Hellblade 2’s Alternate Narrators Are A Huge Wasted Story Opportunity

Summary Hellblade 2 explores the supernatural through companions, making myth seem real at first, but leaving players confused in the end.

The unlocked narration in Hellblade 2 provides new insights into characters' perspectives, but fails to offer concrete answers.

While the alternate narrators in Hellblade 2 add artistic merit, they do not justify multiple playthroughs for most players.

Those who completed Hellblade 2 unlocked a new way to experience the game on a second playthrough, as a new narration track becomes available, but the feature is ultimately a wasted opportunity since it failed to effectively capitalize on the different perspectives of Senua’s companions. Like the original Senua’s Sacrifice, Senua’s Saga deals with mythological and supernatural elements through the lens of a hero who lives with a mental health condition. The first game gave players no clear answers to whether the supernatural existed outside of Senua’s subjective experience, but the sequel muddied the waters on this by including companions.

[Warning: Spoilers for Hellblade and Hellblade 2 below]

In some ways, Hellblade 2 outdoes the original Hellblade. Senua’s Sacrifice was a deeply personal and introspective story, more about the protagonist’s catharsis than the resolution of any external conflict. The sequel sees Senua take on a truly heroic role in the world, setting out to end the slavery that has plagued her people and other communities. While her aim is initially a noble but bloody vendetta, Senua discovers a region plagued by dangerous giants that bring calamities to nearby settlements and shifts her focus. She instead aims to slay the giants, a goal which may also end the slavers’ practices.

Related As Hellblade 2 Releases, Ninja Theory Reportedly Has 2 New Games In Development Before the release of Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, it’s been confirmed that Ninja Theory has another game approved on top of Project Mara.

Hellblade 2 Makes The Supernatural Seem Real, At First

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The story makes Senua’s giant connection in Hellblade 2 evident. She discovers that by understanding the personal tragedies that turned a human into a rampaging giant and learning their true name she can pacify them, essentially slaying the giants through empathy and understanding. Though Senua’s allies refer to the giants as literal godlike beings, each giant is associated with an elemental phenomenon, such as volcanic activity or raging storms. Veterans of the first game might assume the same ambiguity is at play with the giants, as they could be literal mythological beasts, or simply a human rationalization for natural disasters.

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Because Senua spends much of Hellblade 2 in the company of allies like Thorgestr and Fargrimr, there are more external sources corroborating many of Senua’s experiences. In several sequences where one of the giants is pursuing Senua, other characters react as if they are seeing the same thing that she does. At one point, Thorgestr even throws a spear directly into the giant Illtauga, and the giant reacts as if she was struck. People openly proclaim that they have witnessed Senua definitively slaying giants. It is certainly difficult to rationalize why Thorgestr would throw a spear at volcanic activity.

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice was presented in a way where all of its content could be viewed as supernatural, or as a metaphor for Senua's inner struggles, and either was an equally valid interpretation. Hellblade 2 breaks this rule in both directions, as other characters confirm the reality of the first two giants, but they also confirm the falsehood behind the third ersatz giant.

The ending of Hellblade 2 foreshadows directions that Senua’s life could take, but it does little to clarify the past, as the narrative is left murky regarding the preceding events. It becomes clear that the third of the game’s giants is a manipulative ruse by Godi, the cruel leader of the slavers. This could suggest that the prior giants were also misinterpretations by people in a less scientific era, but this offers no satisfaction, since it begs the question of why Senua’s efforts, advocating as a speaker for the dead, would bring any change to weather patterns or volcanic activity.

The Unlockable Hellblade 2 Narration Was Wasted

Other Characters' Perspectives Could Have Made Another Playthrough Worthwhile

If Senua is not actually slaying true, supernatural giants that are associated with ill weather, there is no reason the weather would change, hence no justification for why she would be proclaimed a giant slayer. If players are intended to question whether everything is suspect, even statements and actions by other people, that renders the entire game less satisfying. Thorgestr’s arc depends on his view of Senua’s unique skills as a giant slayer as an alternative to slavery and human sacrifice. That conviction needs to be born of some external event. The new narrators offered a perfect time to unpack this.

Related Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 - All Lorestangir Locations To receive the Tales of Midgard achievement in Hellblade 2, Senua must find the Lorestangir: special collectibles that contain the tale of Grettir.

Despite all of Hellblade 2’s truly stunning presentation techniques, the game leaves many players more confused and frustrated with its narrative than the original. Learning that new narrators can take over for Senua on a repeat playthrough seems an enticing prospect, but this is due to the assumption that these narrators will provide a truly different perspective on the game’s events. Many players expected altered visuals as well, as events are portrayed from the viewpoint of Astridr or Fargrimr. Players never see things through those character’s eyes, or even receive spoken descriptions that clarify the literal truth of events, however.

Players who collect all 18 Lore Poles can unlock a third narration option by Druth, a scholar who was an important character in the original Senua's Sacrifice. For those who were already interested in multiple playthroughs of Hellblade 2, these alternate narrators provide slightly different experiences, but they are not worth multiple runs through the story solely for the alternate narration tracks.

Since bonds of trust are a major theme of Senua’s Saga, the unlocked narration options are not without artistic merit. They do provide some interesting insights into how Fargrimr’s views on the practice of slavery and human sacrifice initially clash with Senua’s, for example, and other interesting bits of characterization not revealed in the main game.

Still, given that most players would have expected a second playthrough to offer more concrete answers, akin to multiple playthroughs of games in the Nier series unraveling more of their stories, the feature was a disappointment. Hellblade 2 is certainly worth experiencing, but its alternate narrators do not add enough to justify a second run through the story.