Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2’s Combat is Fully Motion Captured, 1v1 Only

The original Hellblade won widespread plaudits for everything from its authentic portrayal of mental health issues and its engaging storytelling to its stellar technical achievements and much more, but one of the areas where the game was on the receiving end of some criticism was its combat. That’s an area where developer Ninja Theory is seemingly looking to introduce some significant improvements with upcoming sequel Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2, even if the general style of combat is going to remain largely the same.

In a recent article published on Xbox Wire, new details were revealed on exactly what some of those improvements will be. Most prominent among them is the fact that combat in Hellblade 2 is fully motion captured. That means that every movement you see from protagonist Senua and the enemies she takes on during combat will be based entirely on recorded performances of actual actors, rather than being purely animated.

“If all of this movement – running, climbing, fighting, is derived from performance capture, it’s going to be grounded in reality,” said Ninja Theory studio head Dom Matthews. “It’s going to feel consistent and real.”

“The key goal was to make combat feel like part of the journey,” he added.

Additionally, Ninja Theory has also made the decision to focus every single combat encounter in the game against just a single foe at a time. In an interview with GamesRadar, combat director Benoit Macon said, “The reason we opted for one-on-one combat is because we want Senua to feel overwhelmed in every encounter.”

Interestingly, Macon also revealed that the Game of Thrones episode “Battle of the Bastards” was “a reference from the beginning” for of Hellblade 2’s combat. He said, “[Jon Snow is] in the middle of this battle and just reacting to everything that is thrown at him. When we started development, our ambition was to recreate that in-game with full control from the player.”

It’s also been confirmed that Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 will only feature a 30 FPS option on Xbox Series X/S, with Ninja Theory wanting to achieve a more “cinematic” feel for the game.

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 launches on May 21 for Xbox Series X/S and PC.