Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice Is Now Available on Steam

Megalith

Megalith

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Ninja Theory’s “Triple Indie” game Hellblade debuts today on PC (and PS4). I rarely ever buy a game at launch, but I may just go ahead and grab this one, being that the title is only half the typical asking price: it’s pretty amazing what the developers appear to have pulled off, considering the small size of the 20-member team. In Hellbade, you play as a broken Celtic warrior who embarks on a haunting vision quest into Viking Hell to fight for the soul of her dead lover. One interesting mechanic is that your save file gets deleted if you die too many times.
 
cyclone3d said:
So does that mean you need to manually back up your save files?
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To avoid permadeath it sounds like you would be correct. That being said I heard that some players beat it and died about 6 times and was only 3/4 of the way to permadeath so not sure how big of an issue it is. Not a fan of permadeath myself, should have been an option for insane difficulty or some iron man mode.
 
Not a fan of perma-death either but it seems the game self adjusts the difficulty level and isn't very long anyway so it should not be an issue for a large percentage of gamers.

I'll pick it up when it's $10-$15, I'll probably need a better GPU to play at my resolution anyway.
 
I have no idea what this game is about, but I need something new and this seems to be winning accolades. Purchased.

(Of course, it may end up on the pile of "Steam games I bought and haven't played," but 'tis the hazard of Steam...)
 
So, apparently the perma-death thing is not exactly true. The devs were bluffing about it, for some stupid reason. Either way, the game seems interesting but I have too many other things to play right now.
 
Megalith said:
Ninja Theory’s “Triple Indie” game Hellblade debuts today on PC (and PS4). I rarely ever buy a game at launch, but I may just go ahead and grab this one, being that the title is only half the typical asking price: it’s pretty amazing what the developers appear to have pulled off, considering the small size of the 20-member team. In Hellbade, you play as a broken Celtic warrior who embarks on a haunting vision quest into Viking Hell to fight for the soul of her dead lover. One interesting mechanic is that your save file gets deleted if you die too many times.
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Kind of a crappy mechanic to delete save game but one can easily just backup the saves. Regarding the game, graphics look awesome and so does the price. I wonder how much game play you get though. I have it on my Steam wish list but am waiting for some feedback. Been burned too many times so not keen on pre-odering any digital content.
 
Played last night when it launched. Thing is gorgeous. Creepy and really cinematic. Didn't turn on a FPS counter but it felt smooth at 1440p max settings. The game does warn you about permadeath when you die the first time. I find this completely acceptable for a single player play once type of game.
 
wife is playing it tonight on the home theater system. I HIGHLY suggest doing it with the lights off. The voices..they are everywhere!
 
I recommend good earphones unless you have a really, really good speaker setup. I was missing what a lot of the voices were saying at first until I switched to headphones.

First full price game in quite some time for me. So far it seems worth it.
 
I have an issue with the game. Maybe someone can help ...cough... Durante? ... cough... The game has an annoying blur all over, looks like heavy FXAA, which can't be disabled. However, turning on Ansel removes the blur and reveals sharp crisp textures, especially Senuas face. If you thought she looked great before, turn on Ansel, zoom in on her face and than be annoyed of how bad she actually looks in-game.
 
Gorankar said:
I recommend good earphones unless you have a really, really good speaker setup. I was missing what a lot of the voices were saying at first until I switched to headphones.

First full price game in quite some time for me. So far it seems worth it.
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I'm a huge headphone gamer myself, but I love watching my wife play video games (she's a hilariously funny dark souls/indie game player that panics a lot) and sharing the sound in this game is fun. I only have a semi decent 5.1 setup with a nice sub and all and this game REALLY does it well. The voices go to seperate channels beautifully and there was several times we actually looked behind us because of a noise (fire crackling, etc) behind us.
 
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Good looking game at the very least, it's apparently not super long hence it being more Movie priced than Game priced which is a good idea. The binaural audio presentation for the voices in your head is quite good to.
 
