Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 shows the limits of photorealistic graphics

Out of all the photorealistic visuals in Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2, there’s one that genuinely left my jaw hanging. It’s a simple shot. Deep in the sequel’s back half, I find myself trotting up a hill toward an enormous tornado. While I’d seen plenty of detailed images throughout my adventure, those few seconds made me feel like I was watching real footage, not an intricate animation. I watched in awe as a fierce storm whirred, debris flying in the distance as Senua’s rough skin was dimly illuminated by the cloudy skies above.

Minutes later, my eyes were glazing over again as I ran through yet another rocky landscape.

In some ways, Hellblade 2 feels like the culmination of decades of video game history. Since the medium’s inception, there’s been a drive to push graphics as far as they could go. That began as a practical experiment, as early games struggled to fully communicate images through rudimentary shapes. In more recent decades, it’s become something of an arms race to see who can craft the most detailed, realistic visuals possible. That’s been fueled by the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, both of which have struggled to land games that fully reach the impressive tech’s potential.

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Hellblade 2 is the first game of this console generation that truly feels like it capitalizes on what the Xbox Series X is capable of. It’s the end of a Sisyphean task, reaching the zenith of realistic visuals — at least for now. While that should be a cause for celebration, Hellblade 2’s polarizing reception isn’t exactly triumphant. While its tech has impressed across the board, mixed reactions to its comparatively thin gameplay serve as a reminder that the hunt for high graphical fidelity and realism might be a distracting cause in 2024. Studios like Ninja