The ending of the first Hellblade is one of the most poignant and bittersweet endings I've ever experienced in a game. It is a thoughtful meditation on letting go of grief, accepting things as they are, but with a hopeful tinge rather than a nihilistic one. It's an ending I've rewatched many, many times, just to appreciate it again - and how the game's many, many cool elements intertwine to make it special. It was an ending that made me think; as excited as I'd be for a sequel, this is also a story that I'd be happy to leave alone. It peaks beautifully as a standalone experience, and it says more about its central character and core themes than a sequel could ever hope to build upon.

The story of Hellblade 2 is not bad. It doesn't derail or in any meaningful way compromise the story of the first game or the character of Senua. But the whole way through, I kept asking myself 'what exactly was the need for this?' 'What point so sorely needed to be made that they absolutely had to revisit this character who we left on such a perfect note?' As the end credits roll and I sit here writing this; I don't think I've gotten an answer. This feels like something from the 360 generation, when a smash hit game gets a rushed out sequel that just inoffensively iterates on the original -- except this is not that. There is seven years and a console generation between these games.

To that end; the mechanics of actually playing this game are similarly unremarkable - and even calling them 'iterative' would be generous because they sincerely do not iterate in any meaningful way over the last game. As someone who likes this style of game (and loves the original!), I hope it's obvious that I do not hate short games, nor narrative focused linear games. But after all this time, to get a game that feels so painfully un-interactive EVEN RELATIVE to the first game is honestly confounding to me. You spend so much time walking in a straight line; with the gorgeously rendered environments barley having a sliver of optional track to inspect or explore. In particular the opening act serves as a terrible introduction as you are even blocked in by literal, old school invisible walls. When it does come time to actually, ya know, play the game in some respect; it is the same painfully dull combat as the last game. While the incredibly visceral, vivid audio/video presentation makes the combat feel gnarly, it is the exact same type of encounter we all got bored of before credits rolled in Hellblade 1. And that goes double, no, TRIPLE for the puzzles! There are some interesting ideas here, but there's also a tonne of slowly walking around spaces to align items in the world to create a symbol, which again; we were all bored off long before the first game was even half-over.

Beautiful soundtrack and envelope-pushing visuals* aside; this is one of my biggest disappointments in many, many years.

An additional note on the graphics; on Series S there is a lot of very noticeable fuzz around some surfaces and on some effects. I can best describe it as that sorta-FSR fuzz (although I don't know what actual tech is being used here, you know what I mean) on clouds and shadows. It is mostly ignorable and the game overall does look incredible, but in some key scenes it felt like the Little Console That Could was buckling a little bit.