‘Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice’ Review: A Story So Good You’ll Forgive the Less-Than-Stellar Gameplay
All it took was one scathing, short-lived review and a strange promise made by the developer to derail the release of Ninja Theory’s Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. A game-breaking bug and a permadeath feature sound like the makings of a terrible experience, but don’t let them sway you — one is either incredibly rare or attributed to a missed puzzle and the other is shaping up to be one big bluff.
So, if there’s no permadeath and the game is in working order, what are we left with?
A graphically gorgeous, narrative-driven combat puzzler that effectively tackles mental illness via Celtic and Norse mythology? Or a third-person adventure that stumbles with its core gameplay mechanic while delivering a top-notch tale of personal discovery through a psychologically broken protagonist?
Right off the bat, the developers shine the light on the representation of psychosis, providing a forewarning and online resource as if I were watching an episode of Teen Mom. Little did I realize that Hellblade would pull no punches with disturbing imagery and audio to illustrate the fractured mind of Senua and paint a clear picture of the diseased psyche.
Every design aspect of Hellblade was clearly handled with care, but the team in charge of sound design deserves the highest praise. Visually, the game is impressive, but its audio cues, ambient noise, and eerie, whispered voiceovers are maybe the best I’ve ever heard in any game to date. The lack of booming background music lets these aspects shine in their perfection and make up for much of the game’s other aspects, including its run-of-the-mill combat.
There isn’t much to say about Hellblade’s weakest element, save that it can grow tiresome, but not enough to pull you out of the narrative. Brief and predictable fights against a very small variety of enemies are broken up by the occasional boss fight, though the best part of those tended to be the boss design.
It’s as if Ninja Theory had this incredible narrative they needed to tell, but also wanted to make sure they developed a game and not a psychosis simulator with puzzles.
Like the combat, Hellblade’s main puzzle—which involves uncovering hidden runes through Senua’s unique perception—threatened repetition. But the overused mechanic was redeemed through unique segments. Having to navigate different paths without the benefit of sight again lets the game’s audio shine and helps rectify an overuse of one-dimensional mechanics.
I can’t close this review out without addressing the elephant in the room — the aforementioned permadeath system. As you saw above, the game delivers a threat that sounds like Senua can die only so many times before the game forces you to start from the beginning.
It’s not the most difficult game, so it did take a lot of intentional deaths to determine that there doesn’t seem to be any such system in place. It’s possible that Ninja Theory wanted to break the player’s will right off the bat, and what better way to do that than threaten a deleted save file and hours completely lost?
For years I’ve argued that a game can thrive through subpar gameplay if the story is good enough. And Hellblade’s haunting narrative and unimpressive combat is a clear example of plot driving a game’s success.
Mark LoProto is a horror-loving gaming enthusiast who also has a soft spot for Ghostbusters, bubble wrap, and kittens. Look for his work here, here, and here.
