Nearly 90% of Hellblade 2 Xbox Players Haven't Completed it's Story

Not surprised... Eye candy only takes you so far. It's The Order 1886 effect: all graphics but no substance. Even the best visuals can't cover for cookie cutter gameplay, which is a common issue in AAA right now.
 
Completion rate for GOW Ragnarok is about 25% and that's a game people have to buy outright.

10% for a game pass game doesn't really seem like anything newsworthy.
 
Three said:
I was waiting for the Chris Dring and Matt Piscatella comparisons of first week sales vs the first game but alas those comments didn't come like other games.
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Yeah, no sales updates from apple or chicken dude either, like its was for Rebirth or Helldivers 2. Shocked/not shocked actually.
 
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Bry0 said:
Completion rate for GOW Ragnarok is about 25% and that's a game people have to buy outright.

10% for a game pass game doesn't really seem like anything newsworthy.
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God of War Ragnarok also takes between 30 and 60 hours to finish.

More than anything it shows that people aren't interested in a pretty video game with limited interactivity. Maybe if they are trying to make use of an Xbox controller with forward stick drift. But that only makes up about 3% of those that completed the game. 😛
 
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FIREKNIGHT2029 said:
The game is dead on Steam right now. More people playing the first game as we speak than its sequel.

Ninja Theory is in serious trouble....

GPaT5WcaEAAG4fP


GPaT5Wea0AEMm5N
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This can't be real... 200 people?! Makes Redfall look like a smash hit.
 
This was closer to reading a book to me than the first game was. I would play until I wanted to stop and do something else and come back to it later. That it was only a 7 hour game made it far more approachable to me over a long weekend. After finishing it, it opens up a mode to hear the other characters thoughts, which was a neat idea. I could have done without some of the puzzles. They felt like padding. I get that it makes you explore the area more, but they are all basically the same puzzle, just in a new locale. The combat was nice, but the hourglass item is a huge crutch. It also felt like the enemies were being fed to you off an assembly line one by one. The main foes of the game were awful.

Personally, I was hoping that it would be a make friends with the natives of the island and then go deal with the slaver tribe as a combined force. Unfortunately, you are Sybok from Star Trek V. You have to relive some bad memories and then go forgive a bunch of giants. After that, the final giant has you fight off the whole slaver village and then it wraps up. It had its cool parts, but it didn't hit nearly as hard as the first one.
 
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I played 30 minutes until the first 100pts achievement and then dropped it because I just got too fucking bored on pushing against invisible walls to figure out where the route is, and understanding fuck all of the combat timing.

My intention was to return and finish the game, given it's short, after my return from Iceland.

Now I am back, after a week in freezing rain, with a bronchitis from hell, and I will most certainly not boot the game up.

If I will ever return to finish an Iceland game, it will be Death Stranding.
 
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Low barrier of entry probably caused a lot of players that normally wouldn't play this type of game to download it and load it up. Shame that there was nothing to hook them in that first hour or so, though. That definitely points towards the fact that the devs probably could have done better for the first chunk of the game.

I haven't played it yet, but I'm interested when it goes on sale for around $20.
 
Not sure if it's entirely Hellblade 2's fault. Firstly, it's on Gamepass where it seems like completion rates are typically low. Next, it's the XBox community, so even if it's something like Perfect Dark, Halo 7, Gears of War 6 or even Final Fantasy 18, I have a strong feeling the completion rate would still be low for the obvious reasons. When even a game like Gears of War: Hivebusters on Gamepass had a 4% completion rate for getting off THE FIRST MISSION years after it released, that speaks volumes I feel.
 
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Not that surprising. The game's not for everyone. It's actually pretty boring with tedious puzzles, underwhelming combat and with basically no exploration at all. Which is a shame because the game looks great. Ninja Theory did the game they wanted to make, which is fine. Problem is, it's apparently not a game for anybody else.
 
Heck, I didn't even download it.
I'll probably give it a chance after the inevitable 60fps patch and not finish it, just like I never finished the first one.
 
StreetsofBeige said:
Hellblade games shouldnt even be called games.

I didnt get past the first hour of HB1. By the sounds of it, if I played HB2 I wouldnt get past half an hour.
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Have you played Enslaved: Odyssey to the West? Now that's a game. A good one. I wish Ninja Theory would do more games like that instead of spending five years on a voices in my head walking sim.
 
