Edge - UK (2020-10)

E

dge, it is fair to say, did not enjoy
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. Granted,
Ninja Theory’s depiction of a Pictish
warrior’s fight against her inner demons was
never intended to be fun. The studio
succeeded in having the player experience
something akin to Senua’s psychosis for
themselves – auditory hallucinations, visual
tricks that cause you to
question reality, even paranoia
in the form of an in-game
promise (which would later turn
out to be provably false) that if
you died, your save would be
wiped. But it was weighed
down by clichéd writing, poor
level design and awkward
combat – and, ultimately,
soured by the unfortunate
presentation of mental illness as a kind
of special superpower that helped you
solve tedious puzzles.
We approach the prospect of
a follow-up with caution, then. The story is
set in Iceland, with creative director Tameem
Antoniades having travelled there for

a break after wrapping up development on

Senua’s Sacrifice, according to a recent dev

diary released by the studio. His being

moved by the beauty of the landscape, he

says, was when “the first thoughts of doing

a sequel came into my mind” (which, given

the amount of sequel-baiting going on at the

end of the first game, seems rather hard to

believe). Senua will journey

hundreds of miles across the

country on her quest – much of

the setting comes courtesy of

the Quixel team, who were

visiting Iceland at the same

time to scan different biomes

for the Megascans Library

(which is, as you’ll remember,

a key part of Unreal Engine 5’s

ability to help small dev teams

produce high-quality graphical results with

less resources). Unsurprisingly, this already

looks visually breathtaking – whether it can

reconcile the many deep-rooted issues of

the first game is quite another matter. We

don’t expect to enjoy it, but this time, we’d

like to respect it – and it, us. Q

SENUA’S SAGA: HELLBLADE II

Developer Ninja Theory Publisher Microsoft Game Studios Release TBA

This looks visually

breathtaking –

whether it can

reconcile the issues

of the first game is

another matter

OUTSIDE THE BOX