Ninja Theory’s hugely successful and impactful Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is getting a sequel, as Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II was announced at the Game Awards last night alongside the reveal of the Xbox Series X – the new name and design for Project Scarlett.
Though it’s the second first party game to be revealed for the next-gen console – the first being Halo Infinite – it’s not clear if this is intended to be a launch title for the Series X when it arrives Holiday 2020, or if it’s intended for further into the next generation.
The in-engine trailer is a showcase for the next-gen console, showing off the raw power of Xbox Series X, which is four times more powerful than the Xbox One X. Targeting native 4K gaming and 60fps, the console also features hardware accelerated ray tracing, for startlingly realistic lighting, as shown in the trailer. Of course, in-engine does not mean in-game, but it was rendered in real time on an Xbox Series X and does look mighty impressive.
One thing that’s certain is that, though the game has been “built for the the new Xbox Series X”, it will also be coming to Windows 10 PC, as all Xbox Game Studios games now do. PCs have had ray tracing through Nvidia GPUs for over a year now, while AMD are expected to bring ray tracing in their next generation of GPU – the solutions in XSX and PS5 are semi-custom designs for AMD’s partners. Will Hellblade II be able to scale back down to Xbox One hardware, though?
While the first game was originally a PlayStation 4 exclusive, Hellblade II will likely remain attached to Microsoft’s platforms, depriving Sony fans of a continuation to Senua’s story.
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II is the second game announced by Ninja Theory since their acquisition by Microsoft in 2018. The first of these, Bleeding Edge, is a big change of pace for the company, taking their prowess with melee combat to the multiplayer arena with a 4v4 Hero Brawler. We went hands on with the game recently, and you can check out our preview here.
