Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 celebrated its 7^th anniversary back in October 2023 with a big update featuring new modes and in-game events. Keeping to the development team’s determination and wish to keep Xenoverse 2’s content fresh and new for the players, Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 takes a step towards the future by introducing an entirely new four-part saga for both Xenoverse 2 and Dragon Ball fans to enjoy with Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 – Future Saga Chapter 1 coming on May 24, 2024, alongside the release of the Xbox Series X|S version of the game — fans who own the game digitally on Xbox One can enjoy a free upgrade thanks to Smart Delivery tech.

Producer Jun Song joined us recently to share new details on what players can look forward to when Future Saga arrives in Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 later this week.

Bandai Namco Entertainment America: When did you start planning new chapter Future Saga?

Producer Jun Song: It was considered in conjunction with the plan for the major update that was implemented last October. To ensure that Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 will continue to be enjoyed for a long time, we added new content and made various modifications in the October major update so that all users can enjoy it equally.

For similar reasons, we thought it was necessary to provide a fresh and exciting story for users equally by entering a new Saga. The message “Take a Step Towards the Future” expresses the meaning that with the October update and the upcoming new saga — Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 will break from the past and move on to the next “future.”

Bandai: What is the concept of the “Future Saga”?

Song: There are two major points: To settle the battle against “Fu” and to depict the struggle for the “future” of the world. This concept is also expressed in the name of DLC.

Until now, Fu has often conducted experiments out of curiosity, causing trouble for the protagonists and other Time Patrollers. However, since Fu himself was not doing it out of malice, the protagonists ended up getting flabbergasted every time.

In Future Saga, however, Fu acts with a clear purpose. And as a result, the battle will develop into a battle for the “future” of not only the “Time Rift” but also that of the protagonists and the entire world.

Note for Readers: The Time Rift is a crack in history that has been created by repeated altered history. The inside is an alien space, but the events that take place there, for better or worse, do not affect the “history” of the world itself.

The Future Saga will be comprised of 4 chapters, each of them has its own story but would be most enjoyable to know the story of Fu if you play all the chapters.

What will happen to you and Fu as you throw yourself into the battle for the future? We hope you check out Chapter 1 of the “Fu”ture Saga to find out!

Bandai: Who is “Fu” anyway?

Song: Fu made its first appearance in the extra mission of the paid DLC Extra DLC Pack 2. He’s an experimental mutant created by Dabura, who utilized the cells of his sister Demon Queen, Towa, and Demon King, Mira, to revive the Demon Realm.

However, Fu only has interest in experimentation and research, and not in the revival of the Demon Realm. Due to this, he rebelled against Dabura, and since then, he has repeatedly conducted experiments (incidents) and research on “energy produced by altered history.” The protagonists have found themselves caught in the trenches in the process.

Bandai: What is the new form of “Ultra Supervillain” that has been newly introduced?

Song: Throughout the Xenoverse series, the “Villainous Mode” and “Supervillain” sorceries have been a source of trouble for the protagonists and Time Patrollers, but in Future Saga, the “Ultra Supervillain” sorceries are introduced.

While it can provide tremendous energy, it is also very dangerous because its impact on history is so great, but it seems that Fu intends to harness this power. This “Ultra Supervillain” will be an important key throughout the Saga, so we hope you will pay attention to it.

Also, the relationship between Fu and the protagonists is also of great interest. Fu and the protagonists have formed a strange friendship through past incidents, and this Saga will focus on the relationship between the two.

Bandai: Any additional comments you’d like to share?

Song: Future Saga will tell a story that Dragon Ball fans will be excited about, but the DLC is also designed to be enjoyable for those who have stopped playing after clearing the game.

We are also preparing a lot of additional content for the free update that will be delivered at the same time, so we hope that you will take this opportunity to play Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2.

The concept of the Xenoverse series, “enter the Dragon Ball world yourself,” is an important pillar of the Dragon Ball game franchise, so we will continue to work hard on with proper plans for future development.

Xenoverse will continue to run and there’s more to come!

