A new developer diary from the Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice team offers a better look at Ninja Theory’s approach to designing the combat mechanics for its next big action game. And it sounds like the studio is giving just as much attention to the intricacies of swordplay as it did to the tiniest facial detail when redesigning the protagonist ofHellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice ’s.
For those who aren’t familiar, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is the next big project from Ninja Theory; a studio best known for its work on DmC: Devil May Cry , Heavenly Swordand the now-defunct Disney Infinity franchise . The game follows the journey of Senua, the only confirmed survivor of a horrific massacre. She has reason to believe she may not be the only person who survived the unseen attack, and must overcome mental trauma (and possible psychosis) so she can save the one ally she may have left.
Our latest look at Hellblade comes courtesy of the 23rd entry in Ninja Theory’s ongoing developer diary series. This week, the studio is focusing on its approach to combat and the ways Ninja Theory hopes to use visual cues to replace the health bars (and other UI items) we’ve come to expect from traditional action games. Whether or not the studio’s approach proves popular with fans remains to be seen.
Check out the Trailer:
“Over the past six weeks or so our small team of 16 people has been focused on taking some big strides forward with the look, feel and sound of Hellblade’s combat gameplay. This has included painstaking work from our combat designer to iterate over and over on the feel of Senua’s moves in battle, the blending of motion-captured stunts with hand-animation to bring through both character and realism in Senua’s movement, and the building of an environment in which to demo Senua’s new skills.
And that’s not to mention the character art, FX, audio, cinematics and programming time that has gone into moving our game’s combat further along the road to completion. We still have a long way to go, but we’re happy with the progress that we’re making.”
More info at – Source
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is available now
Grand Theft Auto 6 will launch in fall 2025.
A Nintendo Switch trailer was also released.