zkostik said:
Kind of a crappy mechanic to delete save game but one can easily just backup the saves. Regarding the game, graphics look awesome and so does the price. I wonder how much game play you get though. I have it on my Steam wish list but am waiting for some feedback. Been burned too many times so not keen on pre-odering any digital content.
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Game seems quite good from the 2 hours I've played it. Audio and visual presentation is intense. Fight mechanics are seamless and flow naturally. There is a puzzle mechanic for unlocking doors to progress that involves looking for patterns and lining them up in the environment that I find very rewarding. Everything about the game is tied to how you perceive the world and it's very refreshing. There is no GUI; game feedback instead is accomplished through the voices Senua hears in her head and some visual cues that are very natural. This game basically takes mechanics from different games and adds an interesting spin to them to create something very unique.
Nandiman said:
I have an issue with the game. Maybe someone can help ...cough... Durante? ... cough... The game has an annoying blur all over, looks like heavy FXAA, which can't be disabled. However, turning on Ansel removes the blur and reveals sharp crisp textures, especially Senuas face. If you thought she looked great before, turn on Ansel, zoom in on her face and than be annoyed of how bad she actually looks in-game.
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Everything looks clean and crisp to me. The game starts in Borderless Windowed by default. Maybe try changing it to full screen.
Kor said:
3098C7AE9577CD81B246C1FF0D8196CB1CEDE98A


Good looking game at the very least, it's apparently not super long hence it being more Movie priced than Game priced which is a good idea. The binaural audio presentation for the voices in your head is quite good to.
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You should turn the gamma down in the game settings. You're really losing out on the presentation with it being that bright.
 
Maybe I'll grab this; love audio. When's the last time the audio of a game was a selling point?
 
Does this have controller support? I was planning on using headphones but if the surround sound is this good I'll play in my theater.
 
Design1stcode2nd said:
Does this have controller support? I was planning on using headphones but if the surround sound is this good I'll play in my theater.
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Yes, I was playing it with my Xbox One Elite controller. I don't know if it supports anything else, though. Will try my DS4 tonight. I also don't recall if you are able to remap controls.
 
Armenius said:
Yes, I was playing it with my Xbox One Elite controller. I don't know if it supports anything else, though. Will try my DS4 tonight. I also don't recall if you are able to remap controls.
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OK good I use an X Box One controller for 3rd person titles usually.
 
As someone who knows nothing about this game, what's the closest AAA game you could compare this too?
 
Armenius said:
Game seems quite good from the 2 hours I've played it. Audio and visual presentation is intense. Fight mechanics are seamless and flow naturally. There is a puzzle mechanic for unlocking doors to progress that involves looking for patterns and lining them up in the environment that I find very rewarding. Everything about the game is tied to how you perceive the world and it's very refreshing. There is no GUI; game feedback instead is accomplished through the voices Senua hears in her head and some visual cues that are very natural. This game basically takes mechanics from different games and adds an interesting spin to them to create something very unique.

Everything looks clean and crisp to me. The game starts in Borderless Windowed by default. Maybe try changing it to full screen.

You should turn the gamma down in the game settings. You're really losing out on the presentation with it being that bright.
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Thanks, I think I'll buy it. Been contemplating whether to get another game, still playing through Prey and myriad others. Steam game buying addiction is hard to cure. lol
 
Nytegard said:
As someone who knows nothing about this game, what's the closest AAA game you could compare this too?
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I was trying to think of something to compare it to when I was talking to people at work today, and I really couldn't think of anything. It's that unique.
 
Armenius said:
Everything looks clean and crisp to me. The game starts in Borderless Windowed by default. Maybe try changing it to full screen.
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Turn on Ansel, zoom in on Senuas face, and you will see how much detail you are losing because of the blur. Suddenly, the game will no longer look as crisp and clean as before, because your eyes were opened to the truth. Some clever people have already found ini tweaks to help with the issue.


however it involves either turning off AA, which removes the blur, but all the jaggies come out to play (not to mention all the shimmering on foliage, fur and hair), or turn off chromatic aberration (called color fringe here) which also removes most of the blur, and a lot of people proly want turned off immediately, however I feel that the color distortions are part off Senuas illusions, and would prefer it on myself.
 
I usually turn off all the blur/chromatic abberation etc myself. but this game was clearly designed to be extremely cinematic and those effects are a part of it.

It's one of those pre-orders I don't regret, I followed the development closely and they did not disappoint :)
 
After seeing some benchmarks I may need to wait on this title. My 1070 is not going to be able to handle this at 3400x1400.
 
Design1stcode2nd said:
After seeing some benchmarks I may need to wait on this title. My 1070 is not going to be able to handle this at 3400x1400.
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I dont have a 4K monitor. and I can't tell if DSR is working or not, I can select 4K reoslutions from the options, but I still get rock solid 60 fps, so I assume DSR is not working properly (or the game is better optimized than Doom :p)
 
if your save file gets deleted if you die too many times then it's obvious the developer made the game fairly easy...no way would they risk making the majority of people go through a new game to progress
 
Some site died like 50 times and was still able to load so I'm not sure about the perma death. Its' only an 8 hour game I really doubt anyone would have an issue.
 
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