i guess we all can agree that this game just shows proper console/pc optimization with great artistic usage of technology can finally deliver us games in 2024 we deserve.. especially after 2023/24 crap bug unoptimized games
@@TrentMac It does...they are essentially QTEs...I really did not like the combat in the first game, and while I probably prefer what is here so far, it is very basic and lacks much interactivity and agency.
I'm playing my first run of this on the Series X. But the next run will be on my PC with maxed out settings. Damn, this game is so gorgeous! I can't wait to see what The Coalition does with this engine!!
I'm playing this game on Series S - it is still the most unique visual (and audio) experiences, the graphics are out of this world. Amazing port given that SS is basically a (very) budget gaming machine which costs ~270$
Absolutely. I play on Series S as well and considering I had the console for $200 I can't really complain about the few cutbacks. Hellblade 2 still looks phenomenal and I was fully immersed with the binaural audio.
@@spenny2cents not yet, I'm 1.5h in, so have around 4-4.5h ahead of me. But from those 1.5h it's already obvious how high is the quality of picture, audio and overall immersion in that world. But yeah, I've preferred if it was not 6h but at least a 10-11h game
@@spenny2cents I finished It yesterday. It's closer to 7-8 hours If you collect everything. If you skip all the cutscenes and run then yes, It's pretty short.
I played through the whole game on the Series S (I'll play through on PC & Xbox Series X later). The game still looks really good and runs well. Some of the cutscenes really do look like pre-rendered CGI at times. Edit: I don't know why most replies have nothing to do with my comment.🤨
@@shto4782 Its a game, but its not your type of game. That's totally fine. Let's just agree that this is a certain genre of games. It's a walking simulator and some people like the easy going nature of these interactive experiences. Similar to how people like watching movies. Just look at the big Playstation games. You spend a lot of time watching instead of playing. The Medium was also a walking simulator. I say Hellblade 2 fits that niche of games. There are other games out there.
@@matthewdanahy9411 I have a TCL 4k 65... I prefer to play on my plasmas... the image is much more natural, the motion resolution is perfect too. 4k doesn't make any difference if you have a high quality 1080p plasma TV... the 1080p graphics on them look beautiful... and you can also use supersampling for 2k and 4k... and it looks beautiful and I don't see any advantage in 4k TV. Only in rare cases like Forza Horizon 4 does HDR make any difference on the newer 4k TV.
£220 for me. Half the price of a low end graphics card, with a £50 controller thrown in. I'm an old dude with kids and a mortgage. The £500 consoles with £70 games are a terrible choice for my demographic. Series/s and gamepass ultimate was a godsend for me.
I live in Brazil and videogames here are crazy expensive compared to the average monthly income. Series S is amazing for its price and perfect for developing countries like Brazil and Mexico.
Series S version looks to be a really good port. If you're on a 1080p TV, you probably can't see any differences between the S and X versions. Especially with how post processing softens the image up.
@@Pokingclams Where do such stereotypes come from? This is a stationary console and it should provide good graphics! No matter how much it costs, it's the manufacturer's problem, not the buyer's. At the presentation of consoles, no one said that everything would be so bad
Considering this could possibly be the best-looking game I've ever played. The fact that it runs on SS is quite impressive. The game is a journey, and the visuals are outstanding.
Playing on series s. The amount of times I've had to double check I had my glasses on is hilarious. (This was absolutely my expectation going in I'm fine with it)
Ngl ive put some hours in the series s version and cant say i find many faults apart from foliage and some shadows, but for a sub £300 console I'm astounded still. It's all about expectations being somewhat reasonable.
@@davidvillamarin-lj2pf How are you measuring these drops to 20 FPS? Because when I'm playing the game I don't expect 60fps, nor do I expect 4K...I set my expectations relative to what I am playing it on, I have and do enjoy the experience, and for me that's enough. If you're getting a mere 20 FPS and are looking for faults I feel for you my man, I enjoy the game even as a downgraded version of the series x game. It's a story driven story of a game, not some fast paced slash and dash or a race game. People seriously need to temper their expectations and stop shit dogging on a game that only targets 30fps.
@@davidvillamarin-lj2pf Where are these drops to 20 frames? You'd think DF would have pointed that out if it was that noticeable, rather than saying the exact opposite?
Ryse is still one of favourite games and the reason I bought a Xbox one S. I am really enjoying Hellblade 2 right now but agree that Ryse is a better game.
I want to see another Punch-Out on the Switch 2 because you know they can get it looking good because it's focused. Also, why I'm looking forward to Astral Chain 2. Smaller focused games are nice at times.
