GRcade

The sequel to the award winning Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, sees Senua return in a brutal journey of survival through the myth and torment of Viking Iceland. Intent on saving those who have fallen victim to the horrors of tyranny, Senua faces a battle of overcoming the darkness within and without.

Saint of Killers wrote:Loved the chanting and music.

Am I setting myself up for a fall hoping that's what the game will look like when you're actually playing it? Especially how good the lip sync animation was...

Meet the tech entrepreneur building the Matrix

Tameem Antoniades is the Afghan-born coder, and son of a Cypriot assassin, who set up shop in a bedroom, rewrote the rules of indie gaming and overnight became very, very rich. Now, the Ninja Theory founder wants to use his wealth to develop new technologies that will change the way you think... literally

The first is called the Insight Project and it aims to break new ground in mental health. Earlier, back at Ninja Theory’s Cambridge studio, Antoniades revealed an embryonic work in progress: a virtual-reality version of a London flat. “The idea is to get as close to reality as possible, to create an environment that works the same way a real environment works and looks utterly, utterly real.” To do this, the team is in the process of painstakingly scanning real-world objects into this virtual apartment and then improving the tiniest details. The layout of the flat is based on Antoniades’ own apartment – he reasons that if it’s a space he knows intimately then he will better be able to judge whether the team has managed to perfect it. Into this cyber realm they are going to place a character that they intend to be the most realistic virtual human ever made, from skin to eyes to clothing. “It’s one area where I think we are world leaders,” he says.

He hopes when the time is right this new group of friends may also be able to help with the Insight Project – and also that scheme of even loftier intent, the entertainment-focused Project Dreadnought. It’s named after the British battleship that launched in 1906 that was so technologically advanced it made other naval vessels redundant.

Antoniades believes his Dreadnought will be equally revolutionary. He wants to create virtual worlds that the user can step into using a headset and have an extraordinary experience. Perhaps you could be Jason searching for the legendary Golden Fleece or a soldier landing on the beaches of Normandy. As with the Insight Project, it will be indistinguishable from real life and, unlike current VR, will contain virtual humans that participate in the experience and respond to you in a meaningful way – like being in the Matrix. “It is going to redefine what entertainment, or even reality, is,” he says. “It will be a new medium, probably the last new medium, because you can’t get any closer to reality.” Hellblade, the Insight Project, everything that Ninja Theory is working on – they are all test beds for Project Dreadnought. “I’ll do that, then I’ll probably quit.”

Here’s how the games industry traditionally works. A publisher either develops a game internally or signs an external developer, much like a book publisher signs a writer. That developer is then given an advance, creates the game and then earns off the advance through royalties. Once the advance is paid off – plus other agreed costs – the developer receives the royalties themselves. Usually a game retails for around £50 and the royalty will typically be around £2 or £3 per unit. For the developer to see any of those royalties themselves, therefore, requires selling millions of units. Take Ninja Theory’s title DmC: Devil May Cry (2013): it was critically lauded and a multimillion seller, but the royalties that Ninja Theory received were not enough to ensure its survival. So, for Hellblade, Antoniades came up with a new approach. He called it “independent AAA”. In his words, it is about creating, funding and owning a game of “AAA”, or blockbuster, quality but with the more focused design, lower price point and open development process that defines indie games. This translated into a title that was around eight hours long, about half the running time of a AAA game, with a price of only £25, from which Ninja Theory would receive £19 per unit. It was made with just 20 people over three years and the development budget was £8m, including marketing. When you consider that AAA games are made with £20m to £100m and up, they were doing it on a shoestring.

Is this really what next-gen games are going to look like? The Hellblade 2 trailer looked absolutely terrific, but what does 'in-engine' actually mean and is it really possible for an early next-gen console game to look this good? Alex Battaglia investigates.

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Ninja Theory’s Tameem Antoniades introduces a look into the development of Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, the next chapter in Senua’s journey. Play day one with Xbox Game Pass. All game footage work in progress and not final.

Monkey Man wrote:[

Tameem Antoniades is the Afghan-born coder, and son of a Cypriot assassin, who set up shop in a bedroom, rewrote the rules of indie gaming and overnight became very, very rich. Now, the Ninja Theory founder wants to use his wealth to develop new technologies that will change the way you think... literally

Ironhide wrote:

Monkey Man wrote:[

Tameem Antoniades is the Afghan-born coder, and son of a Cypriot assassin, who set up shop in a bedroom, rewrote the rules of indie gaming and overnight became very, very rich. Now, the Ninja Theory founder wants to use his wealth to develop new technologies that will change the way you think... literally

Wait, what?