Hellblade took big swings for a AAA game, and there’s never been a better time to play it

polygon.com:

At The Game Awards 2019, Microsoft surprised everybody not only with the announcement of the Xbox Series X and S, but also with an in-engine tech demo that showed off the graphics that would be possible with the next generation of consoles. The goal was to show off the photorealism potential, and the game it chose was Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2. The trailer is terrifying and moody, with Senua belting out a Scandinavian folk tune and glaring intensely as flames and light surround her. If Microsoft wanted to make a memorable splash, it definitely succeeded.

Hellblade 2 was an interesting choice to announce the upcoming consoles. The first game, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, came out in 2017, and while it made a strong impact on release with both critics and players, it sort of faded from public consciousness after a while. Anecdotally, I know a lot of people who had heard of it but didn’t play it, for one reason or another. But since Senua’s Saga has been delayed multiple times, with a release expected in May this year, it’s a good time to hop in. The game is short — around six hours long — but it took a big risk by putting a story about mental illness at the center of a AAA-level action game. Plus, it’s only $3 on Steam until Jan. 25, so you almost have no excuse.

In Hellblade, you play as Senua, a Pictish warrior who has traveled to Helheim (Norse mythology’s underworld) to save the soul of her dead lover and best friend, Dillon. While she’ll come across many of the creatures and beings you’d expect in such a setting, two elements make the journey more dire. The first is a rot that starts on her hand and spreads across her body the more you die in the game, with a promise (and threat) to erase all of your progress if it reaches her head. It not only raises the pressure of completing an already challenging experience, but it also drills into your head just how dangerous Senua’s quest really is.

The second are the hallucinations. Sometimes they’ll show up in the form