Take a step into the future of Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 with Chapter 1 of the Future Saga on May 24, 2024, on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S! Stay tuned for more updates from the Xenoverse 2 team with a 2nd Festival of Universes coming soon and the three additional Chapters of Future Saga coming next.

We hope to see you in Conton City!

DRAGON BALL XENOVERSE 2

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YOUR STORY, YOUR AVATAR, YOUR DRAGON BALL WORLD

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 is the ultimate Dragon Ball gaming experience, packed with thrilling action, epic battles, and endless customization options. Create your own character, explore Conton City and team up with iconic characters from the series as a teacher to train and be ready to battle against formidable enemies to rescue the flow of History!

As you progress through the game, you can customize your character’s appearance, abilities, and moveset, allowing you to create a truly unique and powerful fighter.

The fun doesn’t stop there! Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 also features online multiplayer modes, where you can battle against other players from around the world in epic showdowns or participate in Raid Battles to face gigantic foes with other players.

With 7 years worth of DLC packs, there’s always something new to discover and experience in Conton City!

THE FIGHTER YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO BE.
With a vast array of customization options, you can create a character that truly fits your style and personality. From race and appearance to abilities and moveset, you have complete control over your fighter.

AN INFINITE ONLINE EXPERIENCE.
With several online multiplayer modes and in-game events, battles never stop! Face against other players from around the world in epic showdowns or team up with them against gigantic threats in Raid Battles.

LET YOUR FIGHTING SPIRIT BURN!
Dive into the intense and action-packed battles typical of Dragon Ball. Whether it’s during one-on-one fights or massive battles against multiple enemies, let yourself go in the thrill of the fight!

THE WHOLE DRAGON BALL UNIVERSE AWAITS.
Jump into different locations and timelines of Dragon Ball! Battle in iconic locations from the Dragon Ball universe and interact with famous characters to protect history.

EVERYTHING DRAGON BALL, ALL HERE.
Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 is packed with fan service, featuring all iconic characters, locations, and moments from the series that fans will love to see and experience in-game.

7 YEARS OF EXPANSIONS!
Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 is bigger than ever! After 7 years of regular releases of new DLC content, discover more than 40 new characters, storylines, and much more from Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball Super and even Dragon Ball movies. Stay tuned and enjoy the free updates as well!

2017’s Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice was an exceedingly special game. A bold, brash direction for Ninja Theory, the decision to craft a short, narrative experience revolving around mental health was a brave leap, but one that ultimately paid off. Now, seven years later, the studio is gearing up to reveal a sequel to Senua’s story, built with the same love and care, but expanding on the debut in every conceivable way. 

In the run up to launch, we’ll be bringing you the story of Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II from inside the studio itself, as well as stories and lessons from Hellblade’s creative leads. This is Ninja Theory’s ultimate form, filled with industry-leading talent, groundbreaking technology, and one of the most unique approaches to game development you’ve ever seen to fulfil the ultimate goal – the pursuit of true immersion. 

When it comes to the environments showcased in Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, breathtaking doesn’t quite cover it. Despite its linear story, the game showcases a sense of scale that adventures like this don’t often offer, and everything you see is rooted in a familiar realism. Where most games of this kind would confine you to corridors, valleys, and other means of obscuring your view, Hellblade II’s vistas often stretch to the horizon, giving you a sense of the sheer size of Senua’s journey ahead. The idea is clear – this is literal worldbuilding, rooting your journey in a much, much, bigger story.

During our visit to Ninja Theory, we had the opportunity to speak to key creative leads about how the studio achieved this sense of place through location scouting and research, to bring an ethereal, yet believable recreation of medieval Iceland into Hellblade II. 

Choosing Iceland

While the first game culminates in Helheim, Hellblade II takes us to Midgard, known in Norse Mythology as the realm of men. The team moved through a process of elimination between several locations before settling on Iceland, which brings unique and encapsulating landscapes – somehow familiar and otherworldly all at once.