Finished it today and I really don't know why this wasn't just a movie. While it isn't a walking simulator since it does have 'gameplay' that is really bland combat and puzzles and the story is short and shallow. They should had just gone full walking simulator since they clearly invested all their time into the visuals and maybe they could had invest a bit more time into the story. There is even a point of a 'choice' that I was like okay here we go finally we're doing something with the story choosing between characters, but then 10 seconds later you're reunited with the other character and there wasn't any point to that. Doesn't change anything, characters do not feel anything about the choice. Why even have that?
@@VariantAEC the first game was also a surprise indie game made with about 20 people on a shoestring budget. This was over 100 people with at least 6 years of development with presumably a large budget. It does nothing better than the first game other than the visuals. Personally found the first games story and “events” to be more engaging and expansive. I won’t be shocked if Microsoft shuts them down.
The team is 80 or so folks and a huge chunk of development time was during Covid. I think the end result is basically flawless for what they were going for. I get why some folks wanted something that feels more responsive or has more player agency, but for me this game was extremely engaging from start to finish.
@@sleep_sport So, you're saying the team grew by 400% and probably also saw a massive budget increase but only managed to make a shorter game with less gameplay and far better visuals than their first game, in 7 years time? Covid affected everyone, and yet it didn't impact other game releases like Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon Forbidden West, Gran Turismo 7, and Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart. Everything people are saying is an excuse.
Awesome analysis as usual! This might sound crazy, but when I tried it out on the Steam Deck, I actually preferred to play at TSR Native at about 17FPS capped instead of destroying the image with upscaling. I would normally never go below a capped 30FPS, but since the gameplay is basically just a movie, playing at extremely low FPS (capped to at least keep it consistent) but with with better image quality, is preferable. That being said, I didn't really enjoy the Steam Deck experience in this game, since the whole point is the visual experience.
I could hit 60 fps with low settings using DLSS on a laptop with a RTX 2060. It wasn't consistant and my 99% frames kept jumping from 30's to late 20's to 40's but it was playable enough for 3 playthroughs and getting all the achievements
my RTX 4070 usually runs at 45 fps (high settings, 4k dlss balanced). with frame gen it goes to 90. looks very nice on lg cx (oled 120hz panel). probably the best looking game i have ever played.
love the little optimizations they did to maintain a stable frame-rate on the series S at an impressive internal resolution considering the content, while maintaining the overall filmic and realistic look of the game. it really does feel like one of the only games in a while that actually came out done, and didn't really need more time in the oven
Stunning game, an epic artistic masterpiece with a flawlessly executed visual and audio experience. As a massive fan of HELLBLADE, I have waited for years to play this, and completed Hellblade four times. To say the least I have been absolutely floored by how spectacular HELLBLADE 2's story unfolded. Thankyou Ninjablade for crafting such a tour de force in this genre. PS I never knew XBXSX would be able to render visuals like this. Stunning.
On Ally the best settings are low 1080p fsr3 balanced at 30w tdp, runs mostly at 30fps with minimal drops and looks awesome, lower resolutions like 720p or 900p looks too soft and bad since the display is 1080p native
7840u really flexing it's power on this game. Going beyond a 15 watt tdp and the right settings, the game doesn't look that far off from the Series S. Too much for the Deck though. The game loses all of its graphical shine when all the settings are set to low and the upscalers are set very low as well.
It seems a bit off to me to spend so much time talking about reflections using a way that's not really intended gameplay. While it's a clear explanation on how the reflections work and it's limitations, while playing the game that has a heavily directed camera that's locked to the character the reflection issues are almost a non issue aside for the occasional occlusion. I think people will get a skewed perception, the low resolution and smearing from the low rez upscale are much more of a visual distraction but it was relatively less of a focus or emphasis in the video.
I really don’t see a big reason for 60 fps. Given that this is a cinematic experience with minimal gameplay, it makes sense for frame rate to be lower. Not trying to hate on those who are able to run the game at 60 fps, but I don’t think anyone should lose sleep over it.
everyone who loved Bloodborne was also forced to play at badly paced 30 frames per second. i still love the game, just as much as many others do, and Bloodborne is a lot more reactive than Hellblade and has alot more action gameplay. So if that's fine, then Hellblade 2 is perfect at 30.
great video, Oliver. I finish the game. Enjoy it and one of the best looking game ever. Really didn't like the puzzles tho. I hate puzzles in gaming. 😀
@@istealpopularnamesforlikes3340 That’s… good? Journalism is supposed to be objective. If I wanted someone’s L take on something I’d watch The Act Man or some other generic gaming youtubers that might as well be writing articles on IGN.
