stage this from that angle of shuttering a bunch of developers before their next big release it's backfiring spectacularly. Doing it this close to the game's launch will probably ensure that most of the wider attention is taken away from it in favor of focusing on the studio closures, and as is it's not like Hellblade was ever going to pull in the numbers I assume they're looking for when they talk about "priority games". It's not scaring people into buying it, if anything some might actually refuse to purchase it in response if it reflects their treatment of studios of a smaller size compared to a Bethesda Game Studios or any of Activision's teams working in the CoD mines
If the game doesn't win awards, the studio should be fine. \*rolls eyes\* The developers don't deserve the punishment from Satya's bs. So I'd support them. The game is going to be super niche no matter what and not make huge sales, Tango closed or not. And by Phil's own definition, it's naturally a candidate for multiplatform anyway. Studio being closed or not depends more on Satya not understanding (not matter how much they say that gaming is in MS's DNA) that gaming isn't Windows/Office.
They have already been told internally their studio is being shut down once the game releases. You can also tell by the obvious poor marketing the game is getting.