One chapter in Hellblade II takes us on a scenic route across the brisk and beautiful beaches of Reykjanestá, situated on the southwest coast of Iceland. This area is characterized by sprawling cliffs and rocky beaches, as well as an abundance of submarine volcanoes. It is, to all intents and purposes, a desolate wasteland, but an utterly phenomenal scene to witness as Senua. Another captures a fictionalized settlement located in Freyslaug, surrounded by rolling verdant hills and inspired by the real, picturesque hot-spring laden scenes of Fosslaug in Northern Iceland. 

“The geography in Iceland is better than what we could have imagined,” says Dom Matthews, Ninja Theory Studio Head. “It’s grounded in nature, but it almost feels alien. But because it’s real, as humans it feels right to us – like a real place, even if you’ve never been there.” 

“The geography in Iceland is better than what we could have imagined, it’s grounded in nature, but it almost feels alien.”

Dom Matthews

The team crafting Hellblade II‘s environments share an ethos – to stay grounded in this element of naturalness by scanning existing, physical objects into the game. According to Dan Attwell, Environmental Art Director on Hellblade 2, there are over 370 pieces of photogrammetry in the sequel, compared to just one in the first Hellblade.

As I travel around the studio itself, I see chunks of real Icelandic rock scattered around, still being used as reference. It’s a hefty amount of work to get out there and collect the materials, but it’s worth it in the end, as it means less resources are spent on hand-crafting assets to feel realistic – and, as Attwell comments:  “You get a level of realism that you can’t get by doing it by hand.” 

Mark Slater-Turnstill, VFX Director on Hellblade II, also speaks to another dimension of worldbuilding. He adds that nature is chaotic and unpredictable by design, and that is often hard to replicate organically. Sometimes a rock or a tree might come out a little too perfect if a human is being asked to conjure it up:

“As humans, when you think about an object, you’ve got a vision in your mind that might actually be quite different to the reality,” he adds.

Not Quite As It Appears

Speaking of bending reality, Senua’s experience with psychosis means that the spaces around you are not always as they appear to be. The environmental and visual effects are, for the most part, grounded in reality, but Ninja Theory has the ability to veer into the magical with what Senua will experience as a result of her condition. The visions she experiences will manipulate her surroundings, tying into other gameplay mechanics in a consistently clever way. 

“There’s a distinction between realism and believability – you can have fantastical elements that are also entirely believable,” Matthews says. “You’re in Senua’s shoes, trying to understand the world through her eyes, but the really powerful thing is that this isn’t beyond the realms of possibility for people that have experienced psychosis.” 

It’s a delicate balance to strike though; Senua’s perspective must be authentic and real to her, but disarming to the player. Slater-Turnstill demonstrates this to me in action at his workstation, leading Senua towards an unassuming rock, which then morphs effortlessly into a stony, human head, before seamlessly opening a new path that was never there before. He must have seen this particular transition dozens of times, but he still smiles at the extremely impressive reveal as it happens.  

“We’ve considered what we can use from the existing environment to create an authentic experience of lived psychosis. A lot of it is taking recognizable objects and displaying them in an unnatural way,” Slater-Turnstill explains. “It could be seen as ‘unrealistic’, but it’s not, because in her world, that’s what she’s seeing.”

These blips in reality are of course, a way to display the world through Senua’s lens, but they’re also extremely helpful guidance from a gameplay perspective. In Hellblade II, there’s no map or interface guiding the way, and Attwell chuckles as he adds that they’ve made life quite hard for themselves by not having an in-game HUD. 

It means all of the clues on how to proceed have to be shown with audio or visual cues, and this is done so incredibly intuitively; it’s rarely unclear where you need to go, and the narrative paths through these landscapes are crafted so well that it’s impossible to predict what you’re coming up against. There’s no walking into a big clearing that indicates you’re about to get into a brawl loading screen transitions – this is one smooth, seamless adventure where transitions between locations, be it the grounded external world or Senua’s supernatural inner mindscapes – are entirely intentional.

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II is a masterclass in environmental design; it’s clear that the team has absorbed the very essence of the landscape its building, but cleverly infused with the perfect amount of mythological magic to make for a truly mesmerizing adventure, and a photo mode enthusiast’s dream. 