Unknown Soldier said:
More to the point: People play and complete games they buy. The act of buying implies a level of commitment that simply isn't seen when you subscribe to a service. This is called the Netflix Effect in Hollywood, where people rarely finish TV shows and even 2 hour long movies after the shift to streaming.
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I can't remember the last time I "completed" a game. And I buy more my fair share.

I think everyone is different, on a service like GP completion rates are far lower because people will try a game and if they don't like it just move on. Exactly how the service is intended for use. I don't see that as a bad thing.
 
Pejo said:
Low barrier of entry probably caused a lot of players that normally wouldn't play this type of game to download it and load it up. Shame that there was nothing to hook them in that first hour or so, though. That definitely points towards the fact that the devs probably could have done better for the first chunk of the game.

I haven't played it yet, but I'm interested when it goes on sale for around $20.
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Or it caused people not to stick with a turd for a few hours since they didn't technically pay for it, and go play something that is more fun.
 
I have used my considerable and utterly objective experience as a video game enthusiast and tastemaker and after playing Hellblade 2 I believe that the reason for this outcome is that the game is piss boring.
 
This should not be funny but it's kinda hilarious in a fucked up way. Goddamn I guess releasing it on PlayStation too would have been a good idea considering the PS ecosystem is more open to games like this but still 💀💀💀
 
Articles like this are genuinely strange to me.

I've started the game played about two hours and to my surprise I'm really enjoying it.

But with work, family life and other activities I enjoy doing, I haven't had the time to complete the game despite it's short run time.

Isn't the game only a week old?
 
I "played" it, I walked a lot, fought 2 battles then quit. Eventually decided to give it another shot. Turns out the next part was a 20 minute walk, so I quit for good this time.
 
MH3M3D said:
I "played" it, I walked a lot, fought 2 battles then quit. Eventually decided to give it another shot. Turns out the next part was a 20 minute walk, so I quit for good this time.
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Yeah but the 3D audio of voices in your head while you're walking, though
 
Some people have only 2-3 hours for games per week, so yeah, it's too early to judge the completion ratio. It's the first 2 achievements that are very worrying. Seems like the introduction is driving people away, maybe because of them expecting more gameplay, maybe it's just not that interesting to see where the story goes next.

Plus there's that Netflix effect mentioned before - it's very easy to skip to something else from the sub if the game bores you, because you didn't actually commit and pay for it.
 
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diffusionx said:
It's a six hour game where like 4 of those hours you're just walking forward.
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RDR2 is also a 20h game where you add 60 hours riding around and watching pretentious ambivalent dialogs. With today's open world and rpg fetish in everything, most games are bloated af. This here might be too short for regular full price, which is for a gp title irrelevant anyway though. Too short with some stuff some don't like, or even hate, is imho hardly worse than actually time consuming bloat prevalent in many other games. The best feature of Callisto Protocoll eg was imho that, while it being mediocre, it did not overstay its welcome, at all.
Of course this does not have to be for everyone, but it feels weird that people rather play repetitive stuff ad nauseum, to get good, just pure grind achieving nothing actually, than go through something that is short and maybe too linear or whatever.
I am not really a huge fan of NG+ modes and have no idea why this is even considered something that often has to be released as some DLC or some major upgrade, when it should be in any game day one, but often those playthroughs are the actual fun ones, when you ignore all of the distracting nonsense that is in modern gta/skyrim wannabe games and just play those actual six hours with 4 hours of walking.
 
The thing with Gamepass is if the game is not engaging enough, there is no reason to force yourself to finish it because you didn't pay full price for it, only subscription cost of the service. When people buy a game at full price they are compelled to finish it due to wanting their money's worth even if they're not liking the game.
 
Hydroxy said:
When people buy a game at full price they are compelled to finish it due to wanting their money's worth even if they're not liking the game.
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I'm sure it's more compelling (I certainly think so myself at least), but I'm thinking it's still pretty marginal.

I remember reading that TLOU2 had the highest completion rate of any game on PS4, and that was "only" in the 50% range iirc. Which means all other games on the platform would be below, so the vast majority of people don't seem to finish their games no matter if they buy them or not.
 
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