Hellblade 2's "brutal" combat should make you feel the hero's "struggle in every step of her journey"

A Ninja Theory developer says Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2's combat will be "very different from the first game."

Talking during Thursday's Xbox Developer Direct 2024, Hellblade 2 VFX director Mark Slater-Tunstill describes the sequel's combat as "brutal" and says it'll make you "feel [protagonist Senua's] struggle in every step of her journey."

Here's the full quote: "We have all new combat for the sequel. One of our key goals was the ability to actually tell a story throughout it. It does feel very different from the first game, but it's very brutal and you're very invested in it. Senua isn't a superhero, she's fighting for survival, and we want the player to feel her struggle in every step of her journey. We want the player to always feel like they just scraped through, just survived it."

We don't see much gameplay in the showcase, but we do get one very dramatic combat sequence where a bloody and exhausted Senua laboriously fends off a group of attackers, and it looks pretty darn brutal indeed. Every swing of her sword looks like it could be her last before she collapses, her guttural cries punctuating the sheer state of desperation she's in. Every attack her enemies land sends her reeling in response. This is a very loose, knee-jerk comparison, but it kind of reminds me of the close-quarters encounters in The Last of Us 2. Man, I am psyched for this game. 

Ninja Theory also revealed a May 21 release date for Hellblade 2, leaving us with only a few more months until we can trudge through this delightfully grim adventure.

For everything on the horizon at Microsoft, here's our guide to upcoming Xbox Series X games of 2024 and beyond.