Senua's Saga: Hellblade II Review

ign.com:

Watching Senua emerge from a shipwreck onto the shoreline bruised, bloodied, and struggling to breathe immediately drags us back into the depths of desperation and despair of Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II’s psychosis-affected lead from the outset. What follows is a supremely taut, six-hour tour across the human realm of Midgard that’s conveyed through staggeringly vivid action sequences, stunning Nordic-inspired locations, and intense encounters with towering terrors intimidating enough to make a Viking mess their furs. Hellblade II serves up another satisfyingly brutal and consistently enthralling heroine’s journey, even if its streamlined swordfighting favours cinematic spectacle over substantial gameplay depth.

Although it’s been some seven years since Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, the events of Hellblade II take place shortly after the original’s vengeful highway to Helheim, with Hel’s belle now feeling empowered by her psychosis rather than encumbered with it. (Suffice it to say, if you’re jumping into Senua’s story here then the included story recap is mandatory viewing.) However, after the Icelandic slave ship she stows away on is wrecked during a severe storm, survivor’s guilt sees her prior struggles with self doubt reemerge to clash with her own stoic sense of justice, setting her down another gripping and tortured path towards battling both her own inner demons and the bloodthirsty monsters roaming Midgard as they take human and mythical forms.

Senua is joined along the way by a handful of human companions, including a shackled slave master who begrudgingly accompanies her on her path and a settler she saves from a sacrificial altar. None of these supporting characters are given enough screen time to really develop much of a personality beyond the surface, but I appreciated having them along for various parts of the quest since their incidental conversation felt like a far more organic method to process exposition than the superimposed live action vignettes of