Beautiful railroading.

Hellblade II reminds me of Evolve. It really shouldn't. The games are nothing alike. Nearly a decade remove from one another, they don't share any gameplay similarities. They aren't made to appeal to similar audiences. Their only visual similarity is... "dark." But the comparison between the two is far more pervasive than any of those traits though. Simply put, I heard about both games way too much before they finally came out.

Part of Hellblade's appeal was surprise. Not to belittle the accomplishments of that game, but the package was really complete because each moment was an unexpected treat--a testament to big things in small packages. It was a new IP doing unique and exciting things. Hellblade II is almost the opposite: a 6-hour movie stuffed with more of the same. Gorgeous simplicity polished to a safe, market-researched, and replicable sheen.

To be fair, there's a notable amount to love here that's done extremely well. Hellblade II features a full cast joining Senua brought to life by killer performances across the board. The audio design is second to none and the visuals throughout made me feel like I was less playing a video game and more watching some kind of 4K tech demo for high-end TVs. All good stuff. But man, that is not why I play video games. None of that will stick with me. The game is shockingly simple. Most of my playtime was spent slowly walking forward (there's a toggle sprint option in settings; retweet to save a life). There are a handful of combat instances that look insane but are extremely rudimentary. I figured out in the second combat sequence that there are very few reasons to ever use the heavy attack. Spam light attack, dodge/block, activate #SenuaMode, and move on.

I would be remiss to not mention the valid critique of both Hellblade titles falling prey to "magical disabled person" trope but man is it in full force in Hellblade II. Whereas the first title felt earnest if a bit flawed in it's attempt to emulate psychosis, Hellblade II swings wildly between Senua's struggle as either not affecting her at all and it making her the only one who can heal the world of its darkness. It's messy and ultimately pointless this time around.

Hellblade II was initially announced and marketed as a launch title for the Xbox Series consoles which came out about 3.5 years ago at the time of this writing. I know art is never as simple "more time = better thing" but as someone trying to figure out what good is coming of Microsoft gobbling up all these developers, I'm still left wondering. We're waiting longer for fewer, less interesting games.