Summary
In the wake ofXbox closing down Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin, fans have been worried about the state ofSenua’s Saga: Hellblade 2. Not so much its quality - being great didn’t saveHi-Fi Rush- but its sales figures, andwhat it will mean for developer Ninja Theory if it fails(by whatever metric that might be). This worry quickly turned to talk about the lack of marketing for the game, leading toXboxtweeting a picture of Hellblade 2 and its release date in response.
Now you and I know what Hellblade 2 is. We’ve seen the trailers atThe Game Awards, we’re aware of the impressive visuals and the mental health themes, and many of you will have played the first one and be hoping the sequel can build on its strengths. In this bubble, it can be difficult to square the idea of a game having ‘no marketing’ because those showcase trailers are expensive spots, and the fact that we’re all aware of the game already suggests that it has been marketed fairly well after all.
What’s Going On With Hellblade’s Marketing?
But you might be less aware that the game is out in just over a week, and that’s where the lack of marketing comes into play. Things haven’t really ramped up as the game approaches, and asthe first of Xbox’s big hitter exclusives going into this emptier periodof the year whereNintendoandSonyhave ducked out, it could be a sign of things to come. But is this a change in strategy, and is it good news or bad news for Hellblade?
Marketing is an odd thing. We don’t really know how much it works. We’ve all heard of McDonald’s. We know exactly what they are and exactly what they do. And yet they spend billions of dollars on advertising - is that effective when we all know what a Big Mac tastes like? But if they stopped advertising, maybe we’d notice. Certainly we’d never hear about new items on the menu, and that might make us less likely to go there, thus proving the purpose of advertising even when everybody knows your name.
Hellblade is not McDonald’s. My parents could name a fair few video games, and they will not have heard of Hellblade. But marketing is expensive - the more you spend on marketing, the bigger the budget for your game, the more money you need to make back. Less marketing makes your game cheaper, which makes it easier to make a profit. But it also means fewer people have heard of you, will buy you, which makes it harder to make a profit. It’s a balancing act.
Is Gaming Moving Away From Hype Cycles?
There has been a change in strategy across gaming recently. Originally, games were announced once development began because the gap between starting and finishing them was pretty short. As that gap grew, advertising didn’t really change, giving us elongated hype cycles. In the case ofElden Ring, the old ways can still work. In the case ofCyberpunk 2077, letting the pot boil for too long can be catastrophic.
Last year we sawSpider-Man 2hold its release date until the very last moment.GTA 6gave justa year between its first trailer and release window. Many of the games due out this year just have ‘2024’ down as their release date, with nothing firmer even as we approach the year’s half-way point. And then we have Hellblade 2 - so far, its launch cycle marketing has been a single tweet of an image we’ve already seen.
Tweeting an image is cheap - it’s basically free once you factor in that the social media admin gets paid whatever they’re posting. So that keeps costs down for a game that seemingly was part of the Game Pass ecosystem strategy, a strategy that Xbox very publicly killed with the execution of Hi-Fi Rush developers Tango Gameworks. There’s a silver lining in keeping Hellblade’s costs lower, but mostly, it feels like Xbox is sending the game out to die, the last soldier of a war it has already moved on from.
But Hellblade 2 aside, the industry is changing. GTA 6, for example, is not being abandoned whileRockstarmoves onto new ideas. Sony has literally nothing revealed right now, but its statements of ‘nothing until April 2025’ suggests we’re only a year out from one or two major releases, and we don’t even know what they are. Nintendo is waiting until the June Direct to reveal what it has in store for the latter half of 2024, and rumours suggestDragon Age Dreadwolfis set to go from a whisper on the wind and some CGI trailers to launching in just a few months.
Note: There are exceptions - The Elder Scrolls 6 has already been ‘revealed’ while Xbox has been periodically advertising Fable and Perfect Dark for several years now.
These aren’t all being kicked out to save costs, this is a deliberate switch in how games are marketed. It keeps costs and hype low until excitement can suddenly explode with a surprise reveal. Hi-Fi Rush was shadow dropped (though did receive moderate promotion post-launch), so I’m not sure if this changes things for Hellblade, but if the industry can keep costs down with sensible advertising while also taking away the storm clouds of delay, it feels like a positive move for all concerned.
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2
WHERE TO PLAY
Following her trials and tribulations in her debut game, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 sees the titular protagonist again have to battle the darkness in order to liberate others from a tyrannical regime.
