Gameplay is king is a common mantra for game designers when building a game to ensure that the game is enjoyable to play even if the story suffers for the sake of gameplay as it is most important and should get the most attention. Hellblade seems to ignore this convention to an extent, instead focusing on living as the main character Senua, and what its like to hear her thoughts, and what it’s like to experience life through the lens of her psychosis. The experience is king, and Senua is the queen. This approach is quite refreshing as it makes for a unique experience that only gaming can really deliver while still being an interesting experience to be apart of. The first time I heard the voices talk to Senua I knew this was a mechanic I was going to love and I already want more games that do this.

The developers of the game got help from mental health professionals, as well as getting input from people who actually hear voices to create the psyche of Senua. The input they were given shows in the final product, and the game feels very genuine for the message it was trying to get across. Senua lived in a world of gods, and fables so mental illness was labeled as a curse which only made her experience worse as her father kept her in isolation, as well as some trauma I won’t go into to avoid spoilers.

The games intro immediately sets the tone and the stakes with Senua going deeper down the river as the voices in her head tell her this is an evil cursed place you’re headed to. Then you see bodies hanging from trees and you begin to think they might be right. None of this matters however as Senua kicks her boat away after going to shore, ignoring the voices, and solidifying that there is no going back. This works so effectively as an intro as it says a lot about Senua without saying much of anything at all. The game delivers these insights into Senua primarily with gameplay, rarely taking the time to directly tell you anything about her or her past. Instead you are given clues and snipits that you have to piece it together yourself as you play.

The voices in Senua’s head are such an interesting gameplay feature. The voices whisper Senua’s doubts and anxieties, but also her will and determination. The game never really tells you a whole lot about Senua’s backstory, instead we learn a bit about her past by listening for clues in the voices, but also some context given to her during Druth’s stories. Druth acts as a mentor as well as a story teller. He tells you stories of Norse gods and these act as collectables you can find in the world. A neat feature of these stories is that you can sometimes find them while the voices are being really negative, and oppressive in your ear, but you can silence them and ignore them while you listen to a flashback of Druth telling you a story. I think this was a nice touch as I imagine Senua would ask for stories to occupy her mind and distract her from the voices while she was with Druth.

During combat the voices will will whisper things like, “Behind you!” or “Finish him off!” and when you get hit or start to lose, “You are a failure,” “you are weak,” “You will fail!” but it will also try to help you solve puzzles when it’s not making fun of you for not being able to see the answer. Honestly, the best mystery in the whole game is trying to figure out if you can trust the voices or not. They are quite helpful sometimes and that could lead you to believe they are your friend, but other times it feels like they are trying to sabotage you which in my opinion makes the game much more interesting. Do they want you to fail or are they trying to keep you safe?

The gameplay does suffer a bit and the game is mostly a walking simulator with light puzzle solving, and barebones combat. The combat is simple enough to anyone with experience in games like Dark Souls or other 3rd person action games, as you will be cycling through light attacks, heavies, parries, and dodges. But the game is not supposed to be challenging as I think that it would ruin the narrative to die a lot attempting a combat section. Death is hard to come by in combat, some hits will knock you down but if you button spam you can sometimes get up before the next hit come which is a clever way to show “not giving up,” as a game mechanic that also works narratively. The camera locks behind Senua when combat starts and she will draw her sword and you begin to auto-lock onto the nearest enemy. This game doesn’t have much of a HUD which helps with immersion and the animations are really well done and make the combat visually interesting even though it is mechanically shallow. I find it acceptable as the game uses combat as breaks from puzzle solving, or for story purposes and not much else so it doesn’t need to be all that deep. I found the voices during combat to be a cool way to portray her combat instinct intertwined with her anxiety as she will go from positive thoughts to negative depending how the fight is going. I was also pleasantly surprised that just about every variation of attack, dash attack, running attack, heavy, light, kick, all each had a variant depending on input that was different and I’m sad I didn’t try the running jump kick attack until the end because it looks really cool to pull off.

The game has a few different variants of enemies which are passable for how much combat you are actually doing. The boss fights are where the game really starts to play around with the mechanics and each boss fight was quite the experience. You fight the god of illusion as he plays mind tricks which are very cool in a game so focused on the main characters mental, the god of fire is just a standard fight with flames and a bit more difficulty and some spooky effects which is passable for the first fight as the player gets comfortable. You also fight an enemy who steals your sight and forces you to listen, and decide if you want to trust the voices or not which was the most interesting of the boss roster.

This game is a cool experience, and a wonderful character study into someone with mental illness. I should mention at least once that the game looks stunning, and the facial work done on Senua is really effective. As is when she appears to be looking directly at the player when speaking to add to the unsettling factor, but it also makes me wonder what the player is to Senua, are you her drive, her will power, or are you the voices? I think the $30 price point is a bit steep for what you are actually getting as I beat the game in about 7 hours and don’t see much point in replaying other than maybe getting some story details I missed. I got the game for $7 on sale and I would recommend waiting for a sale to get a copy as well as the game really is worth experiencing at least once, just maybe not for $30.