Heavenly Sword Raped Then Axed

In an epic fail that seems all too common with games that feature female characters, Heavenly Sword which was a fantastic new IP from last year was first taken away from it’s developers, and the sequel Heavenly Sword 2 has been rumored to be subsequently axed. It was a tough act to follow and without the stellar team of developers and movie people that made the first one a sequel without them was doomed to fail.

Created by independent developers Ninja Theory the exemplary game featured a playable female warrior. It took over three year’s in the making and was something of a revolutionary process that incorporated the most movie principles and production practices, yet used in a video game. Ninja Theory big screen mentality was perfect for a launcher game for the then new PlayStation 3. They may have made a mistake when agreeing to an exclusive to the PS3, and the developers Ninja Theory, do not actually own the IP for Heavenly Sword 2 – Sony does.

Back in March lady co-founder and chief developer Nina Kristensen told GamesIndustry.biz in an interview, that they were working on a new game.

Q: Are you working on a sequel to Heavenly Sword?

Nina Kristensen: No we’re not, we’re working on a new IP.

While over at Kotaku today they are reporting that “Ninja Theory, who have already said they weren’t working on the sequel to their Playstation 3 exclusive, have grown increasingly bitter about their treatment at Sony’s hands, our source tells us. I’m told that the development studio, which once had offices in the same building as Sony Cambridge, have started packing up to move to a new location.” according to an unnamed rumor source.

If you remember not long ago Clover Studios the developers of Okami another ground breaking and award winning game with a female canine as the main character had similar treatment from its publishers. In spite of the refreshing art style and gameplay in both of these games that were met with unanimous critical success both have been dumped. Drakkan and Primal were two other old school games with female main characters that we will never see again because of the same kind of corporate foolhardyness. It makes one wonder just where game publishers are getting their focus groups from.

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