Stand still and doing nothing will of course boost the the fps numbers, but the moment you move thr character the games sloes down to a crawl. Must have been a hard pill for them to relaize the steamdeck can't handle this game.
Honestly Xbox Series S is a very accessible and decent console I'm kinda surprised why hasn't it been popular amongst underdeveloped countries where PlayStation is gouging up the subscription prices and a faulty expensive console that can fry devices or cause throttling for competitive games being played on it officially
The "game" is really just a tech demo and nothing else. The puzzles are basic as fuck, the combat is sparse and has long bouts of nothingness in between. The combat is also extremely simplified. The story also falls woefully short as well. And the game doesn't improve much over its predecessor, in fact it often comes up short when compared to its predecessor. This "game" should have been free much like astros playroom on ps5. The difference is astro is an all around fun and awesome game and this isn't. Is all the coddling this "game" is getting cause people are afraid that ninja theory is on the chopping block? Cause god damn i am seeing people play fast and loose with their descriptors of this "game."
Developers need to take note of what the series S can do. Is it perfect? No. Is it $250? Yes. I’m playing on S and X and at least on a smaller tv at a normal distance, the difference isn’t world shattering. I am very impressed with how good it looks on the series S. Thank you for continuing to do reviews that include this console. This game is amazing no matter how you play it.
i'll say it again on PC playing at 60 it looks like a tv with the truemotion turned on. I think everything in this game was designed deliberately to be 30fps. Usually i call BS when developers throw that out there...but i'm inclined to believe it was the main design target for both PC and XBOX, with PC being able to unlock its frames for the people who get upset about it.
Interesting comparison. I’m always choosing performance over quality on consoles but the 30fps in this game didn’t bother me at all. Super smooth on series x
I love these shorter experiences, I'm enjoying the game so far.👍🏻 For my criticism... Combat Looks amazing like a pre-rendered cutscene, unfortunately it kinda feels like one too sometimes.
@@spenny2cents You nailed it perfect example of fanboy nonsense, at least you didn't try and disguise it as a veiled game criticism like the rest and got straight to it I do respect that honesty at least...the first time it was a paid for anti competitive timed exclusive so not even a Sony first party this is now a 1st party exclusive funded entirely by Microsoft so the Fanboys have no valid point of contention of it now being an Xbox exclusive
The Series S is REALLY cheap, so for those gamers that are on a serious budget...it's sort of god-send. Especially as an entry-level experience for a new gamer, whether they be a kid or an adult getting into video games for the first time, gems like this being able to be played on a console that you can get on resell sites online sometimes for $100-$200 (Facebook Marketplace aka Rich's personal favorite) is something that might benefit Microsoft only in the long run, but all of the industry. I say this because having such good kit as a welcome into gaming means more customer satisfaction, leading to gaming becoming a lifelong joy rather than just some momentary hobby. The same happened to me with the PS3/360 era, I was already a gamer bigtime, but the era locked it into my very soul. Games like Hellblade will likely be this generation's equals to the Halo 3's, Killzones, Motorstorms, and more.
The lighting looks amazing and the characters, especially the main but the textures look quite flat, the world lacks variety even at the highest end. Oh and the gameplay is pretty rubbish.
yeah, I'm puzzled why many seem to be gushing over how the graphics are so much better than other games, when the textures mostly seem to be straight from Unreal's photogrammetry libraries (very similar to the caves/rocks in the first UE5 demo back in 2020) and there's very little variety in terms of terrain and structures, the viewing angles are pretty limited due to the narrow paths you can take, much is in heavy shadow, and the post-processing is very heavy handed. there's a lot that they seem to either be covering up or hiding from the player. Alan Wake 2 and Plague Tale Requiem's graphics may not be as detailed, but they come pretty close while showing much more variety and less limiting environments, without having to resort to letterboxing, and have way more going on in the background of most scenes and gameplay segments.
@@JudeDefensor completely agree and DF used to be the guys to bring this stuff up but from Covid on, the bigger they got the more dishonest they have become.
It’s a mostly on rails game which I honestly don’t mind. But I do think that aspect diminishes any achievement in tech here. It doesn’t surprise me, for instance that it plays well or at all on these devices.
