Art by Kiana Rezakhanlou
As the game awards season shifts into gear, I talk with Lara, head writer at Cambridge-based game studio Ninja Theory. Senua’s Saga looks to be following modestly in the award-littered trail blazed by Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, its critically acclaimed predecessor: ‘dominat[ing]’ the season in 2018, it took five awards in the BAFTAs alone, including the notable Best British Game and Games for Impact.
Are games art? The question has divided critics, players, academics and even the law, yet as the medium evolves with tech at the pace of pulse, the question falters. Games span artistic media: cinematography, animation, sound, performance, narrative and the literary blend with the tactile, scent in some VR experiences, even our heartbeats – all expressed through the ludic, that element of play. We participate in the narrative, are essential in ways that feel more involved than turning pages, watching, listening. We respond, decide, react, as the game world responds to us. Aesthetics blur into ethics. What is the protagonist to the player? Player to protagonist? How can we feel about them, as we compel them through their world, are compelled through it? As literature, performance, music and visual art move us, so too can games. They immerse us deeply in their worlds and ripple through ours, can be profound aesthetic experiences, foster isolation and community, be frivolous, engage us intensely – often incriminatingly – in moral, social and political knots (Spec Ops: The Line; The Last of Us 2; Depression Quest; Papers, Please). A more intriguing question, then, is – what is this artform capable of?
Lara describes Senua’s Saga as a ‘serious game’. The narrative unfolds through the experience of Senua, an eighth-century Pict warrior from the Orkney archipelago. Initially funded by the Wellcome Trust, Ninja Theory wanted to craft, foremost, a compelling work of ludic art with a compelling protagonist, Senua, at its heart – a character who also experiences psychosis. Without tokenising, reducing, demonising, idealising or exploiting the character or her experience – familiar terrain for representations of mental health in contemporary media – Lara tells me they wanted to ‘tell her story, responsibly’: further, though, Hellblade tries to express her experience of psychosis.
Saga picks up where Sacrifice left off. In Sacrifice, we move through razed villages and distorted, glinting wildernesses, as through Senua’s grief; her tortured grappling with an intolerable reality gives the game an emotional, phenomenal gravity. Senua’s journey in Sacrifice is solitary; her tale is told gradually, by voices that circle us, stand just behind us, hiss inside our heads. Through binaural audio design, we experience whispering, mocking Furies; the hacking, Celtic drawl of Senua’s friend, Druth – most chilling though, is The Shadow. He reverberates in your skull, deep and dark as tectonic plates shifting, seeping abuse in your mind like oil – an echo of Senua’s father, Zynbel. We learn that on returning from a year’s self-imposed exile to protect her lover, Dillion, from ‘the darkness’ Zynbel raised her to believe rots inside her, Senua found Dillion murdered by Blood Eagle ritual – his ribcage torn open from behind, hung and splayed out as sacrifice to the gods – and her village slaughtered by Northmen. Sacrifice is driven by Senua’s conviction to free Dillion’s soul from Hela; we descend into the depths of Helheim, playing through a world as rooted in historical accuracy and Norse mythology as it is formed, felt, and experienced by Senua. Sacrifice moves painfully to Senua’s emerging acceptance of Dillion’s death, her recognition of Zynbel’s violence, and reoriented perspective on her unique way of experiencing the world.
Saga opens with Senua’s shifted sense of herself, of her power, steeled to fulfil a promise – to herself, Dillion, Druth – to free her enslaved people from the Northmen who destroyed her world. The enslaver’s ship Senua stows away upon, though, splinters on Icelandic shores; bodies wash up around us. They glare. Beg. Scream. As she/we range across the cruel basalt cliffs and mountainous plains of ninth-century Iceland, Senua battles again with the abyssal horror the mind creates. Through elegant, sensitive writing, the ‘best tech in games and VFX’ alongside UE5 ‘deliver[ing] a game that has become a new visual standard’, and visceral bloodshed at the hands of human, giant, and god alike, we are soaked in Senua’s world – one she now shares with others.
Rosie: How did you come to be the one to write Hellblade II?
Lara: I worked at Ninja Theory for a while, but as a producer, not really in a creative role. But I did, as part of that role, do some research for the game, and worked with the original writer of the first game, on the beginnings of the second. And from him, took on some additional writing responsibilities. Then when he left, I was just best placed to write the game. I had very little experience writing beyond what I had worked with him on the first game. So, it was a bit of a gamble. But I’m glad people trusted me, to try, and it’s certainly been one of the most rewarding experiences of my professional life… having that opportunity to be creative, in a space that I’m already in love with, and committed to.
R: You’ve talked about this already, but how was it writing collaboratively, and you say it’s iterative. What was that like?
L: It’s simultaneously incredibly challenging and incredibly rewarding. You have a lot of different viewpoints to take on board, but obviously that expands the range of ideas available to you. And I feel sharing that responsibility lightens mine a bit; if we’re all committed to this, then we’re all responsible, for not only the story itself, but for executing it well. And having that sense of community with the other people in the team, really helped me not feel alone and not feel overwhelmed by how scary this new thing is. And, the process itself? It’s just back and forth, it’s iterative.
