After a 7-year wait, Hellblade 2, the sequel to Ninja Theory’s 2017 hit Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, will finally launch on May 21 this year. Unlike the first game, though, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 will only land on Xbox and PC, as Microsoft acquired Ninja Theory in 2018.
January’s Xbox Developer_Direct provided an in-depth look at the game, showing off its astounding photorealistic graphics, while subtly hinting at the story. It was also confirmed that the game will cost $49.99 and be roughly as long as its predecessor (7-8 hours). This may have disappointed some who wanted a longer experience, but the revamped combat system should make up for it.
Hellblade 1 Was Developed By Less Than 20 Devs
In a 2022 interview with VG247, Hellblade 2 combat designer Juan Fernández acknowledged the limitations behind the first game’s combat system:
We did many things well, but I think there are many things that could be improved that I would change today. You have to remember that the team that worked on Senua’s first adventure was incredibly small for a development of this kind, about 15 people in the studio most of the time.
This is an apt justification for the solid-but-barebones combat of the first game. However, the production quality was stellar considering the miniscule size of the development team. With the Xbox acquisition allowing for higher budgets and more developers, Fernandez reports major improvements for the sequel’s combat system.
Hellblade 2 Dials The Combat Experience To 11
To make Hellblade 2‘s combat better, the key issues in the first game’s combat system had to be identified. Fernandez explained:
What I was least satisfied with in Hellblade 1 was the lack of variety of enemies, long-term combat was suppressed […], the way the difficulty systems were tuned, the enemies had too much life, they had a lot of durability, we had a lot of variety of attacks and combos but really the enemies do not encourage you to use one or the other, people found two or three movements that they liked and repeated them constantly, there were very generous timings of parries and stories that can still be balanced more intelligently.
With enemy variety, overall difficulty, repetitive attack combos, and parry windows highlighted as the growth areas, the team set to work on Hellblade 2‘s combat. Fernandez affirmed that the game will benefit heavily from more developers and resources:
We are raising the bar of doing more with less. We are more people than with the first Hellblade but the quality that we are giving versus the team behind compared to similar ones, I think that it’s through the roof.
Creative director Tameem Antoniades has also commented on the combat system, claiming that it will be “real and brutal“, even mentioning that Senua’s actress has been training how to fight for two years to make her character’s moves look super realistic in the game.
Hellblade 2 VFX director Mark Slater-Tunstill also revealed in the January Developer_Direct that the combat system has been reworked to be more visceral, and to give the player the feeling of ‘having just scraped by’ after every encounter. All these upgrades prove Ninja Theory’s commitment to delivering a far better combat system for Hellblade 2, and we can’t wait for it.
