Hellblade 2 review: a stunning world that’s alive with horror

Traversing the nightmare realms of the human thoughts has all the time been central to horror. The tales we inform ourselves about what’s shifting within the darkness, the creation of monsters out of unknown sounds — from this emerges our fascination with terror. In Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, gamers navigate a chilly, darkish ninth-century Iceland within the usually moist footwear of the Pictish warrior Senua on her second journey within the third-person action-horror franchise. I used to be very keen on the primary Hellblade, which noticed Senua journey into Hel to save lots of the soul of her lover. However the sequel pulled me in even additional, with among the most unforgettable and unsettling psychological horror I’ve ever skilled.

Senua, who lives with psychosis that causes her to listen to fixed voices, is a fierce warrior who has “killed” gods earlier than in her private quests at redemption. Solid out by her individuals within the Orkney Islands for being completely different, or a “witch,” she has taken her battles throughout the ocean to rescue her individuals from slavers.

She washes up alone on a chilly Viking shore and should discover her manner via a mysterious land. Her intention, vaguely, has to do with getting her individuals again, if not stopping the slavers who’re taking her individuals. She quickly discovers it is a land of literal giants, who remind me barely of Assault on Titan: their designs are horrific and genuinely terrifying. The giants have all however destroyed the land, however Senua, being who she is, finds a approach to cease them.

Let me be clear: that is the best-looking sport I’ve ever performed. Senua’s face is so detailed, I struggled to discern the real-time gameplay from the cutscenes; the environmental particulars are so intricate, it was like pictures. With fantastical lighting, inversions of the world as Senua is sucked into numerous states of thoughts, and gorgeous cinematic course, there was no second after I was not ogling my TV.

Maybe extra vital, nevertheless, is the sound design and course. The voices in Senua’s head painting themselves as furies, gods, and spirits, alternating between berating and inspiring. By way of sport design, they assist the participant navigate the world — telling you to look on this course, highlighting when an enemy is about to hit, and so forth. Add to this stunning and horrific soundscapes, with chanting voices or drone-like sounds puncturing the setting.  

The world is alive with horror, because it was tough to discern what was “actual” and what was Senua’s psychosis. That is illustrated in fight: Senua is an unimaginable warrior however the sport bookmarks fight. What I imply is that, when a battle occurs, you might be locked on to a single enemy the place you could parry, block, and strike. Senua has a capability known as “focus” that builds up with profitable blocks and strikes, which is successfully bullet time with swords. Fight is exhausting and the one weak spot of the sport, as I all the time felt she was not aware of my blocks and parries, leading to fixed strikes from enemies. Senua has no well being bar and it’s relatively exhausting to die, however the fight proved irritating even when it was unimaginable to witness: it’s brutal and dynamic, with fights occurring round Senua, enemies crashing into her organically, and kills mixing easily into cutscenes.

Not like the primary sport, Senua has companions whom I genuinely grew to love: a religious chief; a reformed slaver; and the daughter of a betrayed chief. Villages are crammed with individuals, with one sequence displaying off a small battalion preventing alongside Senua. Nonetheless, Senua stays inherently alone, and the journey is a lonely one — regardless of the voices continuously in your head. Senua solves environmental puzzles to navigate the world, which, like the primary sport, did get a little bit repetitive. These contain her having to match shapes that unlock doorways. Nonetheless, there was at the least extra range to the puzzles this time to maintain issues attention-grabbing, except for the boring form minigame.  

The sport is brief, and I completed it in about 10 hours. But it surely packs quite a lot of attractive scenes and situations into that transient span, from battling a monster in a volcano pit to the rhythm of steel music to navigating a Silent Hill-esque forest. This was an exhausting, stunning expertise that shattered me usually, constructed me again up, and continuously challenged what it meant to handle one’s darkness. Senua is a damaged individual, however due to that, she matches into this damaged world.

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II is on the market now on Xbox and PC.