Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II Game Review – A Lived Experience 

For the most part, games are a form of entertainment. However, many modern games tell stories, create experiences, and immerse the viewer into worlds beyond what they’d experience daily. At first, I was at a loss for words to eloquently describe game developer Ninja Theory’s latest title,  Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II. It goes beyond a straightforward playthrough, not just telling the story of Senua but almost living it in real-time.

The What

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II follows from Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. Having experienced a traumatic upbringing at the hands of her father and losing her lover, Dillion, which prompts her to set out on a journey to rescue his soul from the goddess Hela.

Having come to terms with the loss in the previous game, the next chapter of Senua’s journey is seeking revenge on the Viking raiders who destroyed her homeland, Orkney, including the killing of Dillion.

Senua gets kidnapped by these raiders as she aims to journey to their lands for vengeance. However, upon arrival, things don’t go according to plan. Instead, she encounters horrors that plague the land, the basis of which the raiders seek to kidnap and sacrifice their prisoners. Using her gifts and learning new perspectives, she seeks to help the people she encounters there.

The Where 

The game is set in 10^th-century Iceland, which includes many beliefs, landscapes and, in some form, their gods. The landscape is beautifully crafted, almost as if it were recreated from each pebble and stone that graces the surroundings.

The backdrop was recreated from real-world locations, adding to the realism achieved. Using Unreal Engine 5, the meticulously crafted detailing is one of the best I’ve encountered in a game. It is utterly breathtaking, adding significant value to the immersive experience within it.

While it may not be an open-world title, allowing you to explore a vast map, the journey still feels as accurate as ever. From the first moment you find yourself captured on the boat, watching the ebb and flow of the ocean to the beautiful sunlit textures as they peek from behind trees and rocks onto the terrain – it’s immaculate.

The Game Dynamics

The majority of the game relies on interaction with the environment. The game path is quite linear overall, only allowing players to venture from the set path when discovering some of the hidden collectables along the way. In addition to these collections, you also have to solve a few puzzles to unlock certain pathways to continue your journey.

While most of the game is an interaction-driven experience, there are quite a number of combat scenes, which adds tension to the already high-octane encounters. The combat dynamic is fairly straightforward, allowing the user to perform two basic attacks in various combinations, ducking and diving to avoid hits and a power-up function to assist with finishing blows. It may be a simple combat dynamic, but it requires deciphering the enemy combinations and accurate timing to avoid hits and perform your own attacks. Outside of the many enemy battles, bigger battles require more thought and timing to complete.

The Experience

There’s much to experience in the Senua’s Saga Hellblade II, with each game element adding to its unique experience. It’s a truly visceral experience that will have you on the edge of your seat for almost its entirety as you seek to uncover the hidden truths that plague the people in the region.

The majority of the game deals with Senua’s state of psychosis. She experiences voices and visions in her surroundings that not many others perceive. Even in the event of understanding her troubles, those on her side can only seek to believe rather than experience. In a sense, she battles these inner thoughts and sightings on her own, seeking only to translate them in some form to accompany her on the journey.

Ninja Theory does an immense job of portraying the world of psychosis in Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II. Almost every aspect of it feels natural, from the many voices that battle for supremacy in her mind to the enduring elements of the world around her.

Sometimes, you must crawl through tight spaces, dip your head underwater or battle the dark. In most other games, these are simply toggles of a state of play. In Hellblade II, this is an experience, each with its elemental nuances. I never thought I’d be able to experience such a high fear of my experiences in reality. In the real world, we weigh up the options of risk almost daily, choosing, in most cases, to avoid any dangers or known trauma. However, in this game, knowing you’ll have to take a leap of faith to overcome an obstacle has an almost real-world experience of wanting to avoid it, lest you succumb to the following trauma.

The Takeaway

Although the game is relatively short, lasting between 8 and 10 hours, I broke down my playtime into three nightly sessions, each with a break or two for that three-hour session. At times during these sessions, my heart rate increased dramatically, some of which induced cold sweats and a feeling of mental exhaustion.

Reflecting on these instances of wanting to step away for that 5-minute pause, you realise the importance of your mental health. The game does an immense job of allowing the player to experience some of what many people deal with regularly: a state of psychosis. The constant battle within yourself and your surroundings is quite the process. Even with the game’s underlying story and Senua’s journey, this is probably the biggest takeaway from the game for me.

In most cases, when reviewing games, you can attest to your love for the experience and the likes. However, I can’t say the same for Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, in that I can unequivocally state that there were moments of the game I did not enjoy or love. In this case, though, that only makes the game even better. It’s an exhausting, albeit brief, journey that provides one of the best – and worst – experiences I’ve had playing a game.

Also, check out our reviews for TopSpin 2K25, Rise of the Ronin and Alone in the Dark.