Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is an incredible game dealing with psychosis and mental trauma. It’s about a Celtic girl named Senua who is journeying to the Viking Hel to bargain with Hela for the life of her lost love. She literally carries his head in a cloth tied to her belt.
Throughout her journey, Senua is plagued by visions and voices, some helpful and some harmful. A narrator of sorts guides her, while a bunch of chatty voices in the background express her fears, desires, anxieties, etc.
Senua finds herself fighting monsters who spawn from thin air, intent on stopping her from her goals. Each time she dies, rot spreads from her limbs. If it spreads to her head, it’s game over.
Along the journey, you can find runestones that will explain some ancient Viking mythology and help you understand Senua’s intents. You don’t need to track them down to beat the game, but it’s a welcome world-building tool for us modern-day folks who may not know anything about ancient Viking mythology, geography, and traditions.
This game is beautifully designed and gorgeous to look at. The way cinematic cutscenes blend right into gameplay is amazing! I highly recommend playing with surround sound headphones because the voices in Senua’s head whisper from all different angles and distances from her. It’s incredibly immersive and gives you a sense of what it’s like to deal with psychosis.
I debated whether I should include this in my Halloween gaming marathon because I wouldn’t necessarily consider it a horror game. But exploring the mental trauma of a young girl who lost her love and has to battle invisible demons while trying to come to terms with that loss… it’s a haunting tale. Definitely on par with some modern day horror plots.
There’s a sequel that just released this year called Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, which further explores Senua’s struggles as she attempts to save both herself and others. I own it, but it’s been so long since I played through Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice that I need to replay the original before I check out the sequel.
One of my favorite gaming experiences. For anyone reading this, it’s a must play. It’s not the greatest game of all time, but the audio experience combined with the heartrending story make an emotional package.
How is it played? 3rd person?
So the camera is third person, but you of course experience the game through the eyes of Senua! You feel her courage, her fear, and her strength and grit as she pushes forward to solve her problem (no spoilers here).
While you play as Senua, you also get to hear Senua’s voices. Lots of voices, and it is an eerie and tough experience to get through. They will uplift you, praise you, beat you down, scare you, make you feel rotten. And it’s absolutely best to play this game with headphones - trust me.
I can’t praise this game enough. For me, it was about an 8.5/10. I only had a few nitpicks with gameplay, but the story beats, heartrending story, wonderful voice and motion-capture acting, musical score, art direction, etc is such an experience.
Started Hellblade II during the weekend. Visually it’s the most impressive game I’ve played so far.
What I struggle with is keeping up with the story and all of the runestones and dialogue and everything. I enjoyed Hellblade I but had to go through the plot on Wikipedia after completing the game to understand what I had just played.
Great game.
Sounds like something I might need to experience some catharsis.
I almost always play games with subtitles on, but turning them off made this title even more immersive for me.
One is the best experience cinematographically and audibly.
I don’t understand the 11 downvotes… Thank you for sharing, I’ve wondered about this game for a long time.
Every post I make to this community always gets about 9 downvotes. I think a dedicated number of them are people who just don’t want to see this kind of content. Or maybe bots, considering how the number is almost the same every time I post.
But as long as the overall vote count stays in the positives, I’ll keep posting! I like discussing the various games I play and I figure this is a great way to open discussion in the community.
I wouldn’t worry too much about it, I’ve seen a similar up/downvote ratio in gaming posts for some reason, even for newly announced trailers. No idea why. Tends to improve over time, though, keep it up! Always enjoy seeing these posts.
