Back at The Game Awards in December, Ninja Theory and Microsoft decided to show the reveal trailer for Hellblade 2: Senua’s Saga, a direct sequel to 2017’s Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, which ended up being very well-received, with its only criticism being that it relied too much on environmental puzzles, and didn’t have nearly enough combat opportunities. However, the scarce bit of combat this is there was very good, and the game’s visuals were on-par with any of the best AAA games.
Even though the reveal trailer didn’t show any gameplay, the game itself looks spectacular, and now that it has support from Xbox Game Studios, the sequel should be superior to the first game in almost every way.
During Ninja Theory’s latest dev diary, its co-founder, Tameem Antoniades, talks about how the first game was a difficult project, and while visualizing its sequel, he decided that Iceland was the perfect location for Hellblade 2: Senua’s Saga.
“So the goal from here now is to capture that sense of awe and epic of Senua’s journey as she travels hundreds of miles seamlessly across Iceland and reproduce it, recreate it,” said Ninja Theory’s co-founder. “A ninth-century version of Iceland that is as real and immersive as possible and this is the approach we’re taking with everything in Hellblade, everything should be based on something real, whether it’s a sound, the trickle of a stream, the sounds of the forest, the lighting, the clouds, the landscape satellite data, all of these things we’re developing.”
You can check out Ninja Theory’s latest dev diary covering Hellblade 2’s setting below.
While the first game was available on all platforms — PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC — Hellblade 2: Senua’s Saga is an Xbox Series X exclusive, as Ninja Theory was recently acquired by Microsoft’s Xbox Game Studios. Of course, the game will be available on PC too, but if you’re a PlayStation fan, you won’t be able to play the sequel unless you’re also willing to purchase Microsoft’s next-gen console or be willing to make the shift over to PC.
Given that Ninja Theory is now working directly with Xbox’s Game Studios, the budget for Hellblade 2 will be much larger than it was for the first game, which likely means that the sequel will be a much larger game that features more combat opportunities and less environmental puzzles.
As of this writing, the release date for Hellblade 2: Senua’s Saga hasn’t been revealed, but it could very well be a launch title for the Xbox Series X.