Hellblade II: Senua’s Saga is coming out on 21st May

thesixthaxis.com:

Ninja Theory showcased Hellblade II: Senua’s Saga during the Xbox Developers_Direct stream, confirming that the game will release on 21st May 2024.

Hellblade 2: Senua’s Saga is coming to Xbox Series X and PC, and as with all Microsoft first party games, will be in Xbox Game Pass on day one.

Senua’s journey has taken her to Iceland for the sequel, and she has more horrors and demons to face. From gameplay reveals, we’ve seen fights against towering trolls, trekking through desolate and haunting landscapes, Vikings, and of course . The new trailer showed off some of the new allies that she makes in her hunt for the raiders that attacked her home in the original game, as well as new Droiga foes, and continuing to explore how best to represent her psychosis in video game form. Binaural audio is key for this, which is now applied to more than just the voices Senua hears.

The sequel has an evolved combat style, Ninja Theory said, aiming to tell a story through each combat encounter, and trying to get players to feel like they’re just scraping through a fight.

First announced alongside the Xbox Series X design reveal at The Game Awards in December 2019, we’ve only had occasional glimpses at how this game has been progressing in the four years since then, but each has looked quite exceptional. We’ve now had trailers in relatively quick succession, as Microsoft builds up to the game’s release this year.

What’s pretty clear is that Hellblade 2 is a much bigger game production than the original. For the first game, Ninja Theory leant in on an “independent AAA” development approach with a constrained budget, using Unreal Engine 4 alongside novel techniques for the time and distinctive game direction to achieve fantastic results. For Hellblade 2, Ninja Theory is pushing a new state of the art performance capture instead of the small scale set up they previously used, Senua actor Melina Juergens has been in combat training to make the combat animation look as realistic as possible,