- Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios , Xbox Game Studios
- Release Date: May 21, 2024
- Also On: Xbox Series X
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Jun 12, 2024An unusually beautiful game that fails to surpass the success of its predecessor. This is a classic example of how all the money and time in the world can't guarantee a final product that satisfies players. It offers an intriguing deep dive into the psychoses and inner visions that the mentally ill endure daily, and the struggles required to overcome (or at least manage) these challenges.
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May 21, 2024Senua's Saga: Hellblade II is more of an interactive experience than a game. Despite a bigger budget and grander visuals, the sad reality is that what worked so well before may not suffice the second time around. Nevertheless, it's a creation worth experiencing at least once.
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May 21, 2024Ninja Theory took a very big risk with Hellblade 2, and the gamble paid off in part. By moving away from the extreme darkness of the first game, the studio avoids taking the easy way out or creating a feeling of repetition. Now, the title also has a more conformist form, a rhythm, dispensable NPCs and certain flaws that have only been ironed out, which may not appeal as much as the more intimate, anxiety-inducing first experience. A interesting game, but not a fantastic sequel or the masterpiece it could have been.
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May 21, 2024If you’re looking for a cool and fairly unique experience and you’ve got Game Pass, then Hellblade 2 could be worth your time. Its visual splendor and highlight moments are worth experiencing. But, if you haven’t played the original Hellblade yet? Do yourself a favor and go play that instead. In all ways except visual, it’s a better game.
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May 21, 2024Senua’s Saga could stand to learn more from the giants it is inspired by.
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May 21, 2024Which is the overarching tale of Senua’s Saga– for almost everything it does well, there is a better counterpart in its predecessor, the remaining new additions never fully realised. It is painstakingly crafted yet thoroughly unengaging, its ruminations on the human condition are not unwelcome but presented with unearned profundity and housed in gameplay that is apathetic to the player at best. Senua’s Sacrifice was a crunchy experience but, in its limitations, and focus, it blossomed into a striking, contained reflection of emotions through systems. Conversely, Senua’s Saga is undeniably gorgeous and well intentioned, but exhaustively preoccupied with its own reflection.
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May 21, 2024Hellblade 2 is a mechanically dated game carried along by its incredible presentational flair. For a game shown alongside the debut of Series X, it's not reflective of the story Xbox is trying to tell with its first party. As a result, it's disappointing.
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May 21, 2024Despite its greater scale and visual splendour, this sequel fails to escape the shadow of its predecessor with a muddled tale that Senua herself feels out of place in.
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May 21, 2024Where the first game felt like a journey of self-discovery, both for Senua and for the player, Hellblade 2 feels more invested in creating the myth of Senua: Senua as legendary giant slayer, as mystical seer touched by the underworld. There are moments where we do get glimpses at her actual humanity — in early chapters, where she is still struggling to survive and find her footing in this strange land, and in the denouements after later battles, where she falls to her feet, diminished, and mourns for those she was unable to save. But these moments are marginal to the central thrust of the narrative: a woman finding her place in the world; moving from a state of victimhood and isolation to one of heroic leadership; working to unite a people against their fears. It’s an inspiring story, and a hopeful one that seeks not to dwell in the mournful solemnity of the first game, instead pressing forward toward an impressively epic future. But, as with most epics, we only really get to see the broad strokes. We get the myth, but we lose the woman.
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May 21, 2024I like Hellblade 2, and without wishing to sound churlish, I'd definitely give it a whirl if I had a Game Pass subscription. But in a month that's included Animal Well and Crow Country and Cryptmaster and Little Kitty, Big City and Dread Delusion and Indika and Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, dropping fifty notes on this shiny but safe sequel just seems daft. Amid such a cornucopia of imagination, Hellblade 2 needed to be more than just more Hellblade, to elevate the ideas of the first game and build them out. But for all its technical wizardry and narrative worth, more Hellblade is exactly what Hellblade 2 is.
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