Kudos to Ninja Theory for using next level motion capture, the sheer power of Unreal Engine 5 and layered binaural audio to deliver the bleakest, most miserable game since probably the first Hellblade.

Senua still can’t catch a break, starting the game enslaved and embarking on a journey of freeing ‘her people’ from giants and tyrants alike. Immediately the story feels less personal than the predecessor, rendering Senua a sort of Mad Max-esque tragic hero in the wrong place at the right time. It certainly makes those mean voices in her head feel less integrated with the story - and it still feels like doing a let’s play with the cast of The Favourite.

On the visual side of things, Hellblade 2 is a true spectacle, not only in terms of the performances and crisp environments but the dramatic lighting shifts and moody setpieces that change based on our hero’s mind. The lighting alone, whether cracks of sunshine through a dark cave or moonlight bouncing off the water, is sometimes enough to look like the real thing. And when the world looks as real as it does, those surreal moments - of faces in rocks, trees bending towards you, and caves opening up - are even more unsettling.

For that reason, the best puzzles are, like in the previous game, the ones that require finding symbols in the environment, looking at the scene in specific ways, lining up rocks with the broken mass of a ship and such similar things. They fit with the main theme that Senua sees the world differently. I enjoyed far less the puzzles in which you’re going back and forth interacting with ‘abstract bubbles’ to unlock a certain passage, realising you have to also go back and trigger a previous bubble to open the space in front of the one you just came through - it just sucks and feels like padding to make the game exceed the two hour mark. Speaking of padding, don’t even get me started on all the painstakingly long ‘walk and talk’ moments.

As with many games that aim to be a more cinematic experience, the movement and flow become compromised in favour of realistic motion from one moment to the next. The almost rhythm-based combat sequences sure look incredible, but I can see how the stiffness of all that ‘presentation’ can rub people up the wrong way. I found the small victories of defeating each enemy to be cathartic and satisfying, but the accumulation of samey animations over more than three or four enemies can be tiresome. The ‘boss fights’ with the giants in the second half are a lot more exciting than these sporadic swordfights scattered amidst the slow pacing.

As a milestone in gaming technology, it could be a must-play title, but Hellblade 2’s own worst enemy is itself, as it wrestles with risk of being too slow, too clunky and too depressing for its own good. And that’s coming from a Silent Hill 2 fan.