Ninja Theory may have a major problem. Senua’s latest adventure has had very poor sales in the US.
In recent months, Microsoft has closed, among others, Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin, which were somewhat affected by the results of Hi-Fi Rush and Redfall. If Xbox owners, headed by Phil Spencer, treat Ninja Theory in a similar manner, the British studio could face significant difficulties in the near future.
Hellblade 2 is undoubtedly Microsoft’s biggest release of the first half of 2024. The game first came out in May and was supposed to appeal to a wider audience, but… not everyone was impressed by the cinematic nature and short gameplay. The game has a very cool atmosphere, but the gameplay doesn’t offer any major revolution compared to the first part.
Matt Piscatella of Circana confirmed this at the same time. Hellblade 2 only ranked 37th in the US game sales rankings. On Xbox, the game jumped to 21st.
I have a lot of questions about this… Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II ranked 37th in May 2024 in the US in terms of total game sales in dollars (physical + digital for publishers that publish data), while also ranking 21st on Xbox Series.
I’ve been getting a lot of questions about this… Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II ranked 37th overall for May 2024 in full game sales in USD (physical + digital for co-publishing), while it ranked 21st on Xbox Series.
— Matt Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) July 8, 2024
For comparison, in terms of Xbox community engagement, Hellblade 2 lost out to Fallout 76 (11th), but beat Star Wars: Jedi: Survivor (13th), Apex Legends (14th), and Forza Horizon 5 (15th).
The analyst mentioned the position of Senua’s adventure, as it was not included in any of the lists of the best-selling games – Circana includes data from the 20 most frequently purchased games on different devices, and Ninja Theory was not included in this list.
It should be remembered that Hellblade 2 debuted on Xbox Game Pass, but even here the aerial adventure couldn’t crack the global rankings – In May, it was the 12th most-played production on Xbox.
Given the above rating, it is difficult to talk about the huge success achieved by the game, which Microsoft was undoubtedly counting on.
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