• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

When Xbox announced Hellblade II there was no game, just a trailer made for the TGAs

Banjo64

cumsessed


I suppose we now know why Xbox’s games take 6 years from reveal to launch. It’s because they are showing ‘games’ that aren’t even in development yet.

I posted this in the Hellblade 2 thread but thought it deserved its own thread.

Perfect Dark, Hellblade 2, Everwild, The Outer Worlds 2 - all appear likely to have received similar treatment.

I hope Xbox stop doing this, it’s not fair on the dev teams or the fans who probably think these games are a year out.
 

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
I think that's obviously not ideal in any way. But I think that's what you have to do to even attempt to sell your system at launch. Similar situation with Versus 13. Everyone will laugh but that's the Mattick hole Xbox was crawling out of. They had almost no 1st party development left and had to sprint to even have a shot staying in it.

Outer Worlds 2 I give a pass. They literally made a joke of that in the trailer.
 
That’s probably 90% of the games they used to show. the new fable was definitely just concept art at the announcement

One of the artists had an ArtStation post that basically confirmed it was a CG trailer and not in-game footage.

No wonder Phil was so defensive about that in the interview with Grubb & co. Also lends credence to the idea that many of the games from the 2020 event (Everwild, Contraband, etc.) and the Perfect Dark trailer were also just trailer cuts with no actual game in development around that time.

The Killzone 2 CG trailer of this generation

Only KZ2 ended up somehow (maybe voodoo magic?) looking even better than the CG trailer. Hellblade 2 already has noticeable compromises compared to the 2019 and 2021 footage.
 
Last edited:

gokurho

Member


I suppose we now know why Xbox’s games take 6 years from reveal to launch. It’s because they are showing ‘games’ that aren’t even in development yet.

I posted this in the Hellblade 2 thread but thought it deserved its own thread.

Perfect Dark, Hellblade 2, Everwild, The Outer Worlds 2 - all appear likely to have received similar treatment.

I hope Xbox stop doing this, it’s not fair on the dev teams or the fans who probably think these games are a year out.

Snl Hype GIF by Saturday Night Live
 
I don't think that anyone aside from the hardcore rats thought even for a moment that we were looking at more than a target render back then, so that's not really news, and a very common thing actually.
Or do you think that that Fable trailer scene f.e. existed within an actual game back then... Or even right now.
 
Last edited:

Skifi28

Member
Does that mean there's a chance that Fable trailer was BS and it won't represent the actual game? We can only hope.

I don't think that anyone aside from the hardcore rats thought even for a moment that we were looking at more than a target tender back then
And it wasn't even that tender.
 
Last edited:

Danknugz

Member
wow i just heard of outer worlds 2 now, it was announced 3 years ago? crazy when you consider they can announce a game and 3 years later still not playable. i miss the old days when you would just see a new game on the shelf or be able to buy it at most within a year or two.
 

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
Nah, it's dumb as hell. Sony didn't do that with PS4 and PS5 (after rightfully learning their mistake with Killzone 2), and MS could have showed Forza Horizon 5 instead or some shit.
In a purely strategic sense they probably made the right call. They had to try and show something to get systems selling or they were dead and just showing Forza was not gonna cut it.

We've seen them change strategy when they got some breathing room. Indiana Jones wasnt shown until this year. They've held back on Gears as well.
 
Last edited:

Banjo64

cumsessed
wow i just heard of outer worlds 2 now, it was announced 3 years ago? crazy when you consider they can announce a game and 3 years later still not playable. i miss the old days when you would just see a new game on the shelf or be able to buy it at most within a year or two.
That actually surprised me but I just check and you’re right, June 2021. That’s actually crazy, there’s much less scrutiny on that compared to other games but as Punished Miku Punished Miku said it’s probably due to the self-aware nature of the reveal.
 
One of the artists had an ArtStation post that basically confirmed it was a CG trailer and not in-game footage.

No wonder Phil was so defensive about that in the interview with Grubb & co. Also lends credence to the idea that many of the games from the 2020 event (Everwild, Contraband, etc.) and the Perfect Dark trailer were also just trailer cuts with no actual game in development around that time.



Only KZ2 ended up somehow (maybe voodoo magic?) looking even better than the CG trailer. Hellblade 2 already has noticeable compromises compared to the 2019 and 2021 footage.
No mate it didn't look as good 😅
 

nial

Member
In a purely strategic sense they probably made the right call. They had to try and show something to get systems selling or they were dead and just showing Forza was not gonna cut it.
When you're talking about a game that would take 4+ years in the making, it was surely not the right call. Though in their defense, looking at the scope of HB2, they probably thought it was not going to take more than 2 years at all, lmao.
 

