10 Underappreciated Video Games That Deserve A Sequel

Here for the return of both Ninja Theory and Andy Serkis, Heavenly Sword was an early PS3 exclusive that saw players guiding around a red-headed warrior called Nariko and smacking people with the titular Heavenly Sword.

Taking inspiration mostly from God of War, Heavenly Sword bases its combat around changing stances between fast, ranged and strong depending on which kind of enemies you're fighting, and on quick time events as they were very much in vogue back then. It’s competently put together and tons of fun to play, and sometimes you even get a nice motional controlled cross-bow level where you can try your best to fit as many crossbow bolts as possible into one guy's balls before he hits the ground.

Where Heavenly Sword really sets itself apart is in the quality of the writing and acting, with every single character being distinct and well written. They all have their own consistent personalities, motivations and arcs, and motion capture is used to make the cutscenes as believable as possible. With the particular stand out being Serkis in his role as King Bohan, the ultimate bad guy and the means by which we meet most of the colourful (and sometimes terrifying) characters Heavenly Sword has to offer.

The characterisation was so strong that it got both an animated series and a film, as well as a sequel that was, tragically, cancelled due to the game's poor sales and as part of moving the studio on to developing Enslaved: Odyssey to the West.