At Gamescom 2014 UK developer Ninja Theory has shown its new game, Hellblade, during Sony‘s press conference. They did so with a trailer that showed off a character that reminded some of one of Ninja Theory‘s old games: Heavenly Sword.

Heavenly Sword was a 2007 PlayStation 3 exclusive developed by Ninja Theory. The main protagonist was Nariko, who is using a magical weapon called the Heavenly Sword to defeat her enemies in brutal melee combat.

Seven years has passed and Ninja Theory now develops Hellblade exclusively for PlayStation 4. The main hero this time is Senua, who is using a magical weapon called the Hellblade to defeat her enemies in brutal melee combat.

Making an obvious comparison between Heavenly Sword and Hellblade is pretty easy. And just to be frank, it seems Ninja Theory actually asked for it. At first glance Senua is very similar to Nariko or her adopted sister Kai. And just look at the name of the games: Heavenly/Hell. Sword/Blade.

Eurogamer spoke to the “production development ninja” Dominic Matthews and asked him is Hellblade in any way tied to Heavenly Sword?
“No, it’s not,” he says. “It’s a brand new IP. Senua is a new character. It’s not tied to Heavenly Sword at all.

“I saw someone describe the name as someone just putting Heavenly Sword into Thesaurus.com and going, oh it’s Hellblade. It’s not something where we’ve gone, yeah, let’s make people think it is this. We really like Heavenly Sword. We loved making that game. So it’s actually more just we like making female protagonists that look in a certain style. And we like swords. And we like hell. It’s more that.

VIA: Eurogamer