Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice |

Publisher: Microsoft Corporation

Developer: Ninja Theory

Release Date: 08/12/25

Available On

The coverage of mental health in games is growing both in respect of the disease process and the way it affects everyday lives. This would have been laughed at 20 years ago (and still kind of is in a small sect of a specific gaming crowd), but seeing it take an art form is very interesting here. Hellblade was well known for depicting different forms of psychosis in a character and projecting that onto a game. Schizophrenia, visual and auditory hallucinations, multiple personality disorder, and many others. Hellblade takes Norse mythology and grounds it with real-world mental health issues. Senua is the main protagonist you play as. Her trauma manifests into these hallucinations, turning what you are seeing into visual symbols of her past. As you play along and solve puzzles, you can also find hidden faces and totems to learn about the Norse mythology by a man named Druth.

Hellblade is mostly a walking simulator mixed with some simple combat and geometry illusion puzzles. This sequence is the main gameplay loop. Solve puzzles, do some combat, walk a bunch, and listen to dialog. It’s a fine loop that many games do right, and Hellblade is no exception, but it’s the pacing of this loop that wears thin really fast. The combat is the weakest aspect of the game despite looking cool. Senua isn’t a strong character, but she is fast. You can kick, run, and do heavy and light attacks. You can also block and parry. Sadly, these are attached to an almost quick-time event-feeling game with canned animations. This is a challenge of timing rather than pure skill. Enemies repeat often with just a few types. Heavy hitters with two-handed axes and spears, some with shields, and lighter enemies with a single sword or axe. They will spawn in on you until the fight is over. Sometimes this can be overbearing with 5-6 enemies on top of you. Thankfully, you have a focus mirror that stores energy with every successful parry and attack. This slows down time and allows you to whack away at enemies.

Sadly, the combat crescendos into much more whack-a-mole by the end. Some combat sequences throwing two dozen enemies at you. It gets tiring as there’s no change to it. No leveling up, no new moves learned, no nothing. It would have been nice to spread these out more, but with the short play time, it wears things pretty fast. The puzzles are the only things breaking up that monotony of combat. You will get blocked by a door and have to find symbols hidden in the environment. This requires you to see highlighted objects at a certain angle and line them up by climbing or moving around to a new area. These are mostly fun but rarely offer any type of challenge. Some players may actually get bored with how simple the game can be, especially on easier difficulties. There’s one caveat to the entire game, and that’s the fact that Senua has a darkness climbing up her arm. Every time you do, it gets closer to her face. If you die too many times, it’s game over, and you have to start the game over again. I don’t quite understand why this is here. The game is already easy enough, and the game’s not short enough for this to not be a problem. This is easily a 4-6 hour game. You have to repeat many scripted events and dialog, and anyone who does die will easily just throw the towel in and move on.

With that out of the way, the game’s main attraction is the story and the visual effects. This was one of the best-looking games of the previous generation, and with new graphical enhancements that have been added over time, such as ray tracing, it looks fantastic. The production values are very high here, and you can see some of Ninja Theory’s other projects influencing the game here. The animations are fantastic, and the voice acting is superb. Sadly, many gamers will mistake this game for a God of War-style game, not realizing it’s mostly an adventure game with light combat and easy puzzles. Thankfully, the environments are varied and change all the time, with some great-looking vistas and monuments. I had this game installed on my PC for years and never got around to actually getting very far into the game. You need to be in the right mindset to play this game. It’s very dark and heavy emotionally and can be a lot to take in but can be finished in a single sitting.

Hellblade’s new graphical features are worth the price of entry on PS5 Pro and PC alone. This game is very unique, and there’s nothing else quite like it. There may be other games that do what Helblade does better when it’s broken down to its core, but don’t let that steer you away from this game. Go in not expecting much outside of a good story and entertaining production values and you won’t be disappointed.