Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II sees its titular protagonist in a really completely different headspace in comparison with the primary sport, when the Pict warrior was largely on the mercy of the antagonistic, psychosis-induced voices in her head. She’s extra assured in herself in Hellblade II and on this new-found company, she’s in a position to join with individuals once more. Forward of Hellblade II’s Could 21 launch, I spoke to guide actor and Ninja Principle video editor Melina Juergens, Ninja Principle scriptwriter and efficiency seize director Lara Derham, and Bernard Wolfe Professor of Well being Neuroscience Paul Fletcher (a key collaborator on each Hellblade video games) about Senua’s evolving notion of her psychosis and the way that can inform her narrative arc.
“On the finish of the primary sport, [Senua] was actually confronting lots of new issues, and that is a really troublesome a part of the journey,” Derham advised me. “I believe on the finish of the sport, she got here to a way of–I would not say full peace, however extra peace and extra acceptance. And he or she had began to query and put apart her father’s teachings: that this distinction that she had that she shares together with her mom is evil and unsuitable.”
She continued: “So I believe [Senua is] at a degree now the place she’s ready to maneuver ahead and take a look at what comes subsequent. And for her, what comes subsequent is that this mission that she feels very strongly that she’s destined to do, that she’s chosen for. And that is to do with the promise that she made to Dillion about not letting anybody undergo as he did. So I believe I prefer to see it as a step out into the world as a result of it isn’t nearly her and her ache, it is about different individuals. And there is a actual selflessness to this determination that she makes, particularly since she’s placing herself at such nice danger.”
In Hellblade II, Senua travels to Iceland to cope with the Viking menace nonetheless entrenched there. Not like the primary sport, which noticed her take care of the legendary monstrosities of Helheim all on her personal, Hellblade II sees Senua combat in a setting based mostly extra firmly on actuality and work together with different individuals. And a few of these individuals will see Senua as an aspirational chief, not the cursed outcast from the primary sport.
“We have got a solid now for the brand new sport,” Juergens advised me. “There are those who respect [Senua’s] perspective, her distinctive perspective on the world, and there are different individuals who reject it. I believe she comes throughout a bit of bit extra assured now. After I was appearing, I made positive that for the second sport, my posture is a bit of bit extra assured and upright as a result of she is a frontrunner within the second sport. She’s not a sufferer of psychosis anymore. She hasn’t overcome it, however she’s in command of it.”
“Once we take a look at Hellblade 1, [Senua] was completely enthralled to and enveloped by this darkness,” Fletcher mentioned. “And as she emerges from that, she acquires extra energy and self-reliance and is ready to problem and resist the voices and visions despite the fact that they’re nonetheless there. So she has extra energy. And that is what permits her to look exterior and to assume when it comes to the larger image past herself.
“That is a very vital level that she is [no longer] being consistently buffeted by the voices and buffeted by her experiences,” Derham added. “They nonetheless have an effect on her, they’re nonetheless there, however she has the flexibility now to push again on them a bit of bit and to acknowledge that she has company.”
For Ninja Principle, it was vital to showcase that residing with psychosis is a journey. There isn’t any ending to Hellblade II the place Senua walks away fully “mounted” of her psychological sickness. “I believe some individuals can consider her trajectory of restoration in quite simple phrases of leaving the previous behind,” Fletcher mentioned. “And I believe, echoing what Lara mentioned, [Senua] would not depart her previous behind, however the previous truly grinds and shapes the lens via which we see the current and predict the long run. And that is there the entire time. In assembly with different individuals, she positive factors new views. And for me, that is actually thrilling that [Ninja Theory is] taking the narrative this fashion. As a result of so usually in scientific follow, what permits individuals to get well is to realize a that means and a goal that is past themselves.”
“The place that we’re taking [Hellblade II], which is basically new, is as an alternative of inspecting how completely different Senua is from different individuals, we’re how related a few of her experiences are to what we might name ‘regular’ individuals’s responses,” Derham mentioned. “It goes again to what Paul was saying this morning about how all of us assemble our personal realities in a roundabout way or one other. And we’ll see Senua’s world via Senua’s eyes however additionally, you will see how different individuals, [people without psychosis] are additionally doing the identical sorts of processes that Senua is–creatively developing her world, [is something] that different individuals do as nicely.”
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II is about to launch for Xbox Collection X|S and PC, and can launch day one on Xbox Recreation Go.