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Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

Wading through a river of blood, in the center of a valley of corpses and bodies screaming out in agony. The swirling sunless sky is blood red with flashes of lightning illuminating the tortured souls as you keep moving onward towards a mountain with a voice at the peak that calls for you; this is one of the harrowing set pieces that make up Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice.

Story

Ninja Theory’s latest game, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, is a sinister odyssey that delves into the most maniacal crevices of one’s mind. The game’s protagonist, Senua, is a young Celtic warrior on a quest to rescue the soul of her beloved, Dillion. Senua’s journey becomes more excruciating the further she travels due to suffering from a recently heightened psychosis deemed as “The Darkness”. The Darkness manifests itself as demonic warriors that reflect the internal struggles of Senua’s past. As her journey progresses the psychosis transforms her environment into horrifying hellscapes of oblivion, fire, and darkness. These backdrops can be especially nerve-racking due to a threat imposed on the player at the beginning of the game; this threat promises to permanently delete the player’s save file if Senua falls to the darkness too many times. This mechanic is a thoughtful tool that raises the stakes of every encounter and brings the player closer to the dread that Senua must endure at every obstacle of her quest.

Design

Graphics

Despite being an independently funded and published game, Hellblade’s visuals surpass many of its AAA brethren. At the start of the journey, Senua paddles towards shore and immerses the player with Ninja Theory’s attention to detail. With every stroke of the paddle the water ripples away from every contact point. As Senua gets closer to shore the grotesque aftermath of war is on display with charred corpses skewered on spikes, floating in the water and hung from trees. The fidelity of these set dressings is impressive and disturbing. The most impressive feat however is Senua herself, with the camera close behind her shoulder through the majority of the duration of the game it was important to render Senua at the highest fidelity possible. Senua’s design strays from a video game’s archetype of a female protagonist. Senua is strong and muscular, she doesn’t have a large chest or wide hips; she has an average body brought to its physical peak. The facial animation is impeccable and brings the model through the other side of the uncanny valley. Senua is believable and lifelike in every expression and movement. Senua’s skin is textured and imperfect; she’s dirty, bloody, and sweaty. Strands of hair move independently from one another, creating one of the most believable hair physics I’ve seen in a video game. An interesting choice by Ninja Theory was to add in full motion video that Senua interacts with. These videos can being jarring at first but when brought to the context of the game’s subject matter, oddly fit within the delusional mind of Senua.

Sound

Though the visuals are impressive, the sound design takes center stage. Ninja Theory went above and beyond to simulate psychosis induced voices that stir in Senua’s head with the use of binaural audio that begs for the use of a good pair of headphones or a finely tuned surround sound system. When reaching a stressful situation, Senua’s voices are the true enemy as they will create an auditory ambush of doubt and anguish as Senua tries to persevere through her obstacles. The way that the sound design distorts and positions these voices truly exhibits the struggle of psychosis to the player. In addition, movement in the environment feels exactly the way it should. Senua’s footsteps will change sound effects as she walks through different terrain. The combat deeply benefits from the wise sound design, from the unsheathing of Senua’s sword to a perfectly timed counter, everything is satisfying.

Andy LaPlegua’s score perfectly accompanies every story beat and feeling. There are times where the score is brought to the forefront and completely washes a scene in emotion. In particular, the finale being a wide array of complex emotions is scored masterfully and immediately made my list of favourite video game tracks of all time.

With all that being said, the sound choices are not without fault. In particular, there was an out of place sound effect for Senua jogging through a flooded area; the effect was almost comically cartoony and really placed me out of the experience. In my entire playthrough this was the only part of the sound design that felt out of place and it baffles me.

Gameplay

Exploration

Although Hellblade is a linear game, something has to be said about the traversal. The camera is kept close to Senua which keeps the player from feeling anywhere near comfortable while moving towards your objective. When needing to cross a crevice the game introduces an age-old gameplay trope of balancing across a beam to get across. This is done by counter balancing where Senua is leaning using the movement stick, however with the camera so uncomfortably close to Senua, the fear of falling is magnified by a clear view of her perspective.

