Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Thomas Gallagher
Mrs. Misch
ENGL 1301
9/19/17
The brain is a very complex thing. It is the single most complicated and important organ
necessary to our survival, and much like any part of the body, can suffer from damage and
illnesses. The far from simple nature of the brain carries over to its diseases, and that fact both
restricts our understanding of such things, and likewise reduces the accurate coverage in modern
media. Its been done over and over, characters being entirely random, evil, and one
dimensional, and the creators justify such lazy writing on the fictional persons insanity.
However, there are a few creators that dig a little deeper and put some proper work in
understanding and accurately depicting these sorts of people. One such piece of media is the
video game, Hellblade: Senuas Sacrifice. The people that made this game put a massive amount
of work into their creation, and that effort has resulted in a piece of media that explores mental
illness, perception, and letting go, and it does it extremely well. Hellblade: Senuas Sacrifice is a
stunning audio and video experience that works hard to tell a story about a realistic and
believable mentally ill person and her journey through a surreal fantasy world.
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developed by Ninja Theory, known for making other, less noteworthy games. The game follows
a Celtic warrior known as Senua and her adventure through a personal and psychedelic journey
through the underworld to bring back her dead fianc. From a gameplay standpoint, the game
functions very well. The combat is simple at a first glance, and while the hack and slash style of
fighting does help cater to those that dont want to spend hours learning everything, there are
more complicated maneuvers for those that do master the system. During your first fight, its not
initially clear what Senua is capable of, although the pause menu does display the controls to
keep the player from being completely lost, which is a relief. As you continue to fight, however,
you become more and more capable of fighting, despite the character not really growing in
strength as the story progresses. A small touch I really appreciated is how you lose a lot of your
speed and combos in a fight if youre close to death. For example, in my playthrough of the
game, I got ambushed by a giant with an equally massive axe, and brought me down to very low
health. While there wasnt any health bar, the red tint to my screen gave me a big enough hint,
and for the rest of the fight, I was sluggish, and incapable of properly using combos or
counterattacking after a successful parry. In many other games, characters can be a hair away
from death and can still function perfectly fine, and while I see the reasoning behind it, Im glad
While the gameplay is solid, the main focus of the adventure is the main character:
Senua. While at a first glance, Senua can be compared to other female protagonists, a massive
part of what sets her apart is whats in her mind. While it is not directly stated in game, it is
heavily implied that Senua suffers from psychosis and schizophrenia, and as such, a large portion
of the game is spent hearing the voices in her head. The developers spent a long portion
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consulting medical professionals and mentally ill people to properly convey such an affliction,
reaching out to Professor Paul Fletcher, a psychiatrist and professor of health neuroscience at
Cambridge University (1), as well as using full 3D binaural microphones to truly encapsulate
the feeling of hearing voices in your head, and they did a wonderful job. And the voices arent
just a cheap little thing to creep players out, theyre almost necessary to complete the game, and
because of that I would strongly recommend playing the game with high quality headphones, and
while those can be found for a reasonable price, thats still a setback. For example, in fights,
there is no prompt to show that an out of sight enemy is about to attack. Instead, you hear a voice
warning you of the danger. These voices are a big part of the game, and Senuas character, but
they dont define her. Senuas not this crazy, one dimensional character that never grows. She
has moments of anger, sadness, joy, triumph, and we really get to see her as a character that
grows and changes as the story progresses, not some sort of cheesy villain or bland maniac. In
addition to this, a big part of what breathes life into Senua is the actor behind her. Melina
Juergens isnt even a professional actor, just a video editor, and yet, she was able to give off so
much raw emotion on her first try. In the developer diaries, she explains how she used her fear
and inexperience to help make Senua feel genuine, stating I never realized that acting was my
worst nightmare, and I always avoided it. (2). A feat like that is simply amazing, and Ninja
Theory did an incredible job crafting one of the most realistic video game characters of all time.
Another large portion of the game is the world you explore. This is without a doubt the
best-looking game Ive ever seen, and the fact that a team of around twenty people made this
game is baffling. During the beginning of the game, youre forced to run through a burning
village, where if you take too long escaping, you will die. Soon after, you break through a door
and are suddenly yelled at by an FMV, also known as Full Motion Video, which, to put it short,
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is a live action recording of someone utilized in a game. This transition from gameplay to
cutscene is seamless, which is rather impressive, given how other games generally require some
sort of loading times, especially for visuals such as this. I can personally say that I never noticed
any sort of loading times or abrupt breaks in the action. While the game is almost entirely linear,
the developers did a wonderful job crafting a gorgeous world that you could spend hours just
staring at.
While I could go on for hours praising the game, I can also say that this game is not for
everyone, and has a slight issue here and there. As I said earlier, the voices in Senuas head are
essential to the experience, and the game implores you to use headphones, and with the whole
schizophrenic character in general, I would not play this game if you suffer from such illnesses.
In addition to this, there is a controversy regarding a permanent death mechanic in the game.
Early on, you are afflicted with this rot in your right hand, and the game tells you that if the rot
reaches Senuas head, your journey ends. While this is most certainly a turn off for many people,
for spoilers sake, all I can say is that I still implore you to just play the game even if youre
scared of perma-death. Furthermore, people have reported a few game breaking glitches.
Regardless, these issues are rare and Ninja Theory have been hard at work to eliminate these
problems, given how theyve already released a few patches eliminating most of these glitches,
and while I dont like seeing games released with bugs and glitches, Ive seen much worse and I
can commend them for working hard to make their game bug free.
In short, Hellblade: Senuas Sacrifice is an amazing game with solid gameplay, a realistic
and likable protagonist, and a stunning world. Ninja Theory took risks with this concept and
execution, and while it doesnt cater to everyone, if you see video games as a form of interactive
Works Cited
2. Juergens, Melina. Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice | Dev Diary 25 | Becoming Senua. Youtube,
24/12/2016,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFhzVtHwJjA&index=25&list=PLbpkF8TRYizaT6GfMcK
BG-RoUOQ6BJRXp. 29/9/2017.