Hellblade Release Date And Pricing Revealed For Nintendo Switch

I am absolutely ready for this game.

Definitely excited for this. As a fan of story-focused games I'm super intrigued, especially after hearing about all the buzz it's gotten in the past. The big question is how it'll perform - but I guess we won't have long to wait for that now!

this game looks good and somewhat difficult to believe this is on a console of this sort.

Full physical release for $29.99?

If you're planning to pick up Hellblade, please make sure you play this with some good headphones. The audio experience in this game is absolutely amazing.

@Mountain_Man "The award-winning title will hit Nintendo's console on April 11th as a digital-only release."

No way I’m downloading a nearly 20GB game.

Played this one on PS4 a while ago. A real masterpiece!
Though, I too, highly recommend playing this with headphones. The sounds (voices and whispers) make this game what it should be.

Those who are planning to pick this one up, and play with headphones: you won't be disappointed!

I really like that price point. If we’re going to get high-class ports a couple of years down the line, 25 magic beans is the sweet spot. Was interested anyway, but that certainly makes it hard to resist.

@BenAV A 400GB card which really only has 366GB available space on it. My understanding is this is normal, but a bit annoying! I bought one when they were £55 on Amazon for a day.

Looking forward to this game! Not long to wait at all :]

@Medic_alert Oh well. Release it physically, then.

@Medic_alert Or... they'll do what I may well do which is just to play it on another system.

The opening price point for this a plus, but the lack of physical and the file size combine to make a big negative for me. If it ever goes 75% off then maybe I'll get the Switch version, but now I know there's no physical coming, I'd rather get a physical on another platform. Looks too good to not have in the collection.

@justin233 I always find statements like this strange. Why not just play it and delete it afterwards? I mean sure it limits what you can take with you on the go but something tells me you’re not simultaneously playing 6 games at the same time. Download it, crush it, delete it, redownload your go to games. No sweat, and you’ll have gotten to enjoy a fantastic game.

Ok that's a good price. But digital only sucks. This 20gb title is gonna be painful to download on our tiny SD cards

I'll wait for the physical release (it's way too heavy for being only digital), but I'm glad it made it to the Switch! I hope it turns out to be a competent port.

@Medic_alert You just gave me even less reason to download it. I don’t want to be stuck with a “one and done” game digitally. At least I could sell the physical when I’m done.

@gcunit Wanting a price 75% off from the asking price of €30 to justify the purchase of this game is absurd! There are people you know that worked on this game (and this port as well) that have bills to pay.

How many gigs though?

Edit: 18 gigs and digital only? Hmmm I'll have to think about this one. I'd definitely get it if there was a physical release, because I'm not a fan of paying more than 20 dollars for digital games.

I was all for this until I saw digital only. I'll pick it up on PS4 one of these days.

Wow a price point that's actually somewhat reasonable for
A) an old game that other platforms have already had.
B) a port.
C) a walking simulator

Is it still April fools?

I don't mind sloppy seconds years after the fact, but at least it's priced accordingly. This is a real indie game. There's no rules that say an indie has to be 2d pixel art. If this is priced at 30 then there's a plethora of titles that should be bumped down in price.

Eshop pricing needs to do a better job of reflecting the quality of the products and this is a good start.

@senorwoohoo Headphones don’t do the game justice. A good surround setup is a must!

Is this game short? I need a great short game to play before MK11 sucks up my life at the end of April.

@burgboy82

Ya except it doesn't matter how good your audio setup is when the switch can't output proper surround sound.

I guess forcing us to pay for motion controls absorbed any budget that could have gone to an optical out port and a real sound chip.

@nab1 HowLongToBeat says 7 to 9 hours

I absolutely loved this game on the PS4!It looked and played great and was a very creepy,dark and disturbing adventure.Definitely best played with headphones so you could hear the voices better.

@Itzdmo it's not too long but I didant find it short either...I think it took me about 10 to 15 hours but I did go back and try to find all the Lorestones.

Despite this being digital-only at the time of writing, I'm still seriously considering it.

@justin233 Digital only? That's too bad.

Oh man, I’m so ready for this game! It’s out on my birthday as well! But digital... That’s kind of a bummer though...

@Medic_alert "it is also not a game you are likely to play over and over..."

