Interesting news has surfaced regarding the possibility of a Heavenly Sword sequel. According to sources at the UK magazine PlayGamer, an unnamed studio could be working on the project right now. Original developers Ninja Theory publicly walked away from the franchise to pursue other things (which ended up being last year’s amazing release, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.
Their IT manager (Peonic) confirmed their decision to step away from the series through a press release: “We’re not abandoning HS just on a whim because we want to go off and do something different – there’s a great huge raft of reasons behind us taking the direction we are – and it’s also the nature of the business that I’m not allowed to share any of those reasons with you.”
Sony Computer Entertainment of Europe briefly assigned Sony Cambridge as developers for Heavenly Sword 2 but that project was abruptly cancelled.
The news report also goes on to state that the new development team is planning to take the game in a whole new direction. Using an open-world design, players can re-play missions as much as they would like, adding a whole new dynamic to the experience. Apparently the game is set to take place after the events of its predecessor, as well.
When it debuted on the PlayStation 3 in 2007, there was a lot of talk about Heavenly Sword, and the game ended up selling over a million copies. Though its similarities to God of War were easy to see, it was creative and interesting enough to make itself its own title. I really enjoyed playing it and would love to see a sequel released. If you haven’t had the opportunity to play it, it’d be worth picking it up now to see what all of the talk was about.
