Hellblade

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About

Hellblade is a video game series created by Ninja Theory. The first game, Senua's Sacrifice, tells the story of Senua, a warrior who makes her way to Helheim to rescue her dead lover. Senua is plagued by voices in her head throughout the game, and the game's development team worked with neuroscientists to accurately represent mental illness in the game. The game was a critical and financial success, and a sequel was announced at the 2019 Game Awards.

History

Hellblade was first announced August 12th, 2014 (teaser shown below, left), with developers Ninja Theory setting out to make "an independent AAA game," meaning a game that blended the technical prowess and production value of a AAA title with the spirit of an indie title.^[1] The game's first official trailer released July 28th, 2017 (shown below, right). The game released on August 8th, 2017 on Playstation 4 and Windows. It released April 11th, 2018 on Xbox One and April 11th, 2019 for the Nintendo Switch. There is also a VR edition of the game.

Senua's Saga

On December 12th, 2019, a trailer for the game's sequel, Senua's Saga, premiered at The Game Awards (shown below). It will be available on the yet-to-be-released Xbox Series X.

Reception

Senua's Sacrifice received high praise from critics for its originality and style, scoring in the 80s across platforms on Metacritic, save for the Switch, where it scored a 79.^[2] The art, themes, and characterizations were generally met with praise, while critics were less enthusiastic about the combat and puzzles. Giantbomb^[3] wrote, "Hellblade's gameplay mechanics are few and relatively straightforward--though at half the price of most games with this quality of production, that's easier to forgive--but as a narrative effort its success is almost unparalleled in the medium." It won Best Audio Design, Impact Game, and Lead Performance a the 2017 Game Awards.

Online Presence

The game developed a strong following online. It has gained over 3,000 likes on Facebook since the page's creation in July of 2016.^[4] The trailer for the sequel generated positive buzz on Twitter, where fans expressed excitement for the new game (examples shown below).