Senua's Saga: Hellblade II Review
An artistic vision with emotional resonance
Senua's Saga: Hellblade II is a visual and audio masterpiece that, unfortunately, few players will finish despite its brevity. For reference, I rolled credits and earned 9 of 11 achievements in just under six hours.
In their sequel to Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, developer Ninja Theory has embraced the full power of Unreal Engine 5, crafting expansive, beautifully-illuminated landscapes while meticulously attending to the tiniest rocks, patches of moss, and drops of water. Character models and facial animations are state-of-the-art, rivaling and arguably surpassing the best Naughty Dog games (e.g., The Last of Us: Part II). As I played, I found myself opening photo mode again and again, marveling at the game's visuals.
These visual marvels are complemented by remarkable sound design. The game strongly encourages wearing headphones to experiences Senua's voices of psychosis as they haunt, harass, and all-too-rarely encourage her. Like its predecessor, Hellblade II fully commits to its audio elements as foundational to the experience.
Despite its achievements in visuals and sound, Hellblade II's story and gameplay, which include repetitive combat sequences and easy puzzles, fail to expand on ideas from the first game. On its own, Hellblade II represents an art piece with a sustained, somber tone occasionally interrupted by moments of hope. But as a sequel, it's hard to see why Ninja Theory didn't expand combat mechanics or enable more exploration of the game's compelling world. Maybe this wasn't technically possible considering the game's visual ambitions. I won't presume to know how difficult it is to develop a game with such rich landscapes and detailed characters. But I wanted to stray from the relatively narrow path available to me to find new characters or artifacts.
To be fair, there are hidden audio collectibles available that build on the story, but curiously, you have to stay near them to hear them in their entirety. This makes progress feel slow, even tiresome. Perhaps this was the goal. After all, Senua is on a journey against seemingly impossible odds.
As a whole, Hellblade II achieves an artistic vision, one that will resonate with players looking for an emotional experience centered on the psychosis of a captivating, exceptionally well-acted protagonist. But gamers looking for more traditional gameplay elements to maintain their interest will likely disengage rather quickly.
Fortunately, this visual and audio triumph is available on day one through Game Pass. Unfortunately, I fear that many people will download it, push through the first few cinematic moments, and quickly realize that the tone and gameplay mechanics are too one-note and simplistic for their tastes.