If you want to dive further into the design of Hellblade II, check out our feature on the evolution of Senua’s character, as she prepares for the next step of her journey.

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II will be released on May 21, 2024 for Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, Steam and Cloud – and will be available with Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass day one.

2017’s Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice was an exceedingly special game. A bold, brash direction for Ninja Theory, the decision to craft a short, narrative experience revolving around mental health was a brave leap, but one that ultimately paid off. Now, seven years later, the studio is gearing up to reveal a sequel to Senua’s story, built with the same love and care, but expanding on the debut in every conceivable way. 

In the run up to launch, we’ll be bringing you the story of Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II from inside the studio itself, as well as stories and lessons from Hellblade’s creative leads. This is Ninja Theory’s ultimate form, filled with industry-leading talent, groundbreaking technology, and one of the most unique approaches to game development you’ve ever seen to fulfil the ultimate goal – the pursuit of true immersion. 

If you’ve played Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, you will be more than familiar with its incredible audio design; most notably the memorable, incessant dialogue that goes on inside Senua’s mind throughout the course of the game – and, by association, the unique way it enters your head, too. In Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, Ninja Theory is going all out on implementing audio to establish its sense of place – here the first game used audio techniques simply for Senua’s internal dialogue, the sequel makes sound trickery an integral part of the game.

Xbox Wire had the honor of sitting down with Hellblade audio director David Garcia Diaz in his studio, to find out how the team did it, why it’s needed, and uncover more about the utterly mesmerizing process of building binaural audio into the very fabric of Senua’s journey. 

For the uninitiated, binaural audio is a method of recording sound using two microphones, designed to create a 3D soundscape as you would hear it with your own ears. It’s not a new process – but its implementation across the Hellblade series is both unique and integral to its design. This is the most authentic recreation of psychosis you can experience, and Garcia Diaz has landed here through almost a decade of research, patience and skill. 

A Leap In Technology

Garcia Diaz separates Hellblade’s main pillars of evolution down into two parts – technological and psychological. The technological improvements stem from a sizeable upgrade in the resources and equipment used to capture its soundscape; Garcia Diaz’s office showcases a smorgasbord of impressive tools that left my inner synth enthusiast in awe. 

There’s also now a team of seven working on Hellblade II‘s audio design, whereas Garcia Diaz worked alone on Senua’s Sacrifice. He admits: “The first game was a massive project with so many details, and I couldn’t do everything. There’s a lot of places where you can’t hear foley or footsteps, I just focused on what felt the most important.”

As I move through Hellblade II‘s incredible environments, I can truly feel and hear the premium approach to even the smallest sounds. During one scene, I lead Senua through an abandoned village, and we can hear the remnants of its fate, echoing from the past. I hear an anguished mother crying intertwined with the harsh buzz of flies orbiting a nearby carcass, so intense and erratic I nearly swat myself a few times. On the calmer, open coasts, I hear the distant crashing of waves and ambient winds landing secondary to the crunch of Senua’s feet padding cautiously over loose stones. 

Crucially, with headphones on, I can hear where all of this is. This isn’t a wash of sound effects, they’re placed precisely where they should be. Garcia Diaz and his team have been able to consider acoustics more fully, and how sound moves and reverberates in Hellblade II as it does in the real world, to create that deeper sense of immersion. 

“The acoustics play an incredibly important role,” Garcia Diaz adds. “For example, if you shout and there’s a rock, the sound is going to bounce off that. If a priest is chanting in a cave, you want to hear the sound travelling towards you, or the opposite if something is moving away. All of the sounds work together to create atmosphere and tension, and with this technology, we can achieve that.”

Senua’s Growth

The other main aspect Garcia Diaz addresses is the psychological evolution of Senua herself, and how that has shaped what she will hear in the world, and in her head. She’s stronger and more in tune with her psychosis – not cured, but armed with a greater understanding of what to expect, which in turn leads to a wider range of conversational exchanges between the voices. 

