Clocking in at number 22 on the studio’s slate of development diaries, Ninja Theory has pumped out our latest behind-the-scenes peek at Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice.
Whereas previous videos have drawn attention to both the fantasy environments and Senua, the Celtic warrior and protagonist at the heart of the developer’s mythic RPG, today’s new teaser casts light on Hellblade‘s combat system.
Initially, the team at Ninja Theory – best known for Heavenly Sword and Enslaved: Odyssey to the West – targeted a combat system that allowed the player to block and attack in four cardinal directions. That all changed in favor of a more fluid, dynamic set-up, allowing for free-flowing combat that gave users the ability to jump between one enemy and the next. Stunt actress Chloe Bruce, who worked on Star Wars: The Force Awakens, proved instrumental in this process, giving the team an astute reference point to translate those maneuvers into the game.
When it comes to Senua herself, much as the title suggests Hellblade revolves around her harrowing journey into the unknown. Garnering praise for its deft handling of mental illness, Ninja Theory recently outlined how “it is important for [NT] to portray the physical, emotional, and mental trials of her quest in both the character model and the representation of her reality. An example of this is the voices that Senua hears in the scene. These voices have been recorded binaurally which means that if you listen to them with headphones on they will sound as if they are in the 3D space around you.”
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is due out on PlayStation 4 and PC sometime later this year.
