Hellblade 2 is launch game for the Xbox Series released 3 and a half years too late. It has the spirit of 2013's Ryse Son of Rome; a technological marvel brought down by a short for the asking price, 5 hour runtime, bad pacing and mediocre gameplay.

The shine of its amazing graphics wears off when you realize most of the time you are pressing up on the control stick and going through a corridor. Fortunately the brain dead puzzles and repetitive combat bring some sort of variety.

You might think the story would save this expensive to develop, gorgeous mess but that hope is squandered by the overtly annoying voices yapping nonstop, the predictable finale with a mustache twirling villain and a bipolar story pace that goes slow as molasses at the start and rushes through its final act. At least Senua's stellar performance makes up for the rest of the milquetoast cast and the graphics impress showing what the Unreal Engine 5 can do over its predecessor.

The creators should stick to developing live action as its obvious fun and game mechanics are not a priority. The long development cycle just gave us Hellblade 1 with a worse story and a gorgeous coat of paint. It will not age well.

Little Kitty, Big City. Hitting the gritty. Better than Stray by a bitty. Controls nifty, but sometimes mingy. "Worth $12.50", if I were grifty.

Nah, fuck that cringe shit. Look - the game is fine. Has some of the same misgivings as Stray such as the handholding and need for unfair amounts of precision on jumps, but unlike Stray, you can control your orientation and it's not as slow-going. The amount of customization (hats, some of which are functional) and the cheerful soundtrack both serve as highlights.

Atmospherically and visually impactful yet narratively messy with inconsistent themes and nearly no connection to the original game. The story could've been told as a new IP, it being Senua adds nothing of value. The voices which added depth to her character in the original act only as narrative yellow paint to explain every inch of a story that could've had more subtext if it wasn't completely subtracted by the voices overexplaining and negating any depth.

The gameplay is somehow even more shallow than the original which was at least paced better and had a story worth experiencing to back it up. Here the fights last so long it's comical for a system as shallow as it is and the puzzles are not puzzles in any sense of the word.

no good.

I'm going to be brief and resist saying things that are generally mean because as someone who's played games for over 25 years, I don't think this "game" is for me.

I'll start with one of the only positives in that Team Ninja, for a team their size, has achieved a very high level of both mo-cap and general graphical fidelity. However, the fact that they force you to experience this world through a letterbox smeared in vaseline is a crying shame to all the artists who worked on this game's visuals. Using the game's photo-mode to blow open your view of this game's landscapes is a truly baffling experience.

TN's use of binaural audio is also impressive. Having voices or footsteps surround you during certain parts of the game can be very immersive. However, having some of the dullest dialogue recited to you ad-nauseum is a complete waste of the technology. "ChatGPT, please write me 20 sentences about dark, light, blood, pain, shadows with 10 being self-affirmations and 10 being negative self-talk".

I'll leave it there. I think the less said about the combat the better. All the characters are mostly forgettable and the game does little to build on Senua's personality or goals from the first game beyond shedding feelings of guilt and doubt.

I applaud TN for sticking to a goal during development for so long, especially during a clearly tumultuous time for Microsoft 1st Party but I do wonder what made this story (or even franchise) need to be a video-game.

What a disappoinment. I liked the first game, it was a surprisingly good narrative experience, visually stunning for it's time, with some chunks of combat and simple puzzles, exploring the themes of love, loss, grief, peace, etc, on a short destination journey through the struggling mind of a mentally ill protagonist, delivered by a small team of 20 people. It was great for what it was - a short indie game.

The sequel, on the other hand.. Much bigger budget, much bigger team, 6 years of development, and... we get LESS of the same. Getting the obvious out of the way - the game does look amazing, but that's about it. I didn't want to play an Unreal Engine 5 tech-demo.

I don't have a problem with the game being a walking simulator, sometimes I'm in the mood for an "interactive movie-game", but GOD.. I do have a problem with the story. It's awful. Basically non-existent. I couldn't care less about it, about the characters, about the "emotions", which just felt forced.
The voices, that were a cool addition for some banter and a character growth in the first game, became a constant annoying chatter that doesn't say anything at all. They just cycle 2 types of sentences about "light" or "darkness", and it's getting old really quick.
The whole "schizophrenia" stuff of the first game that the devs were so proud to show and represent in the game, loses it's point once tons of characters appear and participate in the fantasy plot.

The game is 5-6 hours long, and you spend half of it slowly crawling in a dark CAVE holding "forward", I'm not kidding. But honestly, I wouldn't mind crawling even more, just give me an ENGAGING STORY, it's your ONLY job with a game like that. Did they really spend 5 years photoscanning Iceland to deliver a realistic environment, and the most realistic and detailed cave I've seen in a videogame..? I mean, cool, I guess.. was it worth it, though.

There is barely a game here. It's just a long tech demo. Every gaming trope that you can think of is here; The "puzzles" (for lack of a better word) are dumb and just there to pad the length of the game. Everything in this title is a slog. Everything takes a loooong time to do, and it feels like a complete disregard of player's time (even more so when the game is so short, that everything needs to be padded so it doesn't end in 2 hours). It also has a big identity crisis. Is not a walking simulator, as there isn't really anything to explore other than 4k textures; It's neither an action game, as combat is a glorified quick time event (you can finish every combat encounter the game just pressing A and X, not even need directions).

