Ninja Theory wants their fans to know that their newest game Hellblade has no connection to Heavenly Sword.
When the name for the new Ninja Theory game was released, Hellblade, fans were immediately speculating if this product tied in any way to the company’s first game Heavenly Sword. The games have similar elements such as a female protagonist and ninja-like elements, and even the names seem to be direct antonyms of one another.
When Dominic Matthews, a product development manager at Ninja Theory, was asked to set the record straight about Hellblade‘s connection to Heavenly Sword he confirmed that, “No, it’s not. It’s a brand-new IP. Senua is a new character. It’s not tied to Heavenly Sword at all.” Hellblade was just announced at Gamescom and is currently a PlayStation 4 exclusive. ” It’s a new IP. It’s a brand new game. It’s brand new characters. It’s a brand new world. It’s not linked at all.” Hellblade will be the first game Ninja Theory publishes themselves and will be a digital-only title.
Matthews continues to explain that the similarities of the names wasn’t an intentional move to make a hidden connection, “I saw someone describe the name as someone just putting Heavenly Sword into Thesaurus.com and going, oh it’s Hellblade,” which now just seems to be a coincidence, “It’s actually more just we like making female protagonists that look in a certain style. And we like swords. And we like hell. It’s more that.”
Ninja Theory wouldn’t even go so far as to state Hellblade is a spiritual successor to Heavenly Sword, “… because that has certain expectations,” such as having the stories link or having similar game designs. However, even if Hellblade is a brand new property, Matthews reaffirms fans that, “If you like Heavenly Sword, like Enslaved, and like what we did, then the aim is you’ll like this, too.” And if we’re to go off the announcement trailer, it has some dark elements of DmC in there too.
Ninja Theory has had good success with its current titles and attained favorable reviews on most of their products. Ninja Theory is currently pronouncing themselves as “AAA indies” and hoping to keep creating the work they love.
Source: GameSpot
