Senua's Saga: Hellblade II Reviews
A visual and aural triumph, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II trades agency, freedom, and longevity to galvanize mood, atmosphere, and other, more cinematic qualities. By its very design, Senua’s Saga will polarize an audience rich with choice-driven adventure games. But by committing to its vision, Ninja Theory has crafted a thoughtful and haunting slice of violent opera - long on style, short on length, and certainly deserving of acclaim.
There is simply nothing else like Hellblade 2 on the market and that alone kept me enthralled the whole way through. Its pared-down elements might not be mechanically complex, but they give the story a momentum that makes it hard to put down. Ninja Theory tackles themes that are challenging and not often seen in games, with a backdrop that vacillates between the epic and the intimate. It's approach doesn't have widespread appeal, but Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 is as close to an interactive movie as we’ve seen yet.
Despite its greater scale and visual splendour, this sequel fails to escape the shadow of its predecessor with a muddled tale that Senua herself feels out of place in.
Hellblade 2 continues Senua's story with grace, confidence, surprising brutality and thundering conviction.
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II is another Viking-worthy feast for the senses that meets the high bar set by its predecessor, even if it never really manages to clear it.
It's easy to focus on Hellblade 2's flaws because they are so surface level. Combat is repetitive and made an unnecessary focal point. The extra characters dilute instead of adding. I'm still not sure what Hellblade thinks it is, or wants to be. But deeper than that, there is some quality worth rooting for - an interesting protagonist powered by a brilliant performance, ingenious use of the environment for exploration and puzzles, a true electric miracle of motion capture unfolding before our eyes. The temptation is to look at this, at the victories Ninja Theory finds as it flounders to keep pace with the biggest hitters, and wonder what the team could do with a lot more money behind it. But when you consider it keeps getting tangled up in its own triple-A Halloween costume, maybe the question is to wonder what magic it could work with less.
A masterclass in technical and thematic maturity.
A joyless slog of barely interactive entertainment and a muddled portrayal of mental illness… that just so happens to have the best graphics ever on a video game console.
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II’s conclusion ends on another strong note, and despite my initial reservations about continuing Senua’s story, I walked away happy to see her conquer new monsters, both literal and metaphorical.
Where the first game felt like a journey of self-discovery, both for Senua and for the player, Hellblade 2 feels more invested in creating the myth of Senua: Senua as legendary giant slayer, as mystical seer touched by the underworld.
Hellblade 2 is perhaps the most visually remarkable Xbox title to date, but is ultimately undermined by its emphasis on fidelity over story and gameplay.
A spellbinding meditation on anguish and compassion, Hellblade II delivers one of the most gripping interactive and sensory experiences of 2024
Senua's Saga: Hellblade II is the greatest graphical marvel that can be found on consoles, but in terms of gameplay it doesn't measure up and even falls short of the first. Yes, his "graphs" are going to leave you with your jaw on the floor from start to finish... It is a pity that the same cannot be said of other sections.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Just like its forbear, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II is an oppressive, powerful and haunting example of the power of video games, and one that sets its own parameters for what a digital experience can be. It is a game that must be experienced, not least because, there’s nothing else quite like it.
I enjoyed many parts of Hellblade 2, and there are some environmental/music sequences in particular, one near the beginning, the other nearer to the middle, that are going to stay with me a while due to the absolute crushing, horrifying, intense atmosphere paired with amazing audio. But as a game? Something I enjoyed playing? Generally speaking, no, it wasn’t really for me.
Hellblade 2 still does incredibly well. The new story is weighty, the audio is exceptional, the scenery is ridiculously dense and rich, and the combat feels intense and impactful in new and interesting ways.
Though Hellblade 2 has the power to force your jaw open and give you goosebumps, too often the whole project ends up feeling like a very expensive tech demo – an absolute tour de force of technical achievement bogged down in its own sense of gravitas and mystery. Keeping you off the stick for so many of its most impactful moments, and not giving you enough to play with when you do have control, hobbles the potential of this visual and aural masterpiece enough to make the whole experience feel like it was constantly trying to find a foothold on that dread Icelandic scree, and never really getting to its feet until you come staggering over the finish line.
Senua's saga: Hellblade II breaks the video game frontier by offering an experience unlike anything we've experienced before, including Senua's Sacrifice. Its bravery in making decisions that are initially unpopular leaves us with a terribly personal and unique work in which Ninja Theory once again shows its veteranship by profiling female and male characters whose strength lies in their fragility and in all the flaws, fears and weaknesses that make us human.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
While graphically Senua's Saga: Hellblade II offers memorable glimpses and moments, anything beyond the visual impact and the dark and fierce atmosphere is disappointing, especially for a sequel announced five years ago on which Microsoft bet big.
Review in Italian | Read full review