Hellblade 2: Senua's Saga Review- More isn't necessarily better

In a year full of tumultuous Xbox first party studio releases comes the hotly-anticipated game from Ninja Theory. With their initial installment into the Hellblade franchise being such a smash hit, the expectations were sky high for the previously-indie developer.

Trailers did plenty to hype things up, but as we all know, trailers are not representative of the final product. So, how did Hellblade 2 pan out? In a word: Okay. It does not fully meet the expectations I had for it from a story point of view, but it exceeds my expectations graphically.

I will go into further detail on this, but in a nutshell: Hellblade 2 is a outstandingly pretty game that is let down by its uninspired story.

Story

The game starts out in a spectacular fashion, with Senua being between a rock and a hard place after the ship she was on crashed ashore. It is here that we are confronted with a seemingly default psychological state relative to the previous game’s ending.

It was a bit confusing for me how we shifted from the end of Hellblade 1 where Senua grasped and controlled the voices in her head to a state where things are back to square one despite the progress, but regardless, here we are . An engaging shoreline exploration scene follows, and ends with a boss-battle type situation that is expertly crafted. This entire sequence is gripping and well-told and it had me on the edge of my seat. A terrific start.

From that point onwards, a pattern emerges: there’s more fantastic moments throughout the game, but between these moments we have sprawling puzzle sequences that take the excitement down several notches, especially in the latter half of the game. It is rather unwise to have the player engage in a 30-40 minute puzzle solving bonanza, especially since the puzzles are using the same mechanics.

The first half of the game is well paced, and contains most of the best moments. It sort of feels like the plan for this game has been a little bit altered throughout development and has shifted to a more focused experience.

I was disappointed with how the plot turned out as well. I expected that after taking down the first giant, we could go explore a different idea, perhaps a more inspired one, but the reality is that the same plot device is used 2 more times before wrapping up the game.

The overall conclusion of the game is not bad, I like how they used the main antagonist to symbolize the giant, but I was also left a bit more confused than usual as to what is real and what is not. This is a bit of a motif throughout the game, as many spectacular things happen, with me being unable to tell what is actually real, and what is symbolism... what goes on in Senua’s head and what others can see. It’s all rather confusing for me, and I guess that’s also part of the charm, as someone who may find themselves in this situation can never truly know what is real and what is not, having only their perspective to rely upon.

Sights and sounds

Unreal Engine 5 makes for an exceptional looking game, and Hellblade 2 is no exception. Everything looks prestine and photorealistic, while not being terribly hard to run( and without shader compilation stutter too!).

Combat is also quite spectacular visually, while also somewhat feeling as a downgrade to the first game. The parry/evade dynamic is way better here- providing plenty of flexibility, but the offensive options are a lot less diverse. The first game had many opportunities to sprint-hit or tie together “hidden” combos, and this dynamic is mostly lost here, with Senua only being able to execute single-blow combos. Animations are much better tied together, but the overall gameplay experience is worse. This, coupled with the fact that combat is now exclusively a 1v1 affair makes the overwhelming odds of the first game’s final encounters feel lost. It genuinely feels like form has triumphed over function.

Music is slightly underwhelming, as with the exception of that one boss sequence that I won't spoil, which involves some absolutely outstanding combination of gameplay and soundtrack, the rest of the “album” is rather laid back and not memorable.

Final Thoughts

Unfortunately, Hellblade 2 feels like a game made on the back of the success of the first one, without any clear direction. If there was a clear direction and idea, it was not allowed to fully flourish in time and money. This is regrettably another fumble in what is a pretty harrowing year for AAA gaming. 

I don’t feel deceived by this game, even though my expectations have been somewhat not met. I don’t feel deceived mostly because I was highly skeptical of the potential contained by a sequel to what I felt was a one-off adventure, wholly constructed and finished throughout the single game we got.