Senua's Saga: Hellblade II Releases on |The Game Awards 2023

John Elden Ring

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In-game cinematics and gameplay captured by the team on Xbox Series X, with music by Heilung. The sequel to the award winning Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, Senua returns in a brutal journey of survival through the myth and torment of Viking Iceland. Intent on saving those who have fallen victim to the horrors of tyranny, Senua faces a battle of overcoming the darkness within and without.
 

Sircaw

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I feel like I am going to end up being more depressed than Senua if I end up playing this game.

the environments are so bleak looking.

Facial animations look really good.

As far as i remember people said the combat was rubbish in the first one, hopefully, they have improved it.

Otherwise, it looks very solid.
 
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KiryuRealty

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28 Nov 2022
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Where it’s at.
t I feel like I am going to end up being more depressed than Senua if I end up playing this game.

the environments are so bleak looking.

Facial animations look really good.

As far as i remember people said the combat was rubbish in the first one, hopefully, they have improved it.

Otherwise it looks very solid.
It’s Ninja Theory.

You’ll get sometimes-stunning visuals, technical issues and shit gameplay.
 
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Yurinka

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Most of the video seems either CG or cutscenes, or are gameplay portions with an empty background with maybe only one or two enemies. In any case, the visuals look great.

I'd like to see a portion of maybe a minute or two of uncut gameplay (not cutscenes) combat. I think there's an important part of the video that apparently is gameplay but in reality is gameplay.
 

Darth Vader

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Looks very good, but let's see how much of those are bullshots vs actual gameplay. Forza Motorsport was also running on Xbox Series X and then was downgraded to hell and back, to the point where it looks worse than Forza Motorsport 7 in certain scenarios.

Edit: After watching in full-screen
  • 00:21 - Ground textures don't look any better than those on Death Stranding Directors Cut on the PS5 (nevermind PC maxed out)
  • 00:27 - Foliage density has nothing on Plague Requiem or HFW. It's passable. Also, loads of artifacts in the foliage, I didn't pixel count, but there's no way this is 4k, at least without VRS and/or Upscaling
  • 00:35 - Draw distance is great
  • 00:47 - Lighting looks great here
  • 01:01 - Gameplay moment. This looks good, but honestly, not amazing. Go check the WLF invasion of the Scars island in TLOU PT2, where illumination and effects kinda have the same aesthetic, and you'll see that this doesn't look impressive.
  • 01:08 - Those water effects look like ass
  • 01:11 - Lighting looks great here.
  • 01:12 - Fire looks fantastic, probably some of the best I've seen in a game.
  • Then there's more of the same.
Additional:
  • Alpha effects look ok.
  • The video is somehow low quality, and it doesn't seem like a Youtube compression issue. I watched this in 4k. It's like there's some smudging on top of everything.
  • There's some weird subsurface scattering going on in the character's face. It doesn't look fantastic compared to many other games.
  • Texture work varies between ok and very good, however what we've seen is mostly under dark conditions. I wonder if the game is mostly set on a "night" setting, or if it's just to hide weird textures.
  • Overall, I don't see this as the best looking game. It has moments of brilliance, and I'd argue it has the best fire effects in any game, but as a whole, no chance. There's plenty of games that do most of this better.
Another edit: Forgot to say that if this game is not open-world, it becomes even less impressive.

Basically best looking game at the show and will probably dominate best looking game for this entire generation.

Sure Jan GIF
 
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Ezekiel

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How have they managed to show so many trailers and teasers for the past 4 years, and yet it's always the same shit : slow walking forward, even slow-motion now, extreme close-ups on faces, etc.

They've now shown a bit of the combat, and it looks exactly like the first one.

Image quality noticeably softer too, probably because "captured from series box".

MS still all about announcements and no games or even release dates. PlayStation looking absolutely STACKED for the next 3 months.
 

Ezekiel

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Basically best looking game at the show and will probably dominate best looking game for this entire generation.
I mean, is it that impressive if you barely have any interactivity and the game has been under development for 5+ years? If all this ends up being is a UE5 glorified tech demo, then cool I guess?
 
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