Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice

The action-adventure Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is deeply rooted in the Mythical Nordic world. The warrior Senua must embark on a heroic journey to save her great love Dillion from dark forces. Unusual for a video game is the fact that Senua suffers from psychosis. This is based on traumatic experiences, which become increasingly evident in the course of the game. While players solve puzzles, fight scary creatures and explore atmospheric locations, it quickly becomes clear: Senua's journey - which will take her to the Nordic underworld - symbolizes the confrontation with her inner demons. During the course of the game, a multitude of runestones can be discovered. If one of these stones is interacted with, a narrator recites a part of a mythical Nordic story in a few sentences. The more runestones are found, the more background knowledge players can acquire. This knowledge is not needed for the actual course of the game. However, there is also an added value in the sense that the stories are often symbolically connected to Senua's inner journey. Apart from the runestones, there is no free game content. Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice offers adult players a fascinating, intense, but also disturbing gaming experience. Senua's fight against her inner demons touches, but also includes many scenes that can cause emotional stress. It is remarkable that the British developers of Ninja Theory approach the topic of psychosis with a lot of empathy. Fortunately, the subject isn't merely exploited as a "special ability" of a character. Instead, the illness is the foundation on which both the plot and large parts of the game mechanics are built. At the end of the game, a hopeful message remains, which, however, does not make a mistake to drift off into a kitschy healing world scenario.