Microsoft’s recent Xbox & Bethesda E3 Games Showcase was a packed show, but there were a few notable games and developers missing from the show. Thankfully, some of the games and devs left out of the big E3 event get their time to shine today as part of Xbox Games Showcase: Extended, including the much-anticipated Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II!
According to Ninja Theory creative director Tameem Antoniades, the studios is currently working on a “good chunky slice” of Hellblade 2, before moving onto full production. They’re still in pre-production now, scanning locations and drawing on satellite data from Iceland. They’re also working closely with Epic games to create the game’s next-gen Unreal Engine 5 character models. Ninja Theory has also dropped a new Hellblade II teaser, which they stress isn’t an actual trailer, which provides a hint at what they’re working on. You can check out the teaser and a transcript of what Antoniades had to say, below.
I want to give you an update on the work so far for Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II. What we’re doing right now is building a good chunky slice of the game, before we move into full production to build out the rest.
Hellblade was very special for us, and we didn’t want to do a straight sequel, we wanted to do something extra special, and so we’re making our lives as difficult as possible in that pursuit. The game is set in 9th century Iceland, so we’ve been sending our art and audio teams out there, doing photography, photogrammetry, and combining it with satellite data to recreate to recreate large swaths of the landscape.
On the character front, we’re making real costumes, scanning them in. We’re collaborating with Epic Games to bring you next-generation digital characters. On the combat front we want it to be extra real and brutal, and so Melina, our main actress, has been training for two years, and all of our animators have undergone combat training.
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II leads the charge onto PC and Xbox Series X/S. A release window has yet to be specified, but it sounds like we may be waiting a while.
