Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Has a game ever looked as cinematic as Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II? Every element of this new title from British developer Ninja Theory exudes big-screen splendour, from its acrobatic camerawork to its near-photorealistic level of character detail. Its entire setting, a rugged ninth-century Iceland that boasts Turneresque maelstroms of light, rain and wind, is stylishly enclosed in a letterbox aspect ratio. It’s enough to make you drop the controller, sit back and gaze open-mouthed at the screen. And you might do this quite a lot, because this is a game that lavishes so much attention on spectacle that it often neglects to give you much else to do.You reprise the role of Senua, the Pictish warrior who spent the first instalment in the series grieving her murdered lover. Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (2017) was particularly lauded for its thoughtful representation of mental illness: Senua suffers from severe bouts of psychosis and her demons are given actual voices, a constant internal Greek chorus that can encourage as well as voice her worst doubts and fears. In this Norse fable, the boundaries between reality, memory and fantasy are troublingly thin.This time, Senua’s story focuses less on her internal struggles and more on her relationship with the wider world. She begins the game on a slave ship bound for Iceland, on a self-imposed quest to free her captured countrymen. When the boat capsizes in a storm, she finds herself marooned in a landscape of craggy mountains and ancient magic. As she gets her bearings, Senua assembles a ragtag group of followers and a new mission: to rid the land of a scourge of giants. This narrative is not easy to follow: the storytelling is muddled and full of unexplained proper nouns, meaning the emotional stakes of Senua’s quest are often frustratingly obscure.The visual construction of Senua herself almost makes up for this. She is wiry with haunted, electric-blue eyes and a face often streaked with grime or blood, and the realism of her movements and facial expressions sets a new standard in gaming. Melina Jürgens is both motion capture artist and voice actor for Senua, and she puts in a stunning performance born of serious commitment — she travelled to Iceland to experience the atmosphere first-hand and studied martial arts to create a unique combat style for the protagonist.This commitment to visual authenticity, and the stunning Icelandic landscape, are both reminiscent of Robert Eggers’ 2022 film The Northman. The game’s topography was recreated using satellite imagery while characters’ costumes were crafted by designers using period-specific materials and methods before being scanned and recreated. The animators even underwent military training to choreograph more precisely the combat manoeuvres of enemy fighters. The player’s sense of immersion is only enhanced by the bold decision to forgo any onscreen information, such as health bars or button controls.Yet it is in this very action that the game is weakest. There’s simply not much to do here, and what there is doesn’t feel good. To progress you must solve puzzles, which generally involve finding a viewpoint to observe details hidden in the environment or moving rune stones and flames from one place to another. These tasks are uninspired and quickly grow repetitive. Meanwhile, the combat sections, though brutal and balletic, are unresponsive and clunky with little depth and few skills to hone.Perhaps the worst sin is that, for a game where you spend long periods just walking, even that simple act is tedious. You are only able to tread prescribed, linear pathways which seem totally at odds with the gorgeous realism of the environments.The game is only six hours in total, but it still drags. During one sequence where you plunge ever deeper into a seemingly interminable cave, one of the voices in Senua’s head whispers: “How much further must we go?” Rather than recognising this as the voice of self-doubt, I was tempted to agree. Though visually ravishing, Senua’s second outing tries so hard to be a film that it forgets to be a game.★★☆☆☆‘Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II’ is out now on Xbox Series X/S and Windows and is currently available on Xbox Game Pass
