Purely as a narrative, this game is amazing. Gaming in general is still quite immature when it comes to meaningful and complex narrative, and Hellblade II (like its predecessor) makes that abundantly clear with its incredible writing and presentation. Unfortunately, it never quite marries its gameplay with the narrative.

It's combat is not complex, but it conveys that feeling of being on the backfoot in a desperate fight enough that I don't mind it too much. The puzzles vary from brain dead easy to good enough, but never anything great. All of that's fine, I'm here for the narrative, but truthfully I would prefer if they totally ditched these weaker elements and just gave us a somewhat interactive film style game instead. I can see the critical response to something like that would be, but the alternative is to make meaningfully engaging gameplay instead.

I can't complain too much though, since for most of the runtime I was enraptured by the narrative and setting unfolding in front of me with relentless pacing, pacing that finds the right moments to take a breather, and the right moments to not give the player a moment of respite. The only real moments that hampered it is when my gamer brain activated to find that next lore collectible in some branching path, rather than engaging with the dialogue and world around me. Thankfully those moments were brief, and the collectibles at the very least felt like rewarding curiosity in the world from a narrative sense (albeit not a gameplay sense).

Overall a good time that I can easily recommend to gamers seeking a narrative or who otherwise engage with films like The Northman and Green Knight (hell, even the very direct The Descent homage), but not a game I can recommend to someone who seeks a high skill ceiling or deep mechanics in a game.