Which makes digital-only an even less appealing prospect. At least if it's on a cartridge, I can sell it when I'm finished.

I would gladly double dip on this great game but I would prefer a physical copy for Switch. For $30 and digital only I'll just wait for a price drop. I agree with the comments above, this game MUST be played with a good pair of headphones for the best experience.

I don't consider myself a graphics snob, but I am a sucker for exceptional visuals, and recently uploaded gameplay footage looks absolutely SICK. Not sure I'll go full price but I'll come running for a sale.

@Medic_alert This really bugs you, doesn't it?

It would be more expensive if it was physical so that's alright

@burgboy82 Oh for sure, but there's a wide $$$ gap between playing the Switch in handheld mode with good headphones compared to playing docked with a great TV and even better surround sound.

I recently bought this on special offer on PS4, but was loathe to play it when I heard about the switch port. Looking forward to seeing how it performs on the small screen.

I just love that we are getting more and more quality 3rd party titles to the Switch.

@Medic_alert I love the air of moral superiority you exude. Ha ha!

I would like to buy it , but with physical form. This is skip for me.

Of all the games to not have a physical release... this is odd.

Great game.

Have it on PC. Not really a game I would pay $30 to play again. Great experience either way.

@Medic_alert yeah exactly. Like if Mario kart was 20-50 GB I’d be pretty sour. But Hellblade is a one and done kinda deal and if you ever want to revisit it, redownload it.

I don't get why people are so viciously defending digital-only. Here, we pay plenty for limited internet data. 20Gb is almost half of our monthly data, and it means I won't even be able to sell the game after playing it, or that no one else will be able to buy it used.
Sure, I understand that some people prefer having all their games on a single SD card on portable systems, but why do so many seem unable to understand that not everybody rolls paper money cigars and wipes their behind with it? Why is it hard to understand that some people just prefer to collect physical games?
I, like many here probably, grew up with cartridges and cardboard boxes, illustrated manuals and posters / maps included in standard edition games, used / rented / borrowed / shared games,.. Selling my old games and saving up to buy new (used) ones. I was looking forward to this one, but being digital-only lowered it quite a bit on my play list, and since there's plenty in my backlog and plenty on the horizon, I might skip it entirely, or get it on a 50% sale at least.
For €30 I expect to at least own the game and be able to sell it, or swap it, or play it again without it consuming almost half of my monthly data AGAIN.

If it's a game I know I'm going to keep coming back to then I'm less bothered by a digital release than I am if it's a "one and done" sort of experience like Hellblade seems to be.

For the record, I plan to buy Animal Crossing digitally just because I know I'll be playing it for years.

@Trellgoth
I think, I'd rather play this with my surround speaker setup. 🤔

@MrBlacky I played the start of the game with my headphones then switched to my surround sound. You'll not go wrong.

Actually, it is precisely the size which make the game digital only...and the reason we get it for cheap.

The "premium" card size that Nintendo and most companies use for big games (i.e. Smash, Zelda, Skyrim, Bayonetta 2, etc) is 16 GB.
The fabled 32 GB cart size have so far only been used once, for Dragon Quest Heroes 1+2, a Japan only release that was around 15 bucks more expensive than the next biggest game on that market at the time. It is pretty telling of the massive expense that means using 32 GB card when not even Nintendo poured the money for it in order to gave us Bayonetta 1+2 in a single card.

And because of that, everything above 16 basically has to go digital only at least in the current Switch market. My very own Switch right now has an example, Naruto Ninja Storm Trilogy, 17.6 GB in the western release, the good part is that it costed 40 bucks right at the release date, on the other hand I would be lucky if an hipotetical retail release came for less than 60 with a 32 GB cart. Same thing with Hellblade, 30 bucks is the price of forsaking a physical release and dealing with a 60 bucks release both digital and phisicyal thanks to the price parity that Nintendo enforces.

I want this, but $30 is a tall asking price, compared to "free" via my Game Pass sub :/

Microsoft is already behind some 20+ published games on Nintendo systems, mostly on GBA and DS. Although they HAVE been selling an awful lot of Minecraft on Switch lately. In Japan too, no less.

So this isn't really a particularly crazy development, I'd say, even if they skipped the 3DS and Wii U (outside of Minecraft.)

