HELLBLADE: SENUA'S SACRIFICE (PLAYSTATION 4 PS4)

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice draws inspiration from Celtic and Norse mythology to tell the story of Senua, a young woman and Celtic warrior. The game mixes hack-and-slash action sequences with environment-based puzzle-solving and story sequences in equal measure. She suffers from psychosis, which causes her to hear voices, see illusions, and often lives in constant fear. Alongside her mental illness, there is also a darkness that haunts her, a source of power, but also something that affects and is shared by her family members such as her father and mother, and her lover Dillion.

Almost every element of the game and the way the story is told relates to the effects of psychosis, which has been researched and implemented into the game with the support of both psychiatric professionals and people with lived experience. a psychosis. Alongside different voices providing narration and playing tricks with her mind, Senua is constantly surrounded by different voices speaking to each other using different positioning with a binaural audio recording. They also provide warnings during combat, such as announcing an incoming hit out of sight. Battles only take place at fixed locations against one or more enemies. Senua uses two types of attacks, light and heavy, which can be chained into combos. There's an action to block and dodge, as well as a short focused attack that gradually charges up and briefly slows time, allowing it to do a lot of damage. Run can be performed to quickly approach and launch additional attacks. Due to the shoulder-close view of the camera, many combat tactics are based on positioning and quickly moving from target to target, possibly locking onto them.