Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is a deeply unsettling exploration of psychosis, grief, and death. Self-published by Ninja Theory, who have previously released Devil May Cry, Enslaved, and Heavenly Sword, the game is part of a wider effort by the studio to champion "independent AAA" games.
Not played the game before? Here is my advice:
- Don't play unless you can play with headphones. They really make the game the experience that it is, and you can only experience it for the first time once.
- Make sure you aren't distracted while playing. At first I was being interrupted by pings and buzzes from my phone and the GOG overlay, and it really drags you out of the experience.
- Stop reading articles about Hellblade :P Seriously, the game will be better the less you know in advance.
With that said, here's the rest of the article :D
I. Visuals
The first thing that hits you when you start playing Hellblade is that this game is a looker. For reference, all of the pictures in this post are screenshots I took. Ninja theory evidently noticed this too, as the game comes with an in-depth photo mode that lets you pause the action and line up screenshots. The attention to detail on Senua is astonishing, and is backed up by an impressive performance by Melina Juergens (even though the script doesn't require her to exhibit a huge range).Senua's Sacrifice makes great use of filters layered over the top of the game. They take the already dark world and twist it into a true hellscape. The more intense sections of the story, such as escaping from the beast, are characterised by smothering overlays that lead to a disorienting sensory overload.
One thing that I did notice while I was playing Hellblade was that occasionally the animation would dip down into the uncanny valley. Particularly in the earlier sections of the game Senua's eyes would take on a distinctly inhuman look, but this is something that goes away as the story progresses. Occasionally I also had issues where the camera would clip through walls (particularly on spiral staircases), and the detailing on objects like torches is jarringly low-res. All little niggles, but they stand out when the other visual work is near perfect.
II. Audio
But to build the atmosphere required for a story such as Hellblade's, you need more than an environment that just looks oppressive. The game makes use of binaural audio to make it feel like the voices that haunt Senua's existence are in your head too (the furies). They accompany you throughout the game, and are fickle companions. Sure, sometimes they encourage you. They tell you that you're strong enough and that you can get through the trials ahead. But those same voices will quickly shift to messages of despair and hopelessness. More than a few times I started to second guess myself as I was trying to solve puzzles, the furies telling me that I was going the wrong way. That I was being too slow. That I couldn't see the obvious solution.
Ninja Theory have also done something really clever here to bring the uneasiness levels to something unlike any other game I've played. Everything from the soft pops of the whispering voices to the pitter-patter of rain and crackling of fire is an ASMR trigger. The reason why you feel like your spine is tingling in Hellblade is because it actually is. The game made my skin crawl in a way that was overwhelming at points, and makes the game draining and emotionally exhausting in a way that's rare for AAA action games. That and the flawless voice acting in this game really draws you in to the experience - the cast deserve credit for a job well done.
The game takes several opportunities to play with sensory deprivation. There is a section during the game where Senua is effectively blind, and has to use sound to navigate, and another where making noise is what attracts the attention of the monsters. These both work really well because of the tight audio, and are all the more fraught because you're only afforded hazy outlines of what's lurking in the dark. By forcing you to make use of previously ignored audio cues the game puts a new spin on familiar environments and mechanics.
The game takes several opportunities to play with sensory deprivation. There is a section during the game where Senua is effectively blind, and has to use sound to navigate, and another where making noise is what attracts the attention of the monsters. These both work really well because of the tight audio, and are all the more fraught because you're only afforded hazy outlines of what's lurking in the dark. By forcing you to make use of previously ignored audio cues the game puts a new spin on familiar environments and mechanics.
III. Gameplay
Gameplay falls broadly into two categories: combat and puzzle solving. The former feels a little out of place, not really serving any narrative purpose except to reinforce Senua's identity as a warrior. But it's what Ninja Theory are good at, and fights have a weight to them that is both very satisfying and somewhat grotesque. The focus mechanic helps to break things up during combat, and partners well with the adaptive difficulty to make sure that fighting feels fraught but not impossible. As an aside, I really like the idea of the game altering the difficulty level behind the scenes - much closer to Left 4 Dead's AI director than Modern Warfare's condescending prompts that suggest you're not part of the intended audience of the game.
Puzzle solving is centred around the fact that Senua sees the world differently, and is strongly tied in to the overarching narrative surrounding her psychosis. This was always going to be a tricky one to get right - make it too easy and it feels throwaway and token, but make it too hard and you risk drawing people out of the immersion as they traipse back and forth looking for an obscure clue. Overall I felt that the puzzles were pitched about right; the visual overlays and level design made it clear where you needed to be to progress, but stopped short of giving you any information on how to actually find a solution.
The gameplay also portrays a more nuanced view of Senua's physical capabilities. Unlike the protagonists of similar games she's strong but not bulky, and panics a little the first times she has to negotiate a high beam in a way that gave me a little bit of vertigo. Plus, when Senua is hurt in combat, this is reflected in the gameplay mechanics. She can't move as fast, and the player has to adapt how they play in order to beat what are more dangerous foes now that she can't dodge and parry at her usual pace.
The gameplay also portrays a more nuanced view of Senua's physical capabilities. Unlike the protagonists of similar games she's strong but not bulky, and panics a little the first times she has to negotiate a high beam in a way that gave me a little bit of vertigo. Plus, when Senua is hurt in combat, this is reflected in the gameplay mechanics. She can't move as fast, and the player has to adapt how they play in order to beat what are more dangerous foes now that she can't dodge and parry at her usual pace.
IV. Story
The story takes a while to become interesting. I guess this isn't so bad, as you spend the first few levels getting the hang of the mechanics and settling into the world, but it would have been nicer to have felt a bit more involved during the earlier sections. Put another way, I felt like was watching Senua's story for a while before I really began playing it. The shift probably occurs when the game stops recounting episodes from the past and begins focusing on the Senua of the present.
The second half of the game builds on the paranoia and uncertainty that Senua experiences as a result of events from her past. Characters and voices shift as the story progresses, leaving you in a world where what's true begins to stop mattering as you discover that real, physical threats make up the minority of the dangers you have to face. As mentioned above, Senua's condition is presented as something that makes her see the world differently, and forces you to capitalise on this in order to make progress. Having to rely on this hazy view of reality only feeds the sense of paranoia built by the narrative.
The second half of the game builds on the paranoia and uncertainty that Senua experiences as a result of events from her past. Characters and voices shift as the story progresses, leaving you in a world where what's true begins to stop mattering as you discover that real, physical threats make up the minority of the dangers you have to face. As mentioned above, Senua's condition is presented as something that makes her see the world differently, and forces you to capitalise on this in order to make progress. Having to rely on this hazy view of reality only feeds the sense of paranoia built by the narrative.
The game plays with this by telling you during the first few levels that every time you fail, the dark rot will spread up Senua's arm until eventually it will reach her head and consume her. The threat of permadeath hangs over you during the game and adds to the general anxiety induced by the atmosphere and the furies. But there is no permadeath. You become paranoid after believing something the game told you which isn't true. It's a startling way of getting players into Senua's mindset, and helps you to understand that what she's experiencing is real for her in a way that is hard to do for psychotic hallucinations where you know that something is imagined.
To wrap up, this game is something special (it reminds me a lot of Spec Ops: The Line in the way the story plays out). Easily one of the most unsettling experiences I've had in a while, and I hope that future horror experiences take note of the more novel techniques used in Hellblade. It's also really exciting to see a mainstream game tackle the portrayal of a mental health condition well. Senua's psychosis is not the sole thing that defines her: in her own words, she has other stories to tell.
