Quick Review: Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

The voices – she hears them everywhere…

Before you can enter Hel, you must find the portal to it.

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice was developed by Ninja Theory, published by them and Xbox Game Studios, and released to Steam on August 8th, 2017. We play as the titular Senua, a Pict warrior left traumatized after an invasion of her village by Vikings. Now on a quest to resurrect her fiancé Dillion, who died during the invasion, she lands her crude boat onto a mysterious island. This goal will force her to fight mythological Norse figures on the way to Hel, forcing her to confront her own past on the way to meeting Hela.

Everything is messing with her mind.
Including her mind itself.

When it's not voices, it's flashbacks. Reminding her of why
she is doing all this. Who, around her, actually tried to
help her with her struggles... and who didn't.

But is it even real? Senua suffers from intense psychosis, exhibiting many traits of schizophrenia. She keeps seeing faces, she keeps hearing voices, some mocking, some encouraging, some wondering what she’s doing. The voices color the entire experience. True silence is rare across this adventure. Psychiatrists didn’t exist in the 9th Century, so everyone else calls it “the darkness”, or “the curse”, as if it was something she had to overcome… The game recommends playing with headphones, as the game uses 3D Binaural sound that makes every voice feel like it comes from a specific spot around Senua.

As for seeing faces... Hellblade does something clever,
where it superimposes live-action heads onto stone faces.
It's... unsettling. The face seen this way is Senua's mother,
who encourages her. Other cutscenes use live-action instead,
which gives them an otherworldly feel in the setting.

That's one found. Now to find the other. I sure love an
environment with random sigils existing around!

Calling this game just a walking simulator does it a disservice. Yes, you’ll be walking around with WASD, exploring, looking for lore stones to hear bits and pieces of mythology. You’ll face areas with specific puzzles that require observing something by focusing with E, or interacting with something with F. Closed doors will require you to find sigils in the wild, which you’ll have to focus on from specific standing points. That part is lenient, as you don’t need to be aligned perfectly, and the game further helps by flashing the nearest sigil when you’re approaching it. Other puzzles play with your perception to make things like bridges and staircases appear.

Why yes, this is, in fact, a river of blood, with malformed
bodies making up the banks.

This is also classified as a horror game. First, you have the constant presence of the voices discussing your every move. They disorientate Senua (and, by extension, the player), and yet, the longer the game goes, the more you learn to ignore the defeatist or mocking voices, and focus on the encouraging ones. You’ll need all the determination you can find, while hunting down Surtr in a forest that catches fire every time you solve a puzzle, or encounter any of Valravn’s illusions, to give two examples. Aside from the unnerving places we visit, the game's scariest moments are often in cutscenes. There are jumpscares, but the game more often utilizes atmosphere to unsettle you.

Ugh, the shield guys. Never quite got the hang of
beating them quickly... until the very end, anyway.

Took me until AFTER a long story break without fighting
to find out I could use Focus against any enemy.
Plus, Focus makes your sword shine like a lightsaber.

Then there’s combat. I wished there had been a tutorial since those controls are more complex than the rest of the game. You slash with the left mouse button, or do a stronger slash with the right button. You can block with Crtl, block with the left Crtl, change target with C or Z, or dodge with Space and WASD. I felt unprepared when the first fight was sprung up on me, but I picked up everything else quickly by checking controls in the pause menu. Other features of the game come in handy – the voices warn you when an attack is coming from behind, and mention when an enemy is almost defeated. Although these two features make combat interesting, there aren’t many enemy types, and the repetition becomes obvious early. However, the bosses are memorable, not just where they’re fought, but all the tricks they use against you. Special mention to Garmr/Fenrir, whicks blocks your view of the arena with Senua’s own traumatic memories, forcing you to constantly dodge its attacks.

Using Focus in battle slows down time and creates a really
cool effect around the fight. It won't always save you,
but it IS a lifesaver against bosses and enemy groups.

Senua is said to have limited “lives” (represented by the rot on her arm growing towards her head when she “dies”), but a precise number, like her health, or the enemies’, is never disclosed. The uncertainty is part of the dread.

There's clearly something there. You're just not at the right
angle to focus on it and create the bridge forwards.

Honestly, for a product whose development forced its team
to cut corners, even transforming a meeting room into a
green screen mocap space,  it is still in the end one of the most
visually stunning gaming experiences I've had.

The puzzle gameplay can be a little repetitive (even if we get some interesting twists out of it sometimes); but the story is worth it. The horror ambiance is on point, and the story incorporates Nordic mythology in clever ways (including how Senua envisions those gods and monsters). The music helps the tone tremendously, and the graphics make this game possibly one of the most beautiful I've ever played. The plot has several beats of mental breakdown, with all the freaky visuals they induce, and you can never tell what’s real and what isn’t. Melina Juergens was merely the team’s video editor and had no acting experience when she was selected as a mocap actress stand-in before doing such a great job in the role that she was permanently cast in it. And that performance earned her a BAFTA Award! Impressive! And Ninja Theory went to great lengths to portray schizophrenia and traumas as accurately as possible, with experts helping on that front at every step of the way.

This game is an experience worth playing through. I know I made sure to play it all the way to the end! Oh, and there is a VR edition as well.

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is available on Steam for 29.99$ USD.