There are runes to be found which are the game’s collectibles. Gathering these runes unlocks segments of the Norse mythology that heavily influences Senua’s psychosis. Collecting all of these will unlock an extra scene at the game’s finale and ultimately makes the game’s story more comprehensible.

Problem-solving

Despite Hellblade being an an action game, the majority of the time in game is actually spent solving puzzles; this gameplay element derives from psychosis patients having an exceptional ability to identify and decipher patterns. These puzzles usually involve approaching a door marked with a set of runes for Senua to find in the environment. These runes can be found as a shadow on a wall or a set of trees aligned just right to make the shape of the rune. In addition to these rune puzzles, there are a few visual perspective riddles to solve along the way. There’ll be shards floating in air with refracted images of a structure that needs to exist to get through a specific area. For example, at a certain point there was an unfinished bridge with these refracting shapes floating above the uncompleted half. To cross this bridge, Senua must reach a higher viewpoint and look down at these shapes at a certain angle to complete the other half of the bridge. The rationality of seeing runes somehow opening the doors and making structures appear out of thin air reinforces the player’s suspicion that not everything they’re experiencing as Senua is real.

Combat

Combat has been a strong point in all of Ninja Theory’s previous works and despite a few shortcomings, still remains a standout gameplay element. Combat is your traditional affair, you have light and strong attacks, a block when timed correctly creates an opening to lash out at a tough opponent, a handy dodge roll, and focus ability that’ll slow down enemies and materialize enemies shrouded in darkness. The camera is tight on Senua and instantly creates tension as you have to have a quick response time to your enemies’ tells.

The default difficulty setting is set to an automatic scaling which was worrisome initially due to the ease of the first couple encounters, however those fears were quickly dispelled as enemies will change their tactics and throw a quick jab to break your combo. The scaling works beautifully and continually challenges the player all the way to the end of the game. The combat is quick and due to the camera being so close to Senua, battling multiple enemies at once creates feelings of claustrophobia and paranoia as an enemy can spawn behind Senua without an indication until a voice in her head says “behind you” or tells her to “watch out”. As the game progresses this becomes more and more a juggling act as you will want to keep rolling around your environment to keep all enemies within sight.

The animations within combat are dazzling, there’s a fluidity to Senua’s every movement, you feel nimble and strong as you feel the weight of every attack connect with your foes. Enemies’ movements are just as well articulated; they show their remaining health by how they hold themself, they limp, they cover their wounds when badly injured. The thought and attention to detail when your enemy reacts to the gushing wound across their chests keeps you sold on every moment in battle.

The combat isn't perfect however; unfortunately it suffers drawbacks due to a lack of diversity. There are only a handful of combos that Senua can execute so you’ll be seeing the same attack and combo animations repeatedly and will more than likely default to repeating the same strategies over and over.

Lasting Impressions

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is a triumph in the marriage of storytelling and gameplay that showcases the medium’s ability to invest deeper into a subject matter; it is a tense, heart-pounding, thrilling adventure that demands to be played. Hellblade doesn’t just send people through the motions of a person struggling with psychosis but brings the player to empathise with the horrible and gut-wrenching mental illness; all while telling a story of loss, despair, betrayal, and revenge. The story’s mysteries have the most lasting impression on me: I know exactly what had happened and why, but I will never know what was real and what was a delusion. This uncertainty is simply something the player has to live with alongside the everyday struggles of sufferers of this condition. Although Hellblade is a game with exploration, puzzles, combat, and excitement it also is hard to recommend to just anyone who’s a fan of games. The subject matter can be illusive and the deeper layers will pass over the heads of players with no prior knowledge of psychosis. The game can be difficult to play for prolonged periods of time (especially with headphones) due to its level of immersion into the mind of a sufferer of psychosis; I found myself needing breaks and taking a walk outside from time to time due to the heavy subject matter. Nevertheless, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is a must play game for players who want to see the medium’s progression into being an art form and a way of storytelling. Despite its very few flaws, it stands out as one of the best games of the year.

Reviewed by Mitchell Ness on PS4 Pro