Hellblade 2 Finally Getting Physical Edition on PS5, Courtesy of Limited Run Games

Goes nice with Hellblade 1 😁

Hard pass. Physical or not, a dud is a dud.

They could give it away and I still wouldn't want it , trash non game, its up there with ET on the atari 2600, as one of the worst games ever made

I’ll wait till lrg retail partners get stock and decide then how much I hate myself.

I have ordered from them once, it was a Castlevania or a Doom game for PS4 for 30$. Now if you added customs, shipping and all those taxes I ended up paying 70€. I also received the game 8 months later. And the game still had an update making the whole thing pointless.

Cool, I'll most likey get this! Fingers crossed the whole game is on the disc, unlike Doom.

@KundaliniRising333 was it a dud? Most of the reception was positive and the first one was good.
Sounds like a short yet focused single player game.

@tameshiyaku Calling this a game is being generous. You could watch a "let's play" of it on YouTube while twiddling your controller, and the experience would be more or less the same.

It never received a Physical release at launch because it would be pointless. The only people buying 'Physical' would be the 'few' Series X console gamers (as PC and Series S are all digital), don't sub to Game Pass and prefer to buy Physical. With Series X also having the smallest user base and as Digital far exceeds Physical in terms of sale numbers, they'd not sell enough Physical copies to justify the costs of manufacturing and distributing that media.

As for the 'game' itself, its more of an experience - the experience of Psychosis and how the situation affects the voices. so Combat & puzzles are there to feed the voices, not the test the players gaming skills. As an Experience, I think its great, but as a Game, its lacking! There is a reason they recommend playing on Headphones because the 'main' focus is the Audio and experiencing Psychosis - not 'Game-play) which is more to service the Narrative and experience.

Therefore I doubt Hellblade 2 was a 'System seller' for Microsoft and probably didn't move the needle much for Game Pass Subscriptions either.

If you really enjoyed the Audio and 'experience' of the first but got frustrated by Puzzles and Combat, this is for you and I think its designed to be more accessible so more people get the full experience of Senuas Psychosis.

There is no mention of this release on either Limited Runs wed site or there twitter (X).

@Trauma_Team_Medic you're very generous with those scores 😂

Hellblade is great but Never buy from these charlatans.

@tameshiyaku its just so so boring , makes everybodys gone to the rapture seem exciting

@Basilides Right... The whole article is about how this was a new esrb posting, & that's why it also says "While no official announcement has been made"

I regretted buying the first one, and I got it for $15. The reviews and impressions of this one sound like they've magnified every flaw of the original.

It's a shame because Ninja Theory is a really good dev, or have been in the past. Enslaved was an underrated gem.

Fantastic news; these guys are adept at cleaning up the pathetic failures of selfish, greedy, anti-consumer publishers that prefer to screw over the competent hardcore gamer by refusing to do their jobs and mint discs. Point these guys in the direction of Indy, DoomDA and Oblivion Remastered next.

@Trauma_Team_Medic I'm struggling to think of a worse game released the same year with the same budget , apparently they made actual costumes for all the motion capture actors , whats the point in that , maybe they should have concentrated on some actual gameplay instead

@Vectrex I'd rather watch my child's nativety play for 8hrs than play it again, yes iam not a fan 😂

@BAMozzy I would only disagree on who would buy physical. I do for 2 reasons:
1. Resell value. I do not reply games ever. So I buy, play and sell. This way each game I play at the end I pay 30% of price.
2. When I am not sure if it will be my type of game so I do not loose money ( basically same as reason one).

@glennthefrog I'm not sure they are tbh, they've always been a mid-tier developer who sees themselves as far more important than their output has ever warranted.

@Sergo That would come under 'preference' but if you had a PC/Series S, you would not have that choice so cannot buy Physical to play the game.

On Series X, the ONLY Xbox hardware that has a Physical Media drive, you have a choice to play it for 'FREE' on Game Pass - thus not needing to spend money, no risk to trying and therefore no need to 'sell' to fund your next game or recoup your losses. That in itself also reduces the number of people that will buy the game as most will play it via Game Pass. Series X too has a smaller number of users as the Series S sold more units and PC owners don't need to buy Xbox hardware at all.

So of the 'few' Series X owners that therefore will buy (both Digital & Physical), Physical accounts for a small percentage. Less than 20% of ALL sales are Physical. So if you only sell or expect to sell 200k, 20% is only about 40k Physical sales which cost money to make and distribute - especially in 'small' numbers.