Robocop rogue city has nanite, lumen GI, SSR reflections with full of shooting , shit blowing up etc almost the same if not the same stuff than this game and was made by a AA studio and runs at dynamic 1080p on SS looks far better except for face animations that only appear in cutscenes in hellblade 2 and is a different tech. The game could look a bit more sharp on SS i don't know if is the lack of FSR or using TSR instead but they are an xbox studio if Teyon did it they can do it better. The game is 6 hours of the level Street Vultures Turf in robocop but looks better in the latter.
It's a shame we can't tweak chromatic aberration I understand why it's there, but it's overdone, imho. But they added motion blur toggle, which is arguably unnecessary in this game and turning it off hurts the art direction more than turning off the CA.
For fall back reflections why don’t they just take a screenshot of the real environment and use that instead of creating something that looks similar then it would be perfect
You can improve a little the 'softness' caused by the XeSS Performance on Steam Deck using 1152x720 resolution on window mode, then activating FSR on the SteamOS quick access menu with sharpness on 3
You improve the softness at the expense of introducing significant visual artifacts by further reducing the base resolution and adding a primitive sharpener on top of already very aggressive image upscaling.
@@DrumsBah they are already using the 720p resolution on the video, so is not reducing the resolution and not adding artifacts. The FSR sharpening might be primitive, but in this case is really better using it with XeSS than not...
I get what you mean when you say the 30fps doesn’t feel out of place here. It’s a single player game and when I played on my series x it just looks beautiful and the control response is great. I’m happy with it.
4 месяца назад
Hi, just play the game! It has some moments of unmatched visual awesomeness ❤🖤 and the combat feels way better than the first game.
For a console who costs 299$ or even 250$ this kind of game is incredible. I have both series X and S, I play with my series X on my 4k OLED 75 inches and my series S on my 50 inches 4k and I can tell the difference is minimum I can be impressed for both. Series S is not made for too big screens, just put it in a 50 inches 4k tv and all be really ok. Bravo ninja theory !
40-45 fps is not bad at all so glad this is being put out there for people to see. Luv my ally its fun switching between pc and the ally. Awesome performance from all in this vid
@@mitchelljenkins4815 more dense maybe, but not fidelity up close. Compare the faces from the Matrix demo and the faces in Hellblade, there's a gap. But I understand what you mean. Unreal Engine was designed with Open World in mind, definitely. But there a MASSIVE amount of work required to a bring an Open World at this level of fidelity. It might be even hard to top Hellblade on some areas because of that. In anyway, it's one of those games that bring us in the uncanney valley. Alan Wake 2 did that as well, to some extent.
AMDs Solutions are Trash at best.. AMD a real bottom of the Barrel option nobody really wants. Im still Happily playing Steller Blade.. Such an Awesome game. Need more Games like Steller Blade and WAY Less Trash like Online Multiplayer or Games-as-a-DISservice GARBAGE
@@DuckAlertBeats that would be amazing ! after 3 hours horror nightmare walking simulator you are greeted by a yellow taxi and offspring starts playing 😅
Pretty much why modern too big console gaming is where its at. Too much graphic worshipping, less actual game design. Hellbalde 2 is the game you put on to show off to friends, but then folks don't really do that anymore. Wish it had improved gameplay. 2 hours in and I bailed. Beautiful looking game though.
Playing the game right now on PC. I am impressed by the detail in the visuals, but the game doesn't just feel look lika an interactive cutscene, it essentialy plays like a QTE. I will progress further, but not massively impressed yet...even though the visuals are great, the lack of interactivity so far makes it less impressive to me.
Shame the game sucks. But it is the first true next gen game visually I've played on consoles. Reminds me of firing up gears 1 on xbox360 for the first time, isn't just a higher res version of a previous gen game.. Can't wait to see gears 6 when it eventually comes out.
I have a series S and between the bad volumetric lighting, everything in the distance being a soft blur, and the letterboxing, instead of being a technical showcase it actually comes off as one of the worst looking games
I don't understand what drives someone to say something so obviously hyperbolic and ridiculous. One of the "worst looking games", due to slightly worse volumetric lighting? We can see the comparisons in the video, who are you trying to fool?
9:45 - 10:05 During this, do people actually see a difference and if they do the can tell one is better than the other? I'm watching this on 1440p screen and I can tell there is a difference between the upscalers when they are really next to each other but I honestly can't say one is better or worse and if I was doing this blind I would not know which is FSR and which XESS.
I appreciate all DFs analyses but, if x4 zoom (or whatever) is being used to highlight visual artifacts, then it should always be clearly labelled as such IMO.
Appears to run smoothly with serviceable graphics. Basically what I expected out of the little value box. I’m also pretty impressed with the Steam Deck performance overall.
