With about a month and a half left before the game’s launch, Ninja Theory has finally shown Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II to a few outlets. The sequel to 2017’s ‘triple-I’ masterpiece is scheduled to launch on May 21 for PC and Xbox Series S|X and will benefit from the increased production values that the studio based in Cambridge, UK, can access following the acquisition by Microsoft in 2018.
However, speaking to Gamesradar, Ninja Theory studio head Dominic Matthews said:
I still think of Ninja Theory as kind of a boutique studio. If I were to draw an analogy with film production, to me, Hellblade 2 isn’t a Hollywood blockbuster – it’s a quality independent film.
That’s not to say there weren’t a lot of production improvements the studio could access for the sequel. One of the goals is to achieve not only cinematic narrative but cinematic combat, too.
Environmental art director Dan Attwell explains:
We’ve gone really realistic, there’s no camera cuts, and there’s no HUD – we’ve given ourselves a really hard job, but these are all choices we stand by. We only had one piece of photogrammetry in Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and we’ve used over 370 in Hellblade 2. It’s all contributing to this sense of immersion. Even if you’ve never been to Iceland, at a subconscious level, we want you to have this feeling that our world is a real, lived-in place.
Benoit Macon, combat director of Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, adds:
On Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, we spent two days on mo-cap. On Hellblade 2, we spent 75 days recording – 60 on our stage here and then an extra 15 on external shoots.
You will not see any animation in this game that has been keyframes. Mo-cap is completely different. However we want to stage combat in-engine, we can film that exactly on the stage and there is no retouch at all. That’s what we strive for, to give a cinematic feel to our combat – creating combat in the same way that the narrative team creates its cinematics. If Senua gets hit, it triggers something; if she kills an enemy, it triggers something different and so on, building up these stories in every battle we have created.
Actress Melina Juergens and the main cast got to don period-accurate costumes this time around to increase immersion both for the actors and, hopefully, for the players too. As for Senua, she has now learned how to manage the voices in her head – the Furies – and is deadly focused on ensuring no one else would suffer like she had for the sacrifice of her partner to the Old Gods. That’s why she ventures to the source of the problem to stop it for good. Combat will remain focused on one-on-one encounters, making fights extremely intense and personal.
There’s still a lot we don’t know about Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, but it will likely remain that way until we get to play it. After all, Ninja Theory decided to stick to a short and narrative-focused design where experiencing everything for ourselves will be of paramount importance.
