Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 review

What is it? A dark fantasy cinematic adventure across 10th century Iceland.
Release date May 21, 2024
Expect to pay $50/£50
Developer Ninja Theory
Publisher Xbox Game Studios
Reviewed on Nvidia Geforce RTX 3080, AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, 32GB RAM
Steam Deck TBA
Link Official site

In retrospect, the original Hellblade was never going to be an easy game to make a sequel to. Protagonist Senua's personal journey to self-acceptance was introduced and fully resolved, and most of the events of the story were seemingly hallucinations. That doesn't give you a lot to springboard off into a wider world, and indeed Hellblade 2: Senua's Saga struggles throughout to rise to that challenge. 

Seeking to stop the Viking raids on her homeland at their source, Senua allows herself to be captured and brought to Iceland, with bloody vengeance against their leader on her mind. She arrives to find that things will not be so clear cut—this is a cursed land where the people live in fear of man-eating giants, and their reasons for taking slaves from other lands aren't as black and white as she thought. 

Now trapped in Iceland herself, and fresh from carving her way through gods and monsters in the first game, Senua resolves to track down and slay the giants, recruiting the aid of local people and weirder allies as she goes. For the player, that means about eight hours of cutscenes, lightly interactive setpieces, mild puzzle-solving, and sword fights.

It's a visually spectacular world. The landscape is scanned in from the real world using photogrammetry, and Iceland's bleak but beautiful vistas are just as startling and strange as any alien planet or fantasy realm. Mocap is used to phenomenal effect, both in the subtle performances of the human characters, and the deeply unsettling movements of the giants. There's a photo mode in the game at launch, and even as someone with little eye for that sort of thing, I couldn't help but snap shots of every horizon, skybox, and character close-up. And it all runs