Senua’s condition is once again represented in part by the Furies – the voices that she will hear throughout the game. In Hellblade II, the voices can still feel every bit as overwhelming, but there is a fluidity to them that can make them almost a comfort as you follow Senua. 

“Hellblade 1 had very dark ‘colors’ – now we have other colors”, Garcia Diaz explains. “Senua has the ability to feel [the Furies] in a different way, they now have deeper, meaningful conversations which didn’t happen in the first game, which I think is very beautiful.” 

This is represented in action as I watch Senua engage in a conversation with several new characters across her journey. The Furies are in conflict each time, debating Senua’s reactions, running through potential responses and justifications with a mind-bending pace. But Senua is no longer a prisoner to this cacophony, she can see past the influence of the voices and decide for herself how to proceed in that moment. Does this person need my help? Will they hurt me? Senua can find her own answers through the noise just as the player does, and we can feel her emotions and considerations reflected in the style, tenacity and placement of the sound, similar to a score for a movie.

“We are representing abstract concepts with sound,” Garcia Diaz adds. “What does guilt sound like, and what is our vision of guilt for Senua? How do we interpret sadness, or euphoria, or rage?”

“We are not just recreating a sound, we are creating a character’s reality, and this is our way of interpretating these emotions [for Senua] with sound and music and voices, all tied together to create one moment.”

“We are not just recreating a sound, we are creating a character’s reality, and this is our way of interpretating these emotions.”

David Garcia Diaz

Three’s A Crowd

While Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is an insular journey that follows Senua alone with the accompaniment of the Furies representing how her psychosis manifests, Hellblade II will see Senua encounters new characters in the world for the first time. She’ll engage in dialogue with these strangers, and face the trials of navigating relationships while handling the overwhelming, unrelenting narration of her condition. 

In one Hellblade II scene, Senua meets a stranger that is being held captive by Viking slavers. In this moment, she’s conversing with him directly, but the voices are at odds with what both parties are saying out loud. 

“You have to consider – what happens if there is a conversation between three people? What does that sound like to everyone involved?” Garcia Diaz adds.

While I’m at the studio I’m shown a snippet of the Furies in action. Performers Abbi Greenland and Helen Goalan take part in an unscripted performance depicting Senua moving through a cave. Through headphones, I hear a haunting narration of the surroundings, their thoughts seamlessly falling into a flow state. But what I see is the two actors circling both sides of the head-shaped Neumann microphone sitting between them like vultures picking at a carcass – allowing their voices to feel as though they’re moving through your head, as they would do for Senua Even in this brightly-lit room, I’m on edge after 30 seconds of this experience, the unpredictable hisses and snarky giggles picking at my brain. Garcia Diaz likens the experience to jazz – it’s atmospheric, moving and some of its best parts are created out of improvisation, not a pre-agreed script.

“In music you have crescendos, diminuendos, fortissimos, pianissimos – I want to do the same with the voices,” Garcia Diaz says. “Sometimes they grow, sometimes they’re quiet so you don’t feel constantly tired or overwhelmed. 

“There are enough dynamics that we’re able to have them present almost all of the time – sometimes we’ll cross a boundary, but I think this is important, because the voices are something that Senua cannot switch off.”

The importance of the audio is something that cannot be overstated in both Hellblade games – it’s what makes Senua’s journey so unique and emotional to experience. Garcia Diaz knows this, but he also recognizes that his role as audio director is just one cog in Ninja Theory’s wider pursuit for immersion. 

“Everything needs to go together, and I’m excited for people to see it all,” he says. “For people to discover this new Senua, and to get immersed in her world again. That’s what we’re striving for – a unique experience, and an immense journey.” 

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II will be released on May 21, 2024 for Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, Steam and Cloud – and will be available with Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass day one.

2017’s Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice was an exceedingly special game. A bold, brash direction for Ninja Theory, the decision to craft a short, narrative experience revolving around mental health was a brave leap, but one that ultimately paid off. Now, seven years later, the studio is gearing up to reveal a sequel to Senua’s story, built with the same love and care, but expanding on the debut in every conceivable way. 

