5/5 ★ – MrCh1valry's review of Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice.

Platform: Xbox Series X :: Completed 10/3/2022 :: Hellblade is truly something special. Easily one of the best games I have played this year and one of Xbox’s best first party franchises and developers by far. A harrowing, twisted journey to Hel to save the soul of your lover, whose head you carry on your waist, what better hook to a new IP could one ask for? The game lands us in a twisted version of reality from the perspective of our mentally ill protagonist Senua as she goes on a journey of loss and acceptance. The backstory is told through cinematic cutscene flashbacks and by the various voices we hear in Senua’s head and is not quite in the right order, and Senua is not the most reliable narrator either. Slowly we as the audience begin to understand that Senua has been battling with psychosis, what she refers to as “the darkness,” and because of this darkness she felt she needed to leave her lover, Dillion, to not let her curse affect him and the rest of the village. Senua returns to find Dillion strung up and the rest of the village burnt to the ground by the invading Northmen. Senua blames herself for this loss and is convinced she can save Dillion by traveling to Hel and freeing him from the goddess of death Hela. It’s an epic journey that mirrors the classical warrior’s journey, only it’s through Senua’s own head as she comes to terms with the loss of her lover and comes to terms with her mental illness and that she is not actually to blame for all the bad things that have happened to her during her life, like her father Zynbel would have her believe. I thoroughly enjoyed all the deep dives we get into Northmen lore from Druth, a character Senua knows from her past who helps contextualize the world for the player and Senua along the way, and the way the game deals with harsh realities, that we can’t run from them, we must face them head on. The way information is disseminated in this game is perfect, the pacing is great and keeps you wanting more until the final confrontation when it all comes together, and we get the clarity we’ve been waiting for. Senua is a fantastic character because she is so relatable. Most of us have experienced some trauma that we wish wasn’t real, but that has shaped us into who we are today. Senua makes us look back at ourselves and question what distortion we may be putting on our own reality, that if we believe Senua’s reality is so twisted then what does that say about our own view on reality. Everyone’s reality is filtered through their perception of themselves and those around them, and sometimes it can be shaped by the blame we put on ourselves, as Senua does throughout the game. Dillion is the constant source of support for Senua, her rock, he truly loves her, and it makes us the audience relate more to her grief of losing him, the one bright light in her darkness. It also presents a fun gender flip of the God of War 2018 plot, where now the main protagonist if a female god/warrior who is on an epic journey with the remains of her dead lover. As the story progresses, we discover the true antagonist is not Hela, but Zynbel, Senua’s father. He treated Senua the same way he did her mother, who he burned alive for disobeying him, and coming to terms with this is crucial to Senua’s journey to accepting her psychosis will always be a part of her but is not a curse from the Gods as he would have her believe. The gameplay for Hellblade is very unique, from the combat to the puzzles. The combat is unrelenting and makes you really focus and not button mash. It is challenging and requires some actual strategy to defeat the various enemies. As we progress, we unlock new abilities like the mirror and the god-killing sword which makes the oncoming hordes of enemies less daunting. The concept of The Rot is also a fun mechanic as it externalizes her inner darkness in a beautiful way and the combat real stakes for the player: fail too many times and you must START OVER. Anytime we feel like a failure, the darkness consumes even more of our being; The Rot is the perfect device to pull the story/character development into the combat of the game, while the puzzles are the device that immerses the player fully into a mentally ill protagonist dealing with psychosis. The voices we hear throughout the game can both aide us and deceive us, and the puzzles become all the harder for it. But eventually the player fully accepts the reality of the game, that we can see runes in everyday objects, that we just need to look at a bridge from a different perspective for use to move forward in life, and the player can forget that these things have basis in mental psychosis instead of just the fictional world of a video game: full immersion. Immersion is always the biggest factor for me enjoying a video game, and Hellblade is no exception. From the sound design to the graphics, the game is beautiful in every way. You can tell that the developers enjoy having a great attention to detail, it truly shines through in their character, enemy, and boss designs and the environment in general. And the way they consulted with people who actually suffer from psychosis and with mental health professionals to create new inventive ways to convey their distorted reality, you can tell these developer really care about authenticity. I’m not the first to say it but playing this game with headphones and Dolby Atmos is a truly insane experience, the best soundscape I’ve ever heard in a video game, and it freaked me out more than once playing this way late at night, when I usually play my video games. The graphics look so realistic for a game made for Xbox One (I played the Series X Optimized version, to be clear) and these two aspects specifically are what excites me most about the Hellblade sequel. The sound and graphics in this game should be a benchmark for what games should look and sound like in this generation of games. I’m really not sure how the story progresses, if we are back in Senua’s mind, or what. But I am confident the sound design and graphics will blow me away in Senua’s Saga.