Ep #45: We chat with Ninja Theory Studio boss about Hellblade 2 (and xbox stuff)

Friends Per Second

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This week we're joined by two sets of guests. The first is Dom Mathews, Studio Head at Ninja Theory. They're set to launch Hellblade 2 this coming week, but much of the discussion around the game has been centred on Xbox's studio strategy and what 'success' now looks like for smaller games like Hellblade.
In addition we were joined by Ryan and Joe from Airship Syndicate. Wayfinders hit the rocks when it launched into early access, which cooincided with publisher Digital Extremes shuttering their entire publishing division. Airship are now pivoting Wayfinder to be an offline (peer to peer coop) game with no microtransactions, so we chatted with them about the journey to that decision.
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
03:28 Xbox Talk
31:40 User Question 1
37:48 AG1 (ad)
40:22 Interview With Dom Matthews, Studio Head of Ninja Theory
01:10:57 Factor (ad)
01:17:16 User Question 2
01:24:24 Interview With Wayfinder Studio Airship Syndicate
01:55:56 Incogni (ad)
01:59:28 What We've Been Playing
02:22:41 Show And Tell
02:29:02 Wrap Up
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Let's meet our hosts!
- Jake Baldino (aka the Before You Buy Guy) is pretty much the most watched reviewer on YouTube across both Gameranx and his personal channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/JakeBaldino). If you're obsessed with Delorians, The Mummy and Pizza you can discuss that stuff with him directly over on Twitter: @JakeBaldino
- Lucy James is a Senior Producer at Gamespot and a Creative Producer at Giant Bomb. She's actually, like, experienced and credentialed and has real life skills and stuff, while the rest of the gang would be funemployed if the YT algorithm didn't kiss them for random, inexplicable reasons.
- Skill Up used to work at McDonalds but he got fired for skimming too many chicken nuggets. He says he regrets it since he hasn't had a better job since.
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