Banjo64

cumsessed
Isn't this old news and largely known? I remember hearing this back when the trailer premiered.
I didn’t know this. To be honest I owned a Series S at launch and had followed all of the Lockhart, Anaconda leaks etc for the 2 years leading up to launch.
I genuinely thought Fable, Everwild, Hellblade 2 etc would all be released within the first 3 years of the consoles life span and I considered myself pretty up to date on Xbox’s plans at the time.
 

Mr Moose

Member
"We are investing in new things, we've signed things just recently that I thought, 'Hey, from a PR standpoint it would be really easy for me to put a trailer on screen', even though I know the game is not coming for another two-and-half or three years, so I didn’t want to do that," he told Waypoint.
 

Mortisfacio

Member
I didn’t know this. To be honest I owned a Series S at launch and had followed all of the Lockhart, Anaconda leaks etc for the 2 years leading up to launch.
I genuinely thought Fable, Everwild, Hellblade 2 etc would all be released within the first 3 years of the consoles life span and I considered myself pretty up to date on Xbox’s plans at the time.

Fair enough. I saw a few articles talking about it. What was really shocking was 2 years later, in 2021, it was still stated it wasn't in full production



"What we're trying to do now is build out a chunky section of the game, then move into full production and build out the rest".
 
Last edited:
Ehhh when tlou2 was first reveal it was Ellie playing the guitar talking to Joel about killing every last one of them. Also not in the game.
 
I think that's obviously not ideal in any way. But I think that's what you have to do to even attempt to sell your system at launch. Similar situation with Versus 13. Everyone will laugh but that's the Mattick hole Xbox was crawling out of. They had almost no 1st party development left and had to sprint to even have a shot staying in it.

Outer Worlds 2 I give a pass. They literally made a joke of that in the trailer.

Consider the generation they were having with Xbox One , wouldn’t you think they would of planned ahead so they would of been in much better shape and have a more appealing product when the time was right to start a new generation? Have some games ready to go to show that the previous generation wasn’t good enough and they were starting on the front foot.

It says a lot that it took a subscription service to bolster their first party portfolio in 2018 .
 
Last edited:


I suppose we now know why Xbox’s games take 6 years from reveal to launch. It’s because they are showing ‘games’ that aren’t even in development yet.

I posted this in the Hellblade 2 thread but thought it deserved its own thread.

Perfect Dark, Hellblade 2, Everwild, The Outer Worlds 2 - all appear likely to have received similar treatment.

I hope Xbox stop doing this, it’s not fair on the dev teams or the fans who probably think these games are a year out.

We already knew that Ninja Theory said as much at the time.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
I hope Xbox stop doing this, it’s not fair on the dev teams or the fans who probably think these games are a year out.

I think they already stopped doing this around 2022 keynotes specifically because of the flack they got for announcing games with pre rendered trailers .
 

Oppoi

Member
Last generation MS brought us Ryse... and this generation, well... we had to wait for it but! Maybe! Perhaps there's uh, Senuas Saga II?
 

JackMcGunns

Member


I suppose we now know why Xbox’s games take 6 years from reveal to launch. It’s because they are showing ‘games’ that aren’t even in development yet.

I posted this in the Hellblade 2 thread but thought it deserved its own thread.

Perfect Dark, Hellblade 2, Everwild, The Outer Worlds 2 - all appear likely to have received similar treatment.

I hope Xbox stop doing this, it’s not fair on the dev teams or the fans who probably think these games are a year out.


You’re implying only Xbox has done this. How many years… cough… generations rather (Holy shit) did it take for The Last Guardian to be delivered after its reveal? What about Deep Down?

 

Banjo64

cumsessed
You’re implying only Xbox has done this. How many years… cough… generations rather (Holy shit) did it take for The Last Guardian to be delivered after its reveal? What about Deep Down?


No, I’m not.

But for your info there is a difference between announcing a game that is in already development that is then delayed for 10 years due to development hell, and announcing a game that hasn’t even begun development.
 

Kataploom

Gold Member
It's far from an Xbox only thing to, western industry, including westernized Asia devs have the same issue. That's why some people still think Nintendo tend to have nothing for the rest of the year and then it ends up being full of releases. They got used to expect announcements 3 or more years before release and not 4 or 6 months as it should be imo...
 
Top Bottom