In the run up to launch, we’ll be bringing you the story of Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II from inside the studio itself, as well as stories and lessons from Hellblade’s creative leads. This is Ninja Theory’s ultimate form, filled with industry-leading talent, groundbreaking technology, and one of the most unique approaches to game development you’ve ever seen to fulfil the ultimate goal – the pursuit of true immersion.

Motion capture has been part of Ninja Theory’s heritage for a long time, and for good reason. The studio established itself as a pioneer in performance capture for games with 2007’s Heavenly Sword and has continued to innovate since. Now, with greater access to state-of-the-art technology – including its very own performance capture studio nestled within the walls of its Cambridge HQ – Ninja Theory is once again primed to break its own barriers within Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II. 

Ninja Theory utilised performance capture in the first Hellblade for its cinematic moments, but in Hellblade II, almost every in-game movement is performed by real-world actors and scanned in, to ensure the most realistic, human experience possible in-game. According to Studio Head Dom Matthews, capture for the combat sequences alone took almost 70 full days to complete.

“We see performance capture as a tool to deliver character performance in the purest way possible,” Matthews says. “We took that opportunity because it ties into our goal of doing everything we can to achieve immersion and keep it.”

You’ll never feel that more than in Hellblade II’s unique approach to combat – which stands simultaneously as a testament to Ninja Theory’s deep belief in their way of doing things, but also as a brand-new experiment for the restlessly creative studio.

Combat, Evolved

Combat in Hellblade II is a vast improvement on the first title, but, fascinatingly, this is not a traditional action game in practice. You won’t be bashing and slashing through endless hordes in Hellblade II – every fight you’ll enter as Senua is calculated and intentional, every swing, punch and grapple is crafted to align you with her struggle, and her growth as she overcomes these hurdles. Every foe feels like the one that might finally finish you and Senua off, and walking away intact feels like a triumph every time.

“Instead of taking what we’ve got and adding to it, we looked how we could go deeper on the thing we really care about, which is making combat meaningful to the narrative,” Matthews says. 

During my visit to Ninja Theory, I was shown this evolution in combat from multiple perspectives – a look at how the combat scenes were performed and captured by actors, a behind-the-scenes glimpse at some of these movements in their development stages inside Unreal Engine 5, and then of course, the finished gameplay itself, which showcases the end product of this fantastic and thoughtful work. 

In one section, the chapter culminates in Senua facing off an onslaught of masked enemies, some with heavy builds primed to knock her down, and some with swift fire attacks that require well-timed dodging. Each fight – all handled one-on-one, but with new enemies barrelling in from off-screen to keep the frantic feeling alive – feels like survival by the skin of your teeth, and the sum of Senua’s power is funnelled through her retaliations; the movements to take down these foes are almost rhythmic, a desperate beating heart powering the game along.

It’s hard to explain unless you’ve played yourself, but this doesn’t feel like traditional video game combat. There’s a weight to it, both from Senua and her enemies, that turns this into more of a desperate dance than a piece of superpowered pugilism. It makes for exhausting, exhilarating sequences, producing the feeling of an intense boss rush, even against what would otherwise be regular enemies. 

“We wanted to bring a sense of brutality and struggle to one-on-one combat,” says Benoit Macon, combat director on Hellblade II. “There is a sense of connection between the combat and the narrative.” 

That brutality is felt even more keenly when you seeing it being carried out in real life. I watch two Lucky13 stunt performers act out multiple combat sequences, one taking on the role of Senua, and another acting as a hulking Northman. The two performers swing rapidly at each other, with one take culminating in a violent body slam. This is a real, tangible portrayal of a fight; the movements and body language – while expertly directed – are unpredictable, and differ slightly between takes, granting an authenticity that is seldom offered by wholly calculated digital character rigging. 

The scene is also heavily cinematic; a mass brawl breaking out between these masked Viking slavers and their newly freed captives onscreen means it’s never entirely clear who Senua is about to square up against next (and indeed, if you die, you’ll take on enemies in a different order, the fights shifting to stop you simply pattern-learning). Macon cites Games of Thrones’ famous ‘Battle of the Bastards’ episode as an early reference point for this sequence, highlighting the relentless, indiscriminate violence that Jon Snow faces in what seems to be a losing battle against endless foes. Similarly, Senua is not trying to be a hero in this chapter, merely fighting to survive – and you’re right there with her.

