Hellblade Senua’s Sacrifice Sells 500K Copies in 3 Months

Ninja Theory’s experiment has paid the bills! The UK-based indie developer recently announced that Hellblade Senua’s Sacrifice has hit 500,000 sales. Although the number might seem unimpressive compared to other AAA titles, it is quite a feat considering it was published independently and it wasn’t marketed heavily.

	Hellblade Senuas Sacrifice	85	Steam £29.00	-86% £3.95
	Hellblade Senuas Sacrifice PS4	81	Steam —	£27.50

Ninja Theory also shared some stats for the game saying that it should benefit other developers who wish for an alternative from the AAA retail publishing model. They also encouraged other developers to share their numbers to help more developers “take informed commercial and creative risks”.

Here are the stats:

• Over 75K pre-orders across PC and PS4 before launch.
• 250K units sold in the first week at $29.99.
• Over $13m in revenue generated in 3 months.
• 500k units sold in 3 months, which puts the project beyond breakeven and into profit. Our prediction was to be at this point in 6 months from release.
• Development took 3 years and with an average team size of 20.
• Game sold as digital-only.
• About half the sales were on PC.

If you missed the Hellblade hype train, we’re letting you know now that it’s a game worth your attention. The game features “a broken Celtic warrior” who “embarks on a haunting vision quest into Viking Hell to fight for the soul of her dead lover.” If that premise isn’t enough to pull you in, it deals heavily with psychosis, with the developers collaborating with neuroscientists and actual patients.

The game has a “very positive” rating on Steam and has been nominated for various awards.