There is a complete lack of player agency here, so much that it really doesn't fit into the medium that they chose. Why make an interactive medium when interaction is left to the bare minimum? There really isn't much to "do", just walk forward, uninspired puzzly section, scripted combat sequence, repeat.

Story-wise it's all over the place. First Senua was focused and knew what it wanted to tell, but this one doesn't tell anything interesting that we didn't heard before, just lots of exposition and same old tiresome tropes.

This are just fireworks, something pretty to watch, but pretty boring and uninspired overall.

Stray if it was good. This is what happens when you actually stick to a vision instead of blowing your entire budget on Sonymaxxing.

It's a delightful mixture of Untitled Goose Game and Goat Simulator–with a little Breath of the Wild for good measure–wrapped into a delightfully dense, vertical, but manageable open world.

While the controls are a bit janky, it's hard to complain when the game purposefully lacks friction and instead gets by on the strengths of its exploration, tone, and quest design.

Super cute, sometimes funny, and usually pretty wholesome chungus. But this is definitely a game by people who actually understand cats. I remember soyfacing extremely hard when I came across a cucumber, and the cat jumped 16 feet into the air.

It's concise, confident, and a great way to spend an afternoon.

Finished this dlc for the second time today, and it's still peak.

Pretty sure I only had three deaths to bosses; one to Demon Prince and two to Midir. Actually did Lapp's quest for the first time, which was a fun look at a classic character and his armor was a nice reward. I summoned him for the Spear of the Church boss since it felt like his quest wouldn't be truly complete otherwise.

Slave Knight Gael was just as fun the second time, and effortlessly defended his spot at #2 on my "Best FromSoftware Bosses" list. I used the Great Corvian Scythe this time, which turned out to be a really fun choice. In the end I was out of Estus, one hit from death, and managed to close it out with some tightly timed attacks in between one of his combos.

Couldn't ask for a better conclusion to the series.

Having rolled credits, I still don't understand why this game exists. What was the intention behind this game? When you make a sequel to a video game how do you evolve from the original? What do you fix, what do you do differently, what do you add? Hellblade 2 does none of those things and instead doubles down on the design template of the original game - which was released 7 years ago. What we're left with is essentially the first game again yet somehow worse in some areas.

I understand the desire for something like Hellblade. Yes, the game is gorgeous. It's a visual showcase of Unreal Engine 5 tech, I liked looking at the shiny rocks and trees and volumetric fog tech. But underneath all that is a hollow and nauseatingly linear "game" that refuses to attempt anything new.

I think my biggest gripe with the game is the writing and narrative devices. The first game was novel and unique in how it presented itself, however in Hellblade 2, they use the same voices in your head and the same 3D audio trickery to the point where it feels gimmicky now. It also feels like they've upped the frequency at which the voices are talking, to the point where I was subconsciously ignoring them, even if they were expositing key narrative information.

I also feel like this doubling down on the original themes and usage of psychosis or schizophrenia comes off as hokey or juvenile, rather than whatever I assume the devs intended. I don't think that presenting Senua's mental illness as some sort of in-universe superpower that can help save the land and its people is a smart decision narratively, and I think can be rather insulting depending on how you view the game. With the first game, it was Senua coming to terms with herself, which is a much more honest and natural way to explore the themes they wanted to present. The insistence on this narrative device becomes the game's weakness. How do you write a sequel while still relying on these themes and growing the character past the first game? You don't. It's just not the right decision to make.

As a game, it's the same as the first just with more production value behind it. Nicer animations for the shallow combat. The puzzles are the same albeit easier than the first as they removed a lot of the originals jank and the voices in your head help you solve them. The music is fun, and the performances are great. Ultimately the writing is what falls flat for me and because the game relies on it so heavily it drags the whole experience down with it.

I think Ninja Theory is talented, there are moments in this game where I was seriously impressed by the animation work or some of the cinematic sequences. I just wish they would spread their wings a bit and deliver something more rather than limit themselves like this.

I pray they don't make a Hellblade 3. Please just make Enslaved 2 or something I don't know make a video game again for godsakes!

“This is a great cinematic experience but a bad video game”
What I mean by cinematic Experience is that this is hands down one of the most movie like and cinematic stuff in video game platform(which is also its fault more on that later).
The CINEMATOGRAPHY, DIRECTION, the PHOTOREALISTIC visuals, top of the line MOTION CAPTURE, SOUND DESIGN, minimalistic OST that just goes with vibes and the way NARRATIVE is presented is PHENOMENAL to say the least, and the ACTING on screen certainly one of the best, it can easily be translated to a film or a high budget mini-series, the way COMBAT ENCOUNTER and big SET PIECE moments played out are just CINEMATIC as hell.
But on the other side of things the basic LEVEL DESIGN, BAISC PUZZLES(not repetitive like 1st game thankfully), the COMBAT don’t have any kind depth at all encounters played out same get boring quickly, GAMEPLAY is just pushing the stick forward, STORY is not as personal to sauna as 1st game but its serviceable which all comes together by the end so it kinda deliver in that part, the only good thing is its phenomenal looking visuals which comes at high cost u need a monster of a pc to play it at reasonably good FPS.
As a cinematic experience its one of a kind and solid 8/10
But as a game its like barely a 5/10.
I recommend u watch 4k60fps version on Youtube, for folks expecting Ninja Theory to reinvent the action genre yea this ain’t it, its baffling that NT took 7 year with this game and they just manage to make it just 5-6hr long and in this state, they should’ve better take that time to make a small 6 episode tv show imo.