There’s a rumor out there that will make Ninja Theory fans, very, very happy.
As shared on Twitter by Idle Sloth, Nate the Hate has revealed that the internal mock reviews for Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II are doing very well.
This is what Nate the Hate said:
“At least, internally, that is what they’re anticipating. . . Not sure if it’s fully based on mock reviews; it could just be internal mock reviews – not sure if it’s been external mock reviews, but if that is what they’re projecting, is something in the low 90s that would be their highest Metacritic game since Gears 3.”
For those who are wondering, the first game in the series, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, scored an 81 on Metacritic and an 84 Top Critic Average at OpenCritic.
For those who are not aware, mock reviews are a system the industry has to anticipate what review scores they will get for their games in progress. Some games media may not want you to know this, but their own writers and editors, some of whom are popular personalities in their own right, are the people doing these mock reviews.
The way this works is that these writers are asked about making a mock review, while the game is in the middle of development. They don’t review the graphics, performance, missing assets, and others, because these reviews aren’t being requested when the game is presentable. Instead, the point is to get a higher degree of feedback to get them to improve the game while they still can.
These mock reviews are written as if they are real reviews. In this way, the writers can give the same feedback in a format that they are accustomed to, and perhaps are more effective at communicating what their feedback would be.
All of this is not to confirm that Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II is guaranteed to be a 9/10 or 10/10 game, but it’s certainly a positive sign if it was true. It’s been quite a journey for Ninja Theory, starting out as an Xbox developer, and being forced to sign a contract with Sony so that they and their big project, Heavenly Sword, could survive.
So you can see that the studio has been trying to make this ambitious, female-character led action game for a while, but they seemingly have refined their game design, and production process. This could be the moment that makes this studio into one of the big ones.
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II will be releasing on 2024 on Xbox Series X|S and Windows.
