Senua’s Legacy

Feel games managed to impact its player base like Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, although it was not the first game to put mental health in the spotlight, its approach and creativity guaranteed a good review score and a sweet spot in the hearts of many.

Despite being an AA game, the audience and critics still showered the game visuals and overall design with praise. Featuring a respected 81 score on Metacritic and a “Very Positive” review score on Steam, eyes were drawn to the promising studio that could accomplish such results with less than 20 employees under it.

Fast-forward to 2024, and we finally have a sequel, but what no one expected was that this sequel would feature only 5 hours of “gameplay” and feel more like a movie and less like a videogame.

The Story

After the happenings of the first game, the protagonist decides to start over and accepts the grief of losing her loved one. The game starts with Senua tied to a boat that soon sinks due to the brutal waves on the shore. We soon learn that her new home is being raided constantly and that many are being enslaved by its oppressors. Having made a promise to save the village and kill the band leader, Senua let’s herself get captured with the hopes to reach the band village and put an end to this.

This time around, the game features secondary characters, of which Senua will often interact with, but none are developed to the same extent. Most can easily be labeled as “The asshole dude” or “The leader of that tribe”. They feel shallow and one dimensional, because most of the time you’re alone in a dark cave or walking by yourself. Note that I’ve not added “combat” in that last sentence, more on that later.

Overall, the plot is quite interesting and has a lot of potential, but it’s also quite predictable and boring sometimes. Which is not something you should feel while playing a story-driven cinematic game.

The “Gameplay”

It’s quite clear that Ninja Theory did not bother too much with the gameplay aspect of their “game”, there is little to no innovation to be seen here. If anything, it feels more like a step back when compared to the first game. We can summarize the entire gameplay mechanics to:

Walk: If you enjoy characters that walk at a slow pace, you’re up to having a great time. My theory is that maybe Senua also broke a few bones when she was washed down to the beach shores, because the walking speed is just that slow…
Focus: Much like the first game, you have some puzzles to solve that will require you to focus on a specific point. But they have zero to no variation at all, which is a huge step back when compared to the first game.
Combat: The worst part of the game, although it feels cinematic and the animations are top tier, it also feels heavily scripted and uninspiring. Which takes away part of the fun because there is no actual challenge or tension to be felt. Here is a compilation of things that ruined the combat.
- 1v1 Duels: Fights are boring and unfulfilling, I completed the game using the same combo repeatedly (3 dodges, X, X, Y, rinse and repeat…). In the first game, you would often engage in battle with multiple enemies at the same time. Which forced you to tackle each battle differently, not to mention that it created a gameplay usage for the voices inside Senua’s head. They would call out to you when an enemy was about to hit you from behind, it was just beautiful and genius design.
- Enemy Variation: There are roughly 3 enemy types in the entire game.
- Boss Fights: The first game had some of the best boss fights you could find in a story driven game. Image my disappointment when I realized the second game would have at least 2/3 mediocre boss fights.

Visuals

Ninja Theory clearly had a mission when they started the development of this game: “Make the most beautiful game” and they absolutely did it. Despite its shortcomings, Hellblade II is by far the most beautiful game I’ve ever played. The attention to detail is almost insane, even the plainest rock looks like a piece of art.

One would not be wrong to assume that such visuals would require a powerful PC. The game was played with an RTX 3070 paired with an AMD Ryzen 7800X3D. I am also glad to state that the optimization is just perfect, and the PC port features some of the best approaches to configuration and tunning that I’ve ever seen to date.

Verdict

Despite its beautiful presentation, Hellblade II is just another pretty walking simulator, there is not much to enjoy once you realize you are just pressing forward on your joystick. This game is not worth the 50 USD/EUR price tag and to be honest, it’s also not worth experiencing it on Gamepass. There are better games to enjoy out there.

Not Recommended