On Playstation, not only do you have a LOT more Users due to more Playstation 5's sold, but the most populatr model is the Disc based version and their PS5 Pro can add a Physical Media player too. Also, Playstation gamers are a bit more likely to buy Physical and its not as if 80% of the Playstation users will play it day 1 on a Sub service. In terms of Digital - Physical split, its more like 70:30 than Xbox 80:20

Therefore because the ONLY option on Playstation is to 'buy' and no option to 'rent' via Sub service like Xbox/PC, as well as a 'higher' user base and 'higher' percentage of those able to use Physical, Games will sell a lot more copies. With double the player counts and over half having access to a physical media drive, as well as PS gamers more likely to buy Physical, they may expect to sell a LOT more Physical games to make it worthwhile.

I don't care why you choose the format you do - that's Preference - but on Xbox, it would seem that people prefer to play on Game Pass or buy Digitally and with Series X having the 'smallest' users, very few in the Xbox/PC ecosystem will actually buy Physical so its not 'worth' the additional Costs to produce Physical discs. If that puts the 'few' who ONLY buy Physical to sell on, to 'keep' a Physical disc or for whatever reason they have off from purchasing, it's such a small number that it won't have a big impact on the overall. I clearly state that those buying on disc are Series X owners that 'prefer' Physical and won't be playing it via Game Pass which is a tiny percentage of the Xbox/PC ecosystem!

If you didn't have to buy because it was offered as part of PS+ day 1, you wouldn't 'buy' it Physically or feel there is a 'risk' that you may need to sell if you don't like it. You can download, try and then decide whether or not you want/need to buy it at all. That's why this game wasn't released on Physical disc on Xbox/PC because the majority won't be 'buying'anyway and of the minority that do, only a 'few' can or would buy it Physically for their 'preference' anyway as most buy Digital these days.

@ganonms Nothing bad with that unless you think walking simulators are a waste of a game, which I do.

@ganonms It's not disrespectful. That's effectively saying no art is above criticism. I mean, I'm not the only person in this thread alone criticising it.

It's a videogame with very little of the "game" part, and what's there is rudimentary, ergo it's a waste of a game.

Played it on Game Pass. Horrible game. Literally walked around slowly for six hours. Also, Microsoft is pathetic. It's now getting a physical copy because of it coming to PS5.

@ganonms Considering I enjoyed Ninja Theory's games in the last, and it took them the guts of a decade to make this barely interactive tech demo instead of another good game (or several), then yes, it's a waste of a studio's talent.

Is it going to have 80mb of data on the disk like the last Xbox game on ps5

@BAMozzy nice to see someone else who understands what this game is. Everyone is too focused on the mainstream gaming experience.

Both the first and this one are experiences entirely separate from standard gaming that require an entirely different mindset and atmosphere to enjoy properly

LRG is the final nail for me, too bad.

What, 85mb on a disc again?

@belmont To be fair its easy to see how long it will take they tell you. And everything is quite clear when you order? From the date untill the pricing.

@MrPeanutbutterz It depends there are some really fantastic walking simulators. Some really have a fantastic story to follow.

@BAMozzy I would love to see the physical media number if they remove the digital only content and games.

@Lowdefal Really i have so many great LRG stuff i have to disagree.

@Flaming_Kaiser There's definitely some that are good within the genre, but I still have little time for them.

I'm there for the gameplay, very little else. Call it a hangover of growing up in the arcades and with a Megadrive at home.

@Flaming_Kaiser The shipping was delayed multiple times actually. I was obviously aware of the import fees but the huge detail plus not having the latest update in the disk made the whole thing pointless.

Also, I don't really get the point to see the number of physical game sales. There are a lot of articles in this site that paint the picture that retail is much less than digital. Also, if you remove digital at all you remove all PC gamers and games in countries that do not have access to retail games. Digital accessibility literally created the indie game scene and ensures gaming preservation...

@Lowdefal If they give me a product I want, they're not a scam. If they took my money and never delivered the product, that would be a scam, but that's not the case.

@belmont What are you talking about more options is always better for the consumer.And somehow several games dissapear even when when they were digital.

Digital is about control of the market keeping the money higher up. All these massive corpate entities are there for one thing money. With physical you atleast have more people life of it.

The important idea of numbers is to show how and what. If you put in stuff that is not available physical its not a real honest comparison.

@MrPeanutbutterz Well they are quite a bit cheaper and shorter and u have a few that really left a impression with Gone Home such a great back story if you find all the stuff i loved that.