Why Hellblade 2 is more than a video game – BBC News

Visit any video game developer a week before the latest major release and there will be questions hanging in the air.

Will people like it? How high will the ratings be?

But when BBC Newsbeat visits Ninja Theory’s studio a week before the release of Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2, another question arises.

These teams’ games didn’t sell as many copies as Call of Duty, EA FC or Hogwarts Legacy, but they were popular with many. They were important to the fans.

So what does this mean for Ninja Theory, a developer that falls squarely into this category?

At least for now, studio boss Dom Matthews tells Newsbeat they have something else in mind.

“We are very focused on the release of Hellblade 2,” he says.

“We’re super proud of the game we’ve created and we’re just excited to spend this day together and for the fans to get their hands on the game and enjoy what we’ve created.”

It’s a day that’s been a long time coming.

The studio’s previous game, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, was released in 2017 and was developed by a team of around 20 people.

One of them was Melina Juergens, the company’s video editor, who eventually took over the lead role of Senua after the original actress dropped out.

“My job has always been to be behind the scenes,” she tells Newsbeat.

“That’s why I was terrified of performing in front of people and being in front of the lens.”

Although it was Melina’s first time acting, she won a Bafta Game Award for her performance – one of five awards that Ninja Theory took home for Hellblade 1.

It received widespread praise for how it treated Senua’s psychosis – a condition that can cause people to hear voices, see things other people don’t, and have unique views about the world.

It’s also something Melina herself experienced in her early twenties, which she describes as “a time of pure terror.”

“I heard whispers and could see dead people and things like that,” she says.

“So it was a very scary time.”

Melina says portraying Senua was a chance to “use my experiences to do something useful.”

“And it felt almost therapeutic.”

According to Prof. Paul Fletcher, a neuroscientist at Cambridge University who worked on both games, the media has a spotty track record when it comes to psychosis.

While there are some good examples, he says there are also “many cases where psychosis is used almost as shorthand for someone behaving very crazy, possibly dangerous and violent.”

“And I think that should always be questioned.”

Prof Fletcher says he was persuaded to work with Ninja Theory because of their determination to avoid misrepresentation.

He says he also realized “how valuable video game experiences can be, drawing people in and giving them experiences they might not have had otherwise.”

Both Hellblade games feature hallucination sequences and rely heavily on audio to recreate what it’s like to live with psychosis.

The Ninja Theory team worked with Prof. Fletcher and a group of experienced patients to ensure the representation was as accurate as possible.

The first game was more of a solo quest, but Hellblade 2 introduces new characters and explores the impact of Senua’s interactions with them on her psychosis.

Studio director Dom says the aim was to reflect that mental health is often a “journey”.

“It’s not static,” he says, adding that the first game was about Senua “experiencing psychosis and really understanding it for the first time.”

This time, he says, she has “some level of understanding and acceptance of these experiences.”

“They are no less strong, but there is a different balance of power there. So it was really interesting to explore that.”

Hellblade 2 is also a technological advancement. Since 2017, the team has moved into a new, bespoke studio with its own motion capture stage and audio studios.

The first game also used motion capture, but was recorded in a boardroom in Ninja Theory’s old office.

To emphasize this, Dom says the team spent two days recording combat footage for the first game. The second one was 69 days.

They also spent time shooting and sometimes even making real costumes and props to scan digitally to increase the immersion of Hellblade 2.

And this time there was a much larger team responsible for performance capture, including stunt coordinators and other specialists.

For Melina, returning to the role with a much larger team was initially daunting.

“There were a lot more eyes on me,” she says.

Some scenes, such as a swimming sequence early in the game, were physically demanding.

Melina remembers hanging from the ceiling most of the day.

“You have to really tense all the muscles in your body and be in a constant plank position,” she says.

Both Dom and Melina say the hard work to spread understanding about psychosis is worth it.

In addition to the Bafta trophies on the studio shelves and award certificates on the walls, Ninja Theory also collects awards from fans touched by their games.

“There were some really nice quotes in there,” says Melina.

“One person said that her brother was always ashamed of her because she suffered from psychosis.

“And after playing the game, he said he could finally understand her and apologized to her.

“So it’s very heartwarming to hear things like that.”

There are hundreds of stories like this about Hellblade 1 on forums and social media sites.

Dom thinks there’s now a greater focus across the gaming industry on “lived experiences finding their way into games and being used as a vehicle to tell people’s stories,” but he says he’s not sure sure if Ninja Theory can do all the credit for that.

However, Prof. Fletcher says he believes Hellblade has had an influence.

Today he uses the game as a teaching tool and believes it has helped raise awareness of psychosis.

Although he feels like he’s never achieved much in trying to combat stigma alone, he says the explosion of respectful, thoughtful discussions in response to the first game left him “extremely surprised and excited.”