Here's hoping the Switch version of Hellblade looks and plays the way it was meant to. They're probably best off with having it release as digital only to begin with, so they can patch up any inconsistencies in the experience over the first months.

Awesome. Didnt think it would be releasing so soon. So much to play but just cant tear myself away from Yoshi.

A little bummed not to have a box version with that super stunning visual on it. However this game is something I have wanted to play for so long. I can’t wait!

While digital isnt a deal breaker, I'd much rather have them put the game on a 16 GB and and have like a 2GB-ish download. Still, this game looks great running on Switch by watching some PAX footage.

Probably a day two on this for me. My headphones and ears are ready

i hate to say this, but while i am very excited by the possibility of this game on switch, i am equally interested in reading reviews before buying. what we've seen of the game looks rather compromised.

I have two 1 TB microSDs coming. I laugh in the face of 18gb. Hahahahaha!

@Agramonte Just read on another site that Civ 6 just got patched to include cross platform cloud saves between Switch and PC. Thought that might be up your alley.

@MARATXXX As someone who owns the PC version, this looks rather impressive.

@NullPointerExcep Howlongtobeat seems to do speedruns and skip all the cutscenes, I've never beaten any game in the time average that they post.

@Indielink Holy CRAP!... I just googled it.

https://stevivor.com/news/civilization-6-cross-save-support-activated-pc-switch/

Doing it tonight! Thanks so much for the heads up! This is amazing!

@Indielink there's nowhere near enough footage to draw that conclusion, imo.

@Yomerodes That is. Nintendo's cartridges are too expensive so there's no way Microsoft could release Hellblade on a 32 GB Switch flash memory and if they do the price would be like Dragon Quest 1+2's price would have been in the West (around 90 euros/dollars). Microsoft could also do what other publishers including Nintendo do and sell a physical game that requires a massive download. Physical is not like it used to be unless you just want a box... the manual is not there either. Another problem is how stingy Nintendo is with specifications since Wii. 32 GB for Wii U in 2012 wasn't very much but 32 GB for Switch in 2017 was a joke.

@MARATXXX Then there is also not enough footage to say it looks compromised, isn't there?

@BlueOcean howlongtobeat has charts showing different completion levels and how times for non speedruns too.

It's hard to shove more internal memory into such a small device without driving up the cost. It also uses NAND storage which Apple was buying up all of for a while which made it even more expensive. Better to only put a little bit in and let the consumer buy a microSD as they need it I think.

Great game worth checking out watch for a sale if price is holding you back really worth it.

Digital only??!?!? Welp i guess i’ll just get the Xbox One version, but i really wanted to have this on Switch.

Another downside of digital only is that I can't buy it used in a month at a discount.

@BlueOcean that's nice news, actually
So it's longer maybe, which makes me more interested, besides it looking like a solid port
Maybe people answer trying to boast or something, my statistics teacher gave examples of faulty surveys, like average income from people graduated from some college, probably mostly the best ones would be collected etc

I wonder how big is the file size ?

I didn't really like the look of this when it came out, with its bad take on Mental Health and what looks to be fairly sloppy action segments. So easy pass for me - glad its still on the console for those who like/want it.

As for digital vs physical debate. Well I'm more of a Dapper Dan man myself.

I’ve been really excited for this game since I’ve heard about it on the Direct. 20 gigs is a bit much but I suppose it justifies a new memory card lol. I’m more surprised that it’s releasing so soon! I didn’t think we’d see this before summer. I’ll be picking this up after I finish Yoshi.

@NullPointerExcep Yeah and mate I sincerely prefer to enjoy the games and watch the cutscenes instead of speedrunning and skipping events!

@XenoShaun The game is a great depiction of mental health. Ninja Theory did their research and does not broach the subject lightly.

I hope they will port Ninja Theory's DmC to Switch too.

@nintendolie They are porting WhatsApp to Switch so why not?

Did not like the game but good to see a game that many people will enjoy coming over to switch.

The switch needs more support like this

Such a good game, absolutely loved it on PS4. I won't be double dipping but excited for people that haven't played it to try it out and very curious to see how it runs on Switch!

@Medic_alert not really- I will not pay anything over 15 quid for a digital game. Never have. I’d rather buy the physical version on another system. Something doesn’t feel right with me paying that much for something you don’t actually own. But each to their own-I’m pleased so many will be happy with the digital only version.