Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 is a game that’s not particularly good in a traditional sense, yet is still worth playing through.

Picking up where the 2017 original left off, it’s a sequel that doubles down on the best and worst features of that first experience, leaning into cinematic storytelling, outstanding visuals, and unique sound design. The graphical and auditory experience makes developer Ninja Theory an industry leader in its distinct field — you’ll struggle to find many other PS5 titles that look and sound better than it.

However, those standout elements only go so far when the act of actually playing the game is so rudimentary. Hellblade 2 bridges the gap between its cutscenes with a lot of walking, bad puzzles, and basic combat. As an overall package, it makes for an incredibly uneven experience.

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Senua returns in the lead role for a follow-up that explores her battle with psychosis and efforts to free her people from slavery by journeying to the Viking homeland of Iceland. Shipwrecked on the shore, she makes a prisoner of one Viking and has him guide her to their leader.

With just six hours of content, even accounting for finding all the collectibles, the plot quickly develops and introduces companion characters carrying tales of giants and the hidden folk. Or does it?

Leaving much to interpretation, the game embraces the hallucinations and internal voices Senua experiences to the point where you’re never sure what’s real and what’s not. Characters fade in and out of existence, and the environment shifts and changes with a sweep of the camera.

This is a good thing, for the title’s unreliability adds suspense and intensity to sequences that would otherwise have Senua simply stroll through the countryside. Its sound design is superb; internal voices will whisper in your ears, bouncing between your headphones and offering commentary on Senua’s actions. Extremely unnerving, you’re constantly kept on edge even in the most unassuming scenes.

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It’s an extra layer that’s desperately needed, as the moment-to-moment gameplay of the title is detrimentally basic.

Actually playing the game, and not just taking in its beautiful vistas and unsettling audio, consists of walking, solving simple puzzles, and sword fights. These are the crux that make up many PS5 experiences, but they’re sorely lacking in Hellblade 2.

Returning from Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice are the symbol puzzles, where you must search the immediate area to find objects you can line up at a specific angle to form the shape blocking your path. They’re joined by a new puzzle type that involves collecting orbs from pedestals, accessed by changing the environment around you.

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Both types prove so easy to solve that they’re hardly worth classing as puzzles in the first place. When you’re close to a symbol, the focus feature will automatically snap your camera to the solution. Then, collecting the orbs is as simple as shape-shifting a single piece of terrain.

The combat system doesn’t fare any better. Senua has a standard and heavy attack, and can block and dodge enemy strikes. She finds a mirror — charged by landing blows on the enemy — that allows her to slow down time and get an easy kill. While many encounters will feature multiple combatants, the camera always fixates on a single enemy, turning every contest into a one-on-one duel.

Despite the fact some enemies have different appearances, every single battle — from the moment you pick up the mirror in the second chapter through to the final boss fight — plays out exactly the same. Their repetitive nature grates further on the overall offering, making it more of a chore to play the further in you are. There comes a point where the game’s simplest prompt, to plainly walk through its beautiful scenery, becomes the best thing about it.

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From the sweeping camera pans of the Icelandic environments to the individual rocks placed on either side of the linear path, the game is only rivalled by Death Stranding 2 as one of the prettiest games available on PS5. Its landscapes are jaw-dropping, its lighting system shines in cave systems with only a flame to find your way, and its characters impress with strong performances and visual design.

It’s just a shame to be presented with such a stunning world, only for there to be so little to actually do in it. You can admire, but no touching.

Consequently, the base game is a disappointment, but one with something to offer — and perhaps even appreciate. Its gameplay will never satisfy, though the visual splendour and absorbing auditory experience will. Melina Juergens as Senua once again provides a phenomenal performance, and strong haptic feedback support ties the protagonist’s internal voices back into your controller rumblings.

It means that, in a rare role reversal, Hellblade 2 is at its best across all the factors that don’t require you to properly play it.

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Rounding out the package are the extra modes and technical updates Ninja Theory has included in this new Enhanced edition for PS5, which arrives after 15 months of Xbox console exclusivity. The original release ran at 30 frames-per-second on Xbox Series X|S, but this upgraded version now offers a 60fps Performance Mode on both base PS5 and PS5 Pro.

Our playthrough on the latter system was conducted using this new mode, and it proves to be an extremely smooth, satisfying experience. This is the optimal way to play, with no frame rate drops in sight.

The other additions are developer commentary and a new Dark Rot mode, which follows through on the warning the first game came with. In Senua’s Sacrifice, the game told you that if you died enough times, a Dark Rot would consume Senua’s body, and you’d have to start your playthrough over from the beginning. This was a double bluff: the Dark Rot never actually took over, no matter how many times you died.

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In Hellblade 2, this optional mode makes the warning a reality. On an increased difficulty mode beyond Hard, you’re allowed to die three times. On the fourth death, your save data is wiped and you have to start over from the beginning.

This mode, along with the developer commentary, is only unlocked after completing the base game, with good reason: it’s absolutely brutal. We never managed to make it past the second chapter in our attempts. The combat remains incredibly bland, but at least the Dark Rot mode adds considerably more tension to it.

Conclusion

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 is more enjoyable as a visual and auditory experience than it is to actually play. Even with new modes and a smooth 60fps mode the new Enhanced edition provides, the Ninja Theory sequel fails on two fronts: bad puzzles and repetitive combat. Despite that, you’ll never play anything else quite like Hellblade 2; the game’s very unique approach to the sensory side of video games is exquisite. It just about warrants playing entirely because of that.