Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice Reviews
Dense, immersive and beautiful, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is a genuine surprise. With a unique atmosphere, outstanding sound design and solid controls, it could have been masterful had it not been for the creeping shadow of repetitiveness, an exhausting dose of backtracking and some frustration to stop it, especially towards the end. Having said that, this is a truly remarkable and affordable experience.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Not without flaws, but full of interesting ideas - including a multi-layered sympathetic and credible title heroine.
Review in German | Read full review
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice brings with it an eventful journey, not only marked by Senua's struggle, but by the question and unease it raises for the player regarding psychosis. This constant struggle, both in game and in real life has produced incredible results for Ninja Theory, including special thanks from players with the same condition. A beautiful game, leaving mouths watering for its successor.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice promises a very different experience as I said at the beginning. Ninja theory, the production team, repeatedly repeated that they wanted to try something different in this game. From the first minute you started playing the game, you feel how successful the production team is in this statement.
Review in Turkish | Read full review
Hellblade is a tricky bag of thoughts and impressions. In today's environment, mental health to many is a field of landmines, having scarcely been touched in the video game industry. There have been a few landmark titles, but Hellblade really raises the bar… or should I say down since our main Celtic heroine, Senua, needs to trek the decrepit waters of the Northmen to make her perilous passage into Helheim, the Norse equivalent of the underworld.
At its heart, when you strip everything away, Hellblade is a frank and unrelenting warning about helping others, to not let them drift further and further towards darkness. For that reason alone, Hellblade may just be the year's most vital game.
Great realization, a specific story, small mishaps, but for this super price. A real "AAA turkey" that shows that even small studios can create big games.
Review in Polish | Read full review
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is easily one of the best games in the recent years in terms of creating deceptive spaces and offering new experiences. Ninja Theory has proved once again that with enough time and budget, even ideas that aren't even originally from the developers themselves, can become games beyond our expectations.
Review in Persian | Read full review
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is an extremely well written game with a great story lore and challenging combat system. The only thing that it lacks is a good puzzle design otherwise Hellblade offers an experience that should easily rival a big blockbuster game.
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is every bit as vicious, epic and dramatic as its predecessors in the Ninja Theory library, but interweaving a delicate storyline through simple, yet ruthless mechanics makes it one of the most visceral portrayals of psychological turmoil in recent video gaming.
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is an unmissable experience with its simple but impressive story and unique storytelling.
Review in Turkish | Read full review
Games have come a long way since I was a youth. Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is a clear example of a game as an art form with a strong message and a complex, layered narrative. It's true that you're sort of along for the ride and most of your interactions are through your emotional response to what is depicted rather than through the mechanics of the game, but is that such a bad thing?
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is a beautiful and unusual game for a very select audience. If you want to rest from various open worlds and focus on a very personal and linear story with tons of cool little details, this is something for you. I don’t think there ever was a game that displayed the madness of a troubled mind in such a way. Hellblade is a great single-player adventure!
Review in Polish | Read full review
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is a real gem and an example of how independent games should be created. Beautiful graphics, intriguing atmosphere and convincing main character. Mandatory position.
Review in Polish | Read full review
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is the action adventure genre stripped of its excess, until a smaller, more personal journey remains. While it may feel shallow and lacking for some, those wanting something other than the usual big-budget 70-hour fare will find Senua's story to be unlike anything else in recent years.
Focusing his game on the psychosis of his heroine and his gameplay mechanics on it was a risky bet but won hands down. Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is a masterstroke for its storytelling, atmosphere, artistic direction and the care taken on the subject of mental illness and on Senua.
Review in French | Read full review
Ninja Theory has delivered a game that is equally good and important for the industry in terms of serious storytelling and the ability to create AAA experiences at a low cost.
Hellblade could have been carried alone by its insanely beautiful graphics and standout voice performances — some of the best of 2017 — but while these scenarios were always refreshing interruptions from long, meditative walks through Helheim, they distracted from the game's greater focus on demystifying a taboo mental disorder.
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is a deep, fascinating game, however, which precedes the narrative component to the gameplay: the important thing is to know what you are buying.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Hellblade is not an Orphean quest to retrieve a dead lover from the underworld. It's not some epic tale of revenge. It's an education and contextualization of being psychologically different in the time of Vikings and Celts. Nearly every facet of the game — whether it's combat, puzzles or exploration — is deliberate, pointing back to the overarching theme of what people called “cursed” during that time. Hellblade successfully weaves metaphors of grief and loss into fundamental game mechanics and rich folklore, and through these I felt like I truly was able to understand how someone else sees the world.
