While graphic and visual quality should be the main topic of discussion regarding Hellblade 2, Ninja Theory’s latest production once again serves as an argument on the fact that large productions (or at least those that take a long development time) must be able to offer dozens of hours on the clock, in order to “to get value for money”. Certainly, Hellblade 2 is not without its flaws, with disturbingly simple combat and puzzles in particular, but its length is not one of them.
The true nature of Hellblade
Let’s start by knocking open doors. Ninja Theory and Microsoft have already been talking for months (if not years) about the fact that Hellblade 2 would have a short lifespan. Unless you don’t follow the news assiduously, being shocked at the release is difficult to imagine. Knowing that Hellblade the first of the name was already quite short and largely quite satisfactory in this format, it seems quite improbable to me to imagine Ninja Theory going from a game of less than 10 hours to something much bigger. And finally, the Hellblade are made to be short games, because if these productions are keen to show us the symptoms of psychosis head-on, who wants to experience that for even just 15 hours? Any longer could make things unbearable, and I say this with the greatest respect and admiration for the people who have to live with this disease on a daily basis.
To criticize the lifespan of a game above all else is to consider it as a consumer product and not as a work of art. While many are offended when a general media is interested in video games with approximations and errors, ready to raise their shields to defend the game as a noble art, these courageous acts fade away to return to the binary reasoning of the past /money spent. Especially since if there is one game whose visual quality we can praise in 2024, it is Hellblade 2. Use of the Unreal Engine has its full potential for commercial production, absolutely no loading time without systematically relying on the endless passages between two cliffs to load the next area.
All you have to do is launch Hellblade 2 for less than an hour to understand why the game took its time to release. Such a well-optimized visual slap in the face cannot be built in a few months, especially when the studio in question has chosen not to expand its team disproportionately during development. When you see the state of the JV industry at the moment, it’s impossible to dispute that Ninja Theory made the right choice.
The fast food video game
Let’s not be naïve though, the reasons for this money/time mentality are quite easy to guess. In a world where our leisure time is limited, as are our finances, we must succeed in being pragmatic in our choices. The weighting of one’s options becomes vital in the face of a continual flow of games selling between 50 and 70 euros for large productions and it is human to say to oneself that we want this expense, which could be the only one of this amount of the month in our video game leisure activities, can keep us busy for at least a few weeks. Bringing the financial factor into the equation represents for many the fact of sacrificing to a greater or lesser extent the consideration of video games as an art.
And it is the snake biting its tail to get to this point, since after all, if the industry has reached this point, it is partially our fault and our acceptance of these modes of consumption of medium. Requiring that an AAA game must necessarily be an experience lasting at least several dozen hours has logically led to gigantism in the production and by extension on the costs of these titanic open world or adventure games which are stretch in length, sometimes beyond their own good (yes, it’s you I’m watching The Last of Us Part 2).
Without getting into the capitalist game of excessive profitability and dividends to shareholders, a game must at least want to cover its production costs, and even if the sad recent events have shown us that even this is not enough to guarantee survival. of a studio, this remains a reality that we cannot escape in our economy. From there, we can ask ourselves who from Ninja Theory, which offers with its title a short but striking experience, or from us who for years have nourished the idea that only big productions and open worlds can justify a price high sales, is at fault.
In the same way that publishers would not push battle passes and loot boxes wherever they can if it was not financially interesting for them. We may complain about their presence, but their success remains significant enough for their integration to be justified in the eyes of publishers. Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 is a beautiful work, certainly imperfect, but its duration should not be a decisive factor in defining its quality or its interest, and we can only blame our consumption habits which make us consider video games as a product before be a work. And for those who absolutely have to play 20 hours of a game to consider it interesting, the new game + will allow you to redo the adventure with other voices to do the narration instead of those of Senua.
