Hellblade. Best games on Xbox Game Pass in 2024 (December)

• What to choose?
• Forza Motorsport
• Halo: The Master Chief Collection
• Microsoft Flight Simulator
• Resident Evil 2 and 3
• Gears 5
• SnowRunner
• Wartales
• Doom Eternal
• Ori and the Will of the Wisps
• Age of Mythology: Retold
• Hellblade
• Yakuza 0
• No Man's Sky
• Against the Storm
• Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
• Hi-Fi Rush
• Psychonauts 2
• Diablo 4
• Stalker 2

Hellblade

The main character, Senua is a Celtic warrior who wants to ensure eternal peace for her murdered lover. To do this, the traumatized woman must enter a hell inspired by Norse mythology. In the second installment, the action moves to Iceland, where Senua follows the trail of slave hunters. Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice and Hellblade 2 is largely a walking simulator, with occasional environmental puzzle-solving and combat. Doesn't sound appealing, does it? The game gained well-deserved recognition among players and reviewers, despite its simple gameplay. Because it is an extremely original title.

What makes it worth playing?

The discussed game gained a lot of attention not only because of its dark atmosphere and engaging story. Senua suffers from mental illness and the way we, players, perceive it has been expertly executed. While traversing the land, we see many things differently than they actually are. Even more impressive than visual hallucinations – which are quite common in horror movies – are auditory hallucinations. Senua constantly hears voices in her head (and the players hear them in their headphones). This effect is truly impressive when we have spatial sound virtualization equipment on our ears. Then the voices reach us from different directions. And what are they saying? Sometimes they praise us, and sometimes they scold us. You can also hear suggestions on what to do and what to avoid.

We cannot fail to mention also the very attractive, essentially cinematic, graphic design. Hellblade 2 looks even better than the original – jaw-dropping guaranteed. However, we recommend starting the adventure from the first installment.

1. Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice in our encyclopedia
2. Hellblade 2 in our encyclopedia