#132: Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
Ninja Theory drops the ball on mental health representation
This review was originally posted to Twitter on July 9, 2019.
Initial release: August 6, 2017
Platforms: PC, Playstation 4, XBox One, Nintendo Switch
Developer: Ninja Theory
The worst thing about dealing with mental illness, or some other disability that people don’t understand, isn’t stigma from ignorant people, it’s well-meaning but harmful bullshit. So let’s talk about Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice.
From the developers behind the decent Enslaved: Odyssey to the West and the more controversial DmC: Devil May Cry, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (what is it with Ninja Theory and bad titles with colons?) marks their attempt to put out AAA-level content without interference from the big publishers. It’s an admirable goal: make a game that looks like the big-budget smashes that fill the awards events every year but for half the budget and half the price, letting you tackle themes and ideas without some stuffed suit in California or France or whatever trying to water it down.
And for the most part, Ninja Theory have succeeded at that. Hellblade looks gorgeous — the protagonist is modelled (and lit) so expertly that oftentimes it’s difficult to tell whether she’s real or not. Only the use of live action (blended otherwise seamlessly into the game) betrays Senua’s existence as just a really good Blender model. (I want to point out that live action, while usually jank, is actually used pretty well in this game, with some solid acting. The actor for the character of Druth is especially great.)
But while Hellblade is a good example of what might be called double-A (AA) — a blend of indie game development theory with AAA production values — I think it ultimately falls flat on the very thing the game places the most emphasis on: the story.
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is, at heart, a walking simulator with some combat and puzzle sequences. You play as a mentally ill Pict warrior who’s gone deep into the wilderness to seek a way into the Norse land of the dead to save her dead lover’s soul. or something. Hellblade is an attempt to bring the experience of having psychosis to a neurotypical audience. To that end, they consulted with mental health experts, neuroscientists, and actual sufferers of psychosis, but the end result has been less than satisfactory among the mentally ill.
Before we get to that, let’s break the game down a little. Most of the game is set in lengthy third person walking sequences where you move through the wilderness and ruins of the Orkney islands (and later, it’s implied, the Norse underworld itself.)
Sometimes you’ll be asked to solve puzzles. Most of these puzzles are one of two or three different types, requiring you to stand in a particular spot and find scenery that, from that perspective, resembles what you need to find to progress. Often, for example, you’ll need to find wooden stakes or other scenery that, from a certain perspective, line up to create the shape of a rune that you need to find to unlock a nearby gate. (I’m reminded of some of the puzzles in the batman arkham games.)
As you progress, you’ll occasionally be beset by freakish “northmen,” angry, seemingly undead Viking warriors who you must combat. The combat, as limited as it is, is robust and visceral; Senua is a scrappy fighter who can take down half a dozen enormous dudes in a few minutes. It’s not perfect, though — enemies are not above attacking you from behind, and if you don’t have subtitles on you won’t have much warning at all of incoming danger, and even with them on it’s not a sure thing. This can be a problem with large groups.
Most of the plot is told through third-person narration, as if someone is telling you the background plot of the game as you’re playing it. Sometimes it’s not always clear what’s narration and what’s Senua’s own thoughts — made worse when her more intrusive thoughts crop up. The game does, at least, do subtitles users a solid by having her “voices” (named in the credits as “the Furies”) subtitled in a different color font at the top of the screen. Much of the dialogue, internal or external or omniscient, is so quiet you’ll want the subs on anyway.
There are other moments where Senua interacts with the ghosts and/or memories (it’s unclear) of other people, namely her parents, her lover or her friend who escaped from the northmen and told her all about Norse mythology.
Actually, much of the game is left purposely unclear. It’s never obvious what’s real and what’s not. Without the mental illness aspect, much of the game could be seen as allegory, or even just straight up Viking fantasy. (Indeed, development of the game started out that way.)
While I have my own mental health issues, I’m not someone who suffers from psychosis. I can’t tell you how accurate the game is with regards to that. Others could, and have, so I’ll leave that to them. But I will say this: this game makes a few enormous missteps.
The first and most obvious one is the fakeout the game does with permadeath. Early on in the game you meet your first horde of angry zombie Scandinavians; it’s a battle you will, and must, lose. Afterwards, Senua wakes up, only to find that her hand has begun to rot. The game tells you that the more you die, the more her arm will begin to rot, and when that rot reaches her head, it’s game over, and your save file will be deleted. It seems to be an attempt at a metaphor for crumbling mental health and the fear and paranoia that accompanies it. But here’s the thing: it never happens. The rot will never reach Senua’s head. It’s a bluff, a fakeout. But can you fucking imagine the stress this puts on people? Permadeath as a concept is fairly niche even now. Most casual gamers aren’t even going to know what it is, and the pressure of being asked to perform well in a game when you might not be much of a gamer is more than some can bear.
The other big problem, and this is emblematic of how the game approaches its subject, is a certain line spoken by the ghost and/or memory of Senua’s lover: “Would you give up the beautiful world that you and only you can see just to be rid of your nightmares?” Like, really? Fucking really?
When it comes to mental illness, I rarely know what to say or do. My own relationship with my mental health is fairly fraught, at best — how can I know how to respond to someone else in crisis when I can barely? But I know enough that one thing you do NOT say is that. That this line comes from the sole reason Senua’s even putting herself through all this bullshit is just mindblowing.
It’s hard to know who this game is for. It’s a well-intentioned but ultimately harmful and stereotypical depiction of mental illness that only insults the mentally ill and misinforms the neurotypical. Play it because it’s pretty and the combat is fun, not for anything else.
