A narrative action-adventure game Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II arrived for PC and Xbox on May 21, 2024. It features a focused story covering a wide variety of emotional and societal themes that are fascinating to wrap your mind around.
Read more: Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II: The Kotaku Review
The challenge for me on Senua’s Saga doesn’t succeed as much in its puzzles or battles (yet combat can be fun), but rather lies in understanding the ebb and flow of Senua’s journey through Iceland and the people she meets. The density of text and dialogue is what awaits you to unpack, not skill trees and time-based challenges.
And given its relatively short runtime compared to other games, this makes it ideal for replaying to revisit key moments or understand the significance of how the game begins and ends, and What are exactly the challenges that Senua must overcome in this new chapter.
The bonus story is reason enough to play Hellblade II many times
Once you reach the end of Senua’s saga, you’ll unlock a narrative from “The Others,” the three NPCs who accompany Senua on her journey. They will narrate sections of the game based on which chapters you are in, starting with the Viking slaver, Thorgestr.
Read more: Hellblade II Tips for mastering the game’s visceral combat
Hellblade II is a game about many things, but mostly about the characters that Senua meets (with Torgestr being perhaps the most changed by his journey with Senua). Getting a sense of how these characters see Senua and their world is a really great way to understand the different nuances and emotional contours of this game.
Astridr, the lonely and fiercely protective leader Senua meets in the Bardarvik chapter, for example, talks a bit about her family in a way that helps shed more light on who she is. Sure, she talked to Senua a little bit about her life before things took a turn for the worse, but hearing it from her directly through narration fleshes out her story even more.
While playing around with the “Other” narration (which you can select at the start of a new game or anytime in the game’s audio settings after completing the narration), I almost started to wonder if this is the way Senua’s Saga it was supposed to be. It’s true that the main narrator creates a nice sense of cohesion with the first game, but given how much the Furies – the voices Senua hears in her mind – add to the usual gameplay and essentially narrate and comment on what’s going on by hearing other characters it really makes the experience a bit more dynamic narratively.
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Also, finding all the “loresingr” unlockables will unlock Druth, Senua’s 2017 spirit companion. Senua’s Sacrifice.
Senua’s Saga is a dense narrative that becomes clearer the second time around
A lot is happening in Senua’s Saga. And on my second playthrough, especially during the opening fight with Torgestr, I was struck by what Senua sees in him and ultimately decides to do after the fight – especially the similarities between how that fight ends and how the final boss fight ends in the game . Fast forward to the walk to Freyslaug and there were lines that stood out to me more this time. Here’s one in particular:
Thorgestr: Do you see these graves? This is how we honor our dead. There will be no one to bury you.
Senua: You did not honor these graves. What happened?
Thorgestr: I told you…Draugar. They won’t just kill you. It’s much worse. This is what they do next. They… You still have a chance to save your life if you stop now.
Senua: Is it my life you’re trying to save?
This exchange occurs after Torgestr says how much he wishes Senua had drowned when the ships crashed and how he plans to kill her once he’s free of her. Yet, here she emphasizes the fact that there is a part of him that is concerned for her own safety, speaking of his humanity that is buried beneath his blind devotion to his father and his short-sighted perspectives.
Read more: Hellblade 2 The studio is reportedly already working on its next game
So many of Senua’s Saga it’s about changes in perspective, different ways of seeing “reality” that a line like this, given where the story is going, carries so much weight. There are many other similar examples in Saga this, however, becomes more apparent to me on a second playthrough.
If you haven’t already, consider not using subtitles in future games
On my second playthrough, I found the subtitles to be a pretty effective way of focusing on what the individual characters are saying to each other. Senua’s “Furies” are constantly intruding, which is really distracting. I think that’s the point, but having actual dialogue lines to read (the Furies’ lines are shown on the respective sides of the screen to simulate the experience of hearing them from both sides of you) might help you focus a bit on exchanges like the one highlighted above.
Senua’s Saga is a journey of complex emotions and events, many of which take on new tones and meaning on repeat visits. Whether you’re ready to play Hellblade II again right after the credits hit, or after letting it linger in your mind for a while, the second time is definitely worth the effort if you want to soak up everything this game has to offer.
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