Bringing Senua to Life

Paradoxically, while I play, I realise that part of the genius of Ninja Theory’s work on combat is the effort they’ve put into the moments where you’re not fighting, and how they link together. Even when Senua’s sword is sheathed, moments of exploration, puzzle solving and conversations with other characters are rooted in a deep sense of dynamic realism – and crucially this means the game feels like a seamless whole. You don’t walk into a blank arena and realize, “Oh, this is a combat sequence.” The wholeness means that, even in its quiet moments, it feels as though you could enter combat at any moment.

Even Senua’s most incidental movements feel intensely authentic – as she’s carefully padding through abandoned villages or trepidatiously navigating around terrifying enemies, I often found myself mirroring her reactions. If Senua’s shoulders are tense, mine are similarly braced; if Senua is making herself smaller to not be detected, I’m also hunching into myself as though the masked nightmares are going to see me through the screen. This is all brought to life by Senua actress Melina Juergens’ astronomical efforts to create a living, breathing character that is now an extension of her.

“The benefit of working with actors like [Juergens] or any of the other cast is that we can bring them in to try different ideas; a scared walk, for example,” Matthews says. “We ask ourselves what you’d be feeling in that moment, and how do we convey that to the player? We can then capture it, and the end result in the game is based on a real performance.”

Juergens tells me that even aspects like the weather are considered – how will Senua move and behave if it’s raining heavily or there’s strong winds? There’re even scenes with multiple versions of the same dialogue between Senua and other characters, and the line that is delivered will depend on whether Senua is walking or running. It’s this constant reactivity not just to NPCs, but also to the dynamic world around here, that means you’re completely immersed in her world.

Some of the Ninja Theory team are even now trained in how to safely build scaffolding, due to its consistent use throughout the filming process to simulate climbing and suspension scenes, an incredible commitment to the craft. 

In some instances, Juergens will film physical movements first, and then record the facial expressions later to make for an even more realistic and animated approach. In other scenarios, actions and expressions are filmed in tandem, as Juergens is acting out the scene. She describes one instance of shimmying through a set piece with an iPhone camera strapped to her head to capture her face as she goes – which is all I could think about when later playing through a similar segment in the game itself. 

The result is something that feels differently pitched to most action games. We aren’t just driving Senua from one battle to the next, nor do those fights feel like interruptions to the wider story – combat is a part of Senua’s journey, and the intense work put into making her feel like a real person, both in and out of those fights, means we as players, are left in a state of blissful unease. The next fight could come at any moment.

Fighting With Purpose

All of this work – the stunt work, meticulous acting capture, and new mechanical ideas of how to present a fight – feel as much like a Hollywood production as they do a traditional game. Ninja Theory is aware of the appetite for sprawling, lengthy AAA blockbusters, and we’re increasingly familiar with the Hollywood techniques they employ. However, Matthews prefers to liken Hellblade II to a quality independent film, and tells me that the confidence to keep creating mindful art has only been reinforced by the success and resonance of Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. In terms of combat, that means creating a system that doesn’t just feel good to play, but serves the wider message. Senua isn’t mindlessly engaging in battle – she has to do this to meet her goals, and that’s reflected in how Ninja Theory has approached every aspect of putting a character onscreen.

“That mindset has encouraged me and the people in the team to continue to be brave in our creative work, to continue to doggedly pursue the things we all personally care about,” Matthews says.

It makes Hellblade II’s combat less a cog in a gaming machine, and more of a brushstroke in the wider piece of art Ninja Theory is presenting. The studio is fuelled by a fearlessness to keep innovating on Senua’s journey in its own thoughtful, meticulous way – yes, this feels very fun to play, but fighting means something in this game. That might be an achievement in itself.

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II will be released on May 21, 2024 for Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, Steam and Cloud – and will be available with Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass day one.