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Thomas Gallagher

Mrs. Misch

ENGL 1301

9/19/17

The Quality and Themes of Hellblade: Senuas Sacrifice

The brain is a very complex thing. It is the single most complicated and important organ

necessary to our survival, and much like any part of the body, can suffer from damage and

illnesses. The far from simple nature of the brain carries over to its diseases, and that fact both

restricts our understanding of such things, and likewise reduces the accurate coverage in modern

media. Its been done over and over, characters being entirely random, evil, and one

dimensional, and the creators justify such lazy writing on the fictional persons insanity.

However, there are a few creators that dig a little deeper and put some proper work in

understanding and accurately depicting these sorts of people. One such piece of media is the

video game, Hellblade: Senuas Sacrifice. The people that made this game put a massive amount

of work into their creation, and that effort has resulted in a piece of media that explores mental

illness, perception, and letting go, and it does it extremely well. Hellblade: Senuas Sacrifice is a

stunning audio and video experience that works hard to tell a story about a realistic and

believable mentally ill person and her journey through a surreal fantasy world.
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To clarify, Hellblade: Senuas Sacrifice is a third person action adventure game

developed by Ninja Theory, known for making other, less noteworthy games. The game follows

a Celtic warrior known as Senua and her adventure through a personal and psychedelic journey

through the underworld to bring back her dead fianc. From a gameplay standpoint, the game

functions very well. The combat is simple at a first glance, and while the hack and slash style of

fighting does help cater to those that dont want to spend hours learning everything, there are

more complicated maneuvers for those that do master the system. During your first fight, its not

initially clear what Senua is capable of, although the pause menu does display the controls to

keep the player from being completely lost, which is a relief. As you continue to fight, however,

you become more and more capable of fighting, despite the character not really growing in

strength as the story progresses. A small touch I really appreciated is how you lose a lot of your

speed and combos in a fight if youre close to death. For example, in my playthrough of the

game, I got ambushed by a giant with an equally massive axe, and brought me down to very low

health. While there wasnt any health bar, the red tint to my screen gave me a big enough hint,

and for the rest of the fight, I was sluggish, and incapable of properly using combos or

counterattacking after a successful parry. In many other games, characters can be a hair away

from death and can still function perfectly fine, and while I see the reasoning behind it, Im glad

Ninja Theory took a risk to help embolden the experience.

While the gameplay is solid, the main focus of the adventure is the main character:

Senua. While at a first glance, Senua can be compared to other female protagonists, a massive

part of what sets her apart is whats in her mind. While it is not directly stated in game, it is

heavily implied that Senua suffers from psychosis and schizophrenia, and as such, a large portion

of the game is spent hearing the voices in her head. The developers spent a long portion
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consulting medical professionals and mentally ill people to properly convey such an affliction,

reaching out to Professor Paul Fletcher, a psychiatrist and professor of health neuroscience at

Cambridge University (1), as well as using full 3D binaural microphones to truly encapsulate

the feeling of hearing voices in your head, and they did a wonderful job. And the voices arent

just a cheap little thing to creep players out, theyre almost necessary to complete the game, and

because of that I would strongly recommend playing the game with high quality headphones, and

while those can be found for a reasonable price, thats still a setback. For example, in fights,

there is no prompt to show that an out of sight enemy is about to attack. Instead, you hear a voice

warning you of the danger. These voices are a big part of the game, and Senuas character, but

they dont define her. Senuas not this crazy, one dimensional character that never grows. She

has moments of anger, sadness, joy, triumph, and we really get to see her as a character that

grows and changes as the story progresses, not some sort of cheesy villain or bland maniac. In

addition to this, a big part of what breathes life into Senua is the actor behind her. Melina

Juergens isnt even a professional actor, just a video editor, and yet, she was able to give off so

much raw emotion on her first try. In the developer diaries, she explains how she used her fear

and inexperience to help make Senua feel genuine, stating I never realized that acting was my

worst nightmare, and I always avoided it. (2). A feat like that is simply amazing, and Ninja

Theory did an incredible job crafting one of the most realistic video game characters of all time.

Another large portion of the game is the world you explore. This is without a doubt the

best-looking game Ive ever seen, and the fact that a team of around twenty people made this

game is baffling. During the beginning of the game, youre forced to run through a burning

village, where if you take too long escaping, you will die. Soon after, you break through a door

and are suddenly yelled at by an FMV, also known as Full Motion Video, which, to put it short,
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is a live action recording of someone utilized in a game. This transition from gameplay to

cutscene is seamless, which is rather impressive, given how other games generally require some

sort of loading times, especially for visuals such as this. I can personally say that I never noticed

any sort of loading times or abrupt breaks in the action. While the game is almost entirely linear,

the developers did a wonderful job crafting a gorgeous world that you could spend hours just

staring at.

While I could go on for hours praising the game, I can also say that this game is not for

everyone, and has a slight issue here and there. As I said earlier, the voices in Senuas head are

essential to the experience, and the game implores you to use headphones, and with the whole

schizophrenic character in general, I would not play this game if you suffer from such illnesses.

In addition to this, there is a controversy regarding a permanent death mechanic in the game.

Early on, you are afflicted with this rot in your right hand, and the game tells you that if the rot

reaches Senuas head, your journey ends. While this is most certainly a turn off for many people,

for spoilers sake, all I can say is that I still implore you to just play the game even if youre

scared of perma-death. Furthermore, people have reported a few game breaking glitches.

Regardless, these issues are rare and Ninja Theory have been hard at work to eliminate these

problems, given how theyve already released a few patches eliminating most of these glitches,

and while I dont like seeing games released with bugs and glitches, Ive seen much worse and I

can commend them for working hard to make their game bug free.

In short, Hellblade: Senuas Sacrifice is an amazing game with solid gameplay, a realistic

and likable protagonist, and a stunning world. Ninja Theory took risks with this concept and

execution, and while it doesnt cater to everyone, if you see video games as a form of interactive

storytelling, I cannot recommend this game enough.


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Works Cited

1. Juergens, Melina. Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice - Senua's Psychosis Feature [Short

Commentary]. Youtube, 8/8/2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jF3rr6t2Hg. 29/9/2017

2. Juergens, Melina. Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice | Dev Diary 25 | Becoming Senua. Youtube,

24/12/2016,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFhzVtHwJjA&index=25&list=PLbpkF8TRYizaT6GfMcK

BG-RoUOQ6BJRXp. 29/9/2017.

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