It’s been almost seven years since Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice released, and close to five since its sequel was announced, but at long last, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 is finally approaching launch. As the sequel to what many consider to be one of Ninja Theory’s best games as ever, and as the studio’s first major, flagship release since become an Xbox first-party team, there’s a lot riding on Hellblade 2, and thankfully, everything that we’ve seen so far has looked quite promising. Ahead of the game’s release, then, here, we’re going to go over a few key details that you should know about the game.
STORY
Microsoft and Ninja Theory have been pretty tight-lipped about Hellblade 2’s story, but in the lead-up to its release, some key details have emerged. In the aftermath of the first game’s events, Senua’s not only accepted Dillion’s death, but also started to get a better grip of her own psychosis- which means that though she’s still haunted by her demons, she’s become much more capable of being able to better deal with them. In Hellblade 2, Senua’s story will focus on her efforts to fight back against the Viking invaders who are wreaking havoc through Iceland.
NEW CHARACTERS
The original Hellblade was, by design, an awfully lonely tale, but Hellblade 2 is widening its view of the world by introducing other characters that Senua will actually be interacting with. A recent preview published on Xbox Wire described a sequence that sees Senua moving through a camp to rescue one such new character while having to contend with the many voices in her head. While it seems safe to assume that Senua will remain front and center in the story, we can still expect Hellblade 2’s cast of charscters to be more populated.
COMBAT
Upon its launch in 2017, Hellblade 1 was widely praised for everything from its story and its depiction of mental illness to its technical achievements, audio design, and more, but the one area of the game that received criticism from many was its combat. In Hellblade 2, Ninja Theory is attempting to address those complaints by making some interesting changes. Most significant among them is the fact that every combat in the game will now be a 1v1 affair only. Rather than facing off against groups of foes simultaneously, in Hellblade 2, Senua will only ever cross swords with one enemy at a time.
FULL PERFORMANCE CAPTURE FOR COMBAT
Ninja Theory’s motion and performance capture expertise has become one of the studio’s biggest strengths with time, and those strengths are now being directly applied to the combat as well. Speaking to Xbox Wire, Ninja Theory studio head Dom Matthews revealed that combat in Hellblade 2 is fully based on performance capture, which means every single movement Senua and her enemies make in fights is derived from performances by 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 Matthews. “It’s going to feel consistent and real.”
ENEMY VARIETY
Another area where Hellblade 2’s combat will attempt to improve upon its predecessor is the enemy variety, with a much greater number of enemy types being present in the game. While Microsoft and Ninja Theory obviously haven’t revealed any specifics on this front, what we do know is that we can expect several different kinds of foes, from Draugr and giants to raiders, ranged foes, brutes, and more. We’ve seen glimpses of quite a few in trailers already, so hopefully more will be revealed ahead of the game’s launch.
PUZZLES
Puzzles were another area where the original Hellblade drew some criticism from players, though based on what little we know of Hellblade 2 in this area so far, the sequel isn’t going to make too many drastic changes with its puzzle design. A recent preview published by IGN described instances of puzzles that will familiar to those who played the first game, focused primarily on finding shapes and patterns in your surroundings. While new puzzle types are likely to be introduced, we can probably expect them to be of the same flavour as the first game’s puzzles. Hopefully, however, they’ll be more engaging this time around.
LENGTH
If the constant deluge of 50-100 hour games has started wearing you down, Hellblade 2 will probably come as welcome reprieve to you. According to Ninja Theory, the sequel is going to be roughly as long as the first game was, which means we’re looking at roughly eight hours of gameplay. Speaking to IGN about the game’s shorter-than-expected length, studio head Dom Matthews said, “I’m really pleased to see that there’s a lot of people that actually enjoy a shorter experience, something that they can sit down on a whatever Friday night, stick their headphones on, turn the lights off and kind of sink into an experience- players who don’t necessarily want something that is 50 hours long, a 100 hours long, so it’s as long as it needs to be. […] I think there’s a lot of pressure on people’s time these days and I think our fans, from what we hear from them, they enjoy a shorter game where our intention is that every step of that journey is meaningful.”
PHOTO MODE
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 is looking like it’s going to be a proper visual beast, which means it’s particularly well suited to having a photo mode. And sure enough, Ninja Theory has confirmed that the action-adventure title will indeed feature a photo mode at launch. Exact details on what features we can expect from the photo mode remain to be seen, but hopefully that’ll change in the days and weeks leading up to the game’s launch.
30 FPS ONLY ON XBOX
The fact that 60 FPS becoming an industry-wide standard has still looked consistently out of reach in spite of developers having access to much better hardware has been a source of frustrating for many, and unfortunately enough, Hellblade 2 won’t help matters on that front. Speaking to German outlet GamePro, Ninja Theory recently revealed that on Xbox Series X/S, the game won’t feature a 60 FPS option. Instead, Ninja Theory has opted for a singular, 30 FPS option, with the intention being to achieve a more cinematic feel for the experience, according to VFX director Mark Slater-Tunstill.
DIGITAL ONLY
We’re starting to see an increasing number of prominent examples of major releases skipping physical versions entirely – last year’s Alan Wake 2 being one of the more recent ones – and Hellblade 2 is going to join that list. It was confirmed by Ninja Theory earlier this year that when the game releases, it will only be available for purchase digitally on both PC and Xbox Series X.
PRICE
Microsoft shifted to the $70 price tag for its flagship first-party releases in 2023, but Hellblade 2 won’t be following that trend. Upon its release in May, the game will be priced at $49.99. Given its shorter length, as well as the fact that it will be a digital-only title, a $70 price tag probably wouldn’t have done it any favours, so it’s good that Microsoft has recognized that rather than sticking with a universal price point for all major first-party releases.
PS5 RUMOURS
Whether or not a first-party game is going to be exclusive to a console isn’t as easy of a question to answer as it once used to be. Recent months have seen Microsoft bringing a number of its first-party titles to Switch and PS5, and before those were initially announced, it was claimed in leaks that a multiplatform release was also being considered for Hellblade 2. Thus far, Microsoft hasn’t confirmed any further multiplatform release plans, but leaks have insisted that more first-party Xbox titles will be releasing for rival platforms going forward. Of course, even if Hellblade 2 does end up coming to, say, the PS5, it won’t be anytime soon. Presumably, Microsoft will want to give it a solid exclusivity window on PC and Xbox before bringing it to other platforms- if it does come to other platforms, that is.