Developer Ninja Theory is celebrating that their most recent game Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice has sold more than One Million copies across PC, PS4 and Xbox One systems. This marks a huge success for the studios big-budget, independently produced risk they took.
https://twitter.com/NinjaTheory/status/1010146921456029698
British developer Ninja Theory released Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice in August of last year on PC and PS4, with a Xbox One version having landed this April. The ambitious project could have easily been a last hurrah for the small studio which created several AA titles since its inception 18 years ago. Despite never having produced a full-on dud, their premier projects like Heavenly Sword, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West and DmC failed to become the success they were intended to. Especially Heavenly Sword was hyped up heavily during the early years of Sony’s last home console, the PlayStation 3, as a system-seller exclusive. Ho-hum reviews and a good but not great game led to Ninja Theory taking on third-party projects.
With their biggest project since then, a soft-reboot of the Devil May Cry series, 2013’s DmC the developer took on a gargantuan task of taking a fan-favorite franchise from the hands of the original Japanese developers in hopes of broadening the audience especially in the West. Heavy backlash of series fans ensued due to a drastic change of tone, often being called “too emo” or simply unlikable, DmC went on to sell far less than Japanese publisher Capcom planned to. Favorable reviews could not help the overwhelming disappointment among veterans that their beloved franchise has been tainted.
With even series director Hideki Kamiya stating concerns about the soft-reboot, a wave of relief and joy swept fans when Capcom announced Devil May Cry 5 this E3 being directed by legendary Devil May Cry designer Hideaki Itsuno. They even threw some shade at the outsourced and disappointing western DmC by naming the upcoming fifth game being the first since Devil May Cry 4. Ouch.
After doing some additional development work in the Disney Infinity games, things looked started to look grim for Ninja Theory. But diamonds appear under pressure after all, and so did a real gem of a game in Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice when the studio put all their eggs into their basket to develop it independently. It paid off. The beautiful action game, dealing with mature themes like mental health issues became an immediate success, warranting further work into an Xbox One version and even guaranteeing the Ninja Theory’s further presence by being acquired by mega-corporation Microsoft just recently, and becoming one of their new first-party developers. A real Cinderella story.
Seeing after all this how much Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice helped the studio, it’s comprehensible that reaching the one million sales number is heartily being celebrated today. Since there is a Summer Sale event going on at the moment on Steam as well, you have the chance to grab a copy of Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice for 40% off!
