Three questions earlier than we begin:
1) Do you want Robert Eggers’ movie The Northman?
2) Do you want video games that primarily contain urgent ‘ahead’ and never a lot else?
3) Do you want rocks?
In the event you answered ‘sure’ to the entire above, then I come bearing fantastic tidings for you about Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2. The sequel to Ninja Concept’s 2018 motion journey is a bleak and brutal Norse story about revenge and redemption advised with a rigorous cinematic eye, set throughout volcanic landscapes that make Dying Stranding’s Icelandic climbing trails appear to be they’re constituted of painted polystyrene.
If, nonetheless, you answered ‘no’ to any of the above questions, take into account your buy rigorously. Hellblade 2 does not a lot broaden upon the concepts of the unique as double-down on them, providing a leaner, meaner model of an idea that wasn’t precisely overgenerous within the first occasion. It is extra harrowing, extra fleeting, extra linear and extra contemptuous of participant company. It is totally glad to make sacrifices to get to the place it desires, and in the event you attempt to step in the way in which, properly, up on the altar you will go.
Hellblade 2 kicks off with Pict warrior Senua on a mission that is half rescue, half revenge. Having vanquished her private demons within the first recreation, Senua now desires to cease the Norse raiding events that killed her lover and adopted tribe, setting her off on that preliminary journey. To attain this, Senua intentionally will get herself captured by slavers so that they’ll take her to their land. However the boat sinks in a storm earlier than they arrive, leaving Senua within the odd place of getting to seize a surviving slaver who can information her to their settlement.
The opening sequence units the tone of the sport’s first half, as Senua navigates a Nordic nightmare that makes her earlier journey via precise hell appear to be a pleasant summer time vacation. Lashed by rain and gouged by igneous razors on an eerie Scandinavian shoreline, Senua scrambles throughout the scree whereas the slavers bloodbath the unfortunates who escaped the shipwreck, earlier than taking her personal blade to the raiders who come lumbering at her via the gloom.
The entire degree is putting in its savagery, and the subsequent is much more barbaric. Just like the Northman, atavism is a key theme within the recreation’s depiction of each Norse legend and the violence connected to it. As Senua pushes deeper into the primordial Nordic panorama, she witnesses humanity regressing in steps, twisted into more and more monstrous varieties of their want to outlive and search vengeance.
But whereas Hellblade 2 delves to nastier extremes than Eggers’ movie, it is also in the end much less nihilistic. As Senua’ learns extra in regards to the land she’s travelled to, her quest for vengeance in opposition to the slavers evolves into a unique mission, one the place the power to forgive and absolve, which she discovered for herself within the first recreation, performs a central position.
It is a good story, one which I used to be fairly invested in by its finish. It helps that it is phenomenally offered. We might have reached the purpose the place progress within the ol’ graphics manufacturing facility is made in nudges fairly than leaps, however Hellblade 2 represents a noticeable nudge. There are moments on this the place Senua simply seems to be like an actual particular person, and I am fairly certain that, not like the primary recreation, it does not change between real-time rendering and pictures of Milena Juergens in make-up. Different parts like lighting, climate results, and water simulation are equally convincing.
Then there are the rocks. I wasn’t joking once I stated you should not play Hellblade 2 in the event you do not like rocks. This recreation is obsessive about them. From large, fractal lava formations that curl like burned roses, via fist-sized, water-smoothed pebbles all rendered individually, all the way in which right down to tiny granules of grit that deform below NPCs’ toes as they trudge alongside hillside pathways, Hellblade 2 is a scintillating celebration of strata. I look ahead to the inevitable “Geologist REACTS?!?!” YouTube video.
Stunningly detailed as its rocks are, I ought to level out that the presentational excellence isn’t merely graphical. The sport’s digital digicam work is spectacular, significantly the way in which it makes use of panorama flyovers to change between scenes with out breaking immersion. It is also fantastically written and acted, and shows comparable high quality in its audio design. As within the first recreation, that is most evident in its simulation of Senua’s psychosis.
