Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is the first “AAA” indie from the makers of Heavenly Sword, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, and DmC: Devil May Cry.
It’s a beautiful game that explores Senua’s personal journey through a hellish underworld made up of her own psyche. Exploring mental illness through video games is something that’s been done before in games like Eternal Darkness – but it’s a greater focus here. Its developers have worked with neuroscientists and psychologists to put the spotlight on mental illness, without being disparaging.
But it’s tackling that focus in what could be a divisive way. As Senua progresses through her fractured psyche, death hangs over her. When she falls to it, a dark, oily corruption spreads up her arms. Once that corruption reaches her head, it’s game over – but not in the traditional, oh I’ll just load my savegame sense.
If you die too much in the game, your saved game is erased. Gone. Permanently. As a gimmick, it’s a neat one – and works as a signal of Senua just giving up fighting her inner demons. On the other hand, an early (now pulled!) review suggests that in later stages of the game, there are undefeatable enemies – which means that there’s a possibility that you could make your way to the close of the game, only to fall too often to impervious enemies and as a result have your progress wiped.
While this harkens back to the arcade gaming days of yore, as an increasingly old working bloke this sort of thing could actually dissuade me from playing. Ain’t nobody got time for dat. thankfully, the game does have a number of difficulty options, including one that scales to your performance.
Yes. We have a few difficulty modes: Default is an auto mode that scales difficulty to player performance. We also have easy, medium & hard. https://t.co/mAfeEgdnqe
— NinjaTheory (@NinjaTheory) August 2, 2017
Reviews have just started coming through for the game – and it seems to be faring well.
Last Updated: August 8, 2017
Kaz Miller
August 8, 2017 at 09:37
Didn’t even know this was released last night. Interesting vibes, I’m sold!
Kromas Ryder
August 8, 2017 at 09:52
Yeah … if that happens I will do the same thing I did to Skyrim after it corrupted my 60 hour save. Stop playing.
Magoo
August 8, 2017 at 09:58
Interesting.
Original Heretic
August 8, 2017 at 09:58
Sounds like a feature Dark Souls should have.
Umar
August 8, 2017 at 10:14
Interesting. I can see it pissing a lot of people off, then again, I think it’s a really cool way of connecting the player to Senua as now you both have a stake in this journey. I like it. I’m all for gimmicks and doing things differently, regardless if it pans out or not.
Alien Emperor Trevor
August 8, 2017 at 10:17
Not too fussed about this. Good reviews are all I was waiting for.
For the Emperor!
August 8, 2017 at 10:22
If they disable this on “easy” it is fine. Many games have “ironman” modes, like XCom, Stellaris and Hearts of Iron, where your decisions are final. Leave it to that mode and let us casual scrubs have easy mode 😛
HairyEwok
August 8, 2017 at 11:21
This games sound quality seriously gave me goosebumps, like when those voices whisper and it feels like their actually right there.
miaau
August 8, 2017 at 11:21
Ok, I must ask?
Is there an end to the game? How serious are they with whole inner demon thing? Do you “end” the game by finding an accommodation, a “live with it thing”, where you do permanently die, lose your save, but you are ok with it, the demon that could not be beaten down, has another solution?
Ok, yeah, I am way overthinking this.
Kikmi
August 10, 2017 at 10:22
Is it just me or does this kinda have a Soul Reaver feel to it?