On this level, Hellblade 2 states on the outset that Senua has accepted her psychosis as a part of herself, so the sport is much less of a direct exploration of this a part of Senua’s private expertise. However that does not imply it has gone away. The voices nonetheless whisper at her, query her, mock her, and maybe most disconcertingly of all, attempt to assist her. There are additionally moments when the hallucinations turn out to be extra overt.
However Hellblade 2 is extra about how Senua’s private expertise impacts her relationships with others. On this journey, Senua is accompanied by a number of travelling companions, and we see her wrestle with how a lot to disclose about herself for worry of being judged or rejected. However she additionally makes use of her understanding of each her psychosis and previous traumas to help others going via comparable moments of disaster. One character refers to Senua as a ‘Seer’. However it’s her empathy, not her visions, that make her uniquely perceptive.
As each a technical showcase and a narrative, Hellblade 2 is undoubtedly properly made. The worth of this, nonetheless, is that Hellblade 2 is even much less of a recreation than the primary one. It is a pretty quick expertise, about 8 hours lengthy, and a giant chunk of that entails strolling slowly ahead alongside oppressively linear paths, sometimes mantling over a ledge or selecting up the eighth century equal of an audio log.
The remaining time, as within the first recreation, is split between puzzles and fight. Additionally like the primary recreation, the puzzles aren’t excellent. All of them contain both wandering across the surroundings objects from a specific angle, or wandering across the surroundings gathering stone orbs. Most contain some fascinating visible impact that performs into Senua’s divergent perspective on actuality, however they require minimal deduction to resolve and are interactively unsatisfying.
Fight is extra entertaining. Senua’s moveset stays pretty easy: she will carry out mild and heavy assaults together with her sword, in addition to block and dodge. She will be able to additionally use her mirror to enter a sort-of berserker state, slowing down time whereas rushing up her personal assaults, and execute an enemy immediately if she performs an ideal block. However Hellblade 2 locations extra emphasis on cinematic consistency. Battles are primarily a sequence of one-on-one duels that the sport dictates the order of, with every duel interweaved by mini-cutscenes designed so as to add drama, making you are feeling like a part of a much bigger melee.
The benefit of that is that battles look excellent. Senua will get smacked to the ground by some mace-wielding brute, roll to keep away from an overarm deathblow, rise as much as thrust her sword via his chest, earlier than being stumbled into by one other enemy who turns into the subsequent focus within the struggle. It is impressively seamless, though the variety of occasions Senua will get run into by another person, like a vacationer misplaced in London King’s Cross, has appreciable meme potential.
The drawback is that, even in these moments, the sport consistently pulls away management, to the purpose the place it is usually unclear whether or not you are enjoying or not. The unique Hellblade felt prefer it may have been an honest Soulslike with a bit extra depth, however Hellblade 2 pulls the sport additional away from that, bringing it nearer to a recreation like Asura’s Wrath. The result’s an expertise that makes you are feeling hemmed in by its cinematic aspirations, to the purpose the place it is like enjoying a recreation subsequent to your egocentric large brother, who reluctantly allows you to sit in entrance of the keyboard after which consistently mithers for his chair again. I used to be happier to miss these tendencies within the first recreation, as a result of the story it advised was so totally different from different action-adventures. However I do not suppose Hellblade 2’s story does sufficient that is new or totally different to justify it being much more restrictive.
I like Hellblade 2, and with out wishing to sound churlish, I might positively give it a whirl if I had a Recreation Move subscription. However in a month that is included Animal Effectively and Crow Nation and Cryptmaster and Little Kitty, Huge Metropolis and Dread Delusion and Indika and Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, dropping fifty notes on this shiny however protected sequel simply appears daft. Amid such a cornucopia of creativeness, Hellblade 2 wanted to be extra than simply extra Hellblade, to raise the concepts of the primary recreation and construct them out. However for all its technical wizardry and narrative price, extra Hellblade is precisely what Hellblade 2 is.
This overview relies on a retail construct of the sport offered by the writer.