I naively thought, initially, that I would just write a script based on an outline that we’d agreed on and then they would take it and make it. But it’s nothing like that, at all, of course. You write the scenes you share for feedback, everyone has feedback on it. You know, game design will want opportunities to do something, and environment art… So, you take that feedback onboard, and you update the scene. I think the biggest job was making sure that all the bits of the game still felt like they pulled together, and [were] cohesive.
Lara goes on to tell me how there were ‘hundreds’ of versions of the script: ‘We just wanted to tell her story, responsibly, and bring in a few other ideas that we felt were important as well.’
R: What are some of those ideas?
L: I wanted to show the processes that underlie psychosis are shared by people who don’t have what we would term to be experiences of psychosis. I think I’ve spoken about this before, but to a certain extent, we all hallucinate the world, based on partial, visual hallucination. We are able to construct a version of the world, that really is only different from someone like Senua’s, in that it accords more with other people’s. But the process is still the same. So, I wanted to try to highlight that a little bit by showing that other characters in the game, that we would not term as having psychosis, are subject to having that kind of different perception as well. There’s a scene in a forest, where you can see Ástríðr and Thórgestr start to… feel differently to their environment about them. And Senua is the one who is able to – because she’s got experiences of being overwhelmed by her senses, and overwhelmed by the situation around her, giving them advice on how to persist, through it. So, that was important to me.
Ninja Theory committed to doing justice to Senua’s experiences, consulting experts across the field: most central were those with lived experience of psychosis, such as Eddy Maile, a peer-support worker for CPFT and active in the Trust’s Recovery College. They collaborated with Cambridge Neuroscience, particularly with psychiatrist and Professor of Neuroscience Paul Fletcher at the University of Cambridge – he and his team keen to be deeply involved with the project from its outset in 2014 – and Professor of Psychiatry Matthew Broome, approaching psychosis phenomenologically, at The University of Birmingham. Far from being an educational, therapeutic, or charitable tool though, Hellblade, as Dominic Matthews reiterates in an AIAS interview, is always, first, a game.
R: There are parts where Senua starts to doubt, or be aware of her responsibility and her own power. There are so many threads that reflect experiences of PTSD. Obviously, interwoven with psychosis, but, from what I know about PTSD, there’s this doubt. This nagging feeling of being victim and perpetrator. Was that on your mind, whilst writing Senua?
L: What was set up in the first game was that Senua feels responsibility for other people. That she has the power to bring about bad things to people. And that the curse she used to think she wore, could have an effect on other people as well. I think she came to a place at the end of the first game, where she was able to see that as not fundamentally true, I think that thought still haunts her? So, she does feel this burden of responsibility, and an overwhelming fear that she could be the agent of negative things for people. Something again we wanted to lean into in the second game was her empathy for other people, which is a part of that responsibility that she feels. I think [that] is a fundamental part of her journey, this sense that she does feel – not like a victim, but the subject of forces, but also that she is potentially a force herself.
R: One moment which I found resonant, and so subtle, is a point early in the narrative where Senua is plunged into the memory of finding Dillion’s body, experienced by the player in Sacrifice, decomposing in sunlight and strung horribly up. The voice of The Shadow, guttural and velvet, torments her: ‘Do you remember me, Senua? Did you think you could escape your past, Senua? You tried to run, didn’t you? […] You will never be free.’ Grief, pain, shudder through her face, as the refrain from the memory plays through our binaural audio, bringing with it an emotional potency that shocked me. The Furies though, here, challenge The Shadow: ‘Take your darkness with you. It’s yours. Control it.’ Senua chooses her meaning; ‘It’s a promise. Not a prison.’ The memory of Dillion’s tattered body reforms into a hung, bloodied corpse in the present, as she/we walk through the desecrated village; we realise we’ve been taken through an impression of being triggered into reliving one’s trauma.
Again, the threads of Senua’s trauma and her experiences of psychosis – they’re not extricable. About how we all construct our own worlds – something about this medium gets at processes of just being, experiencing the world, as they are for a person. It’s situated, not disembodied – this is the experience of Senua, and these things are arising for her, in all these complicated ways. I don’t know if it’s possible to articulate or express it, other than experiencing – this is probably the closest you could get. So: how does it feel to have written something that can express such inarticulable aspects of these kinds of experiences?
L: I don’t know how it feels, really. I know what you mean. I feel that games are a medium where you’re forcing the player to actively construct a world, actively construct meaning from that world. And to use that meaning to drive what they do next. In a way that you possibly don’t do with films or books, or anything like that. And an interactive medium like a game is forcing the player to read the situation and then decide how to behave. [The moment I describe above] is not a great example of that, because that was a moment that’s not particularly interactive. That’s a moment where we try to immerse you in Senua’s head, and let you feel what she’s feeling. To me that moment narratively is really important – this Senua, she’s growing, and is able to recognise that the darkest parts of her past still have meaning, and in fact, are the things that have made her, and brought her to the point where she is. And she wants to take that with her, rather than forget it. That, to me, was really important. And one of my favourite moments. Melina is incredible in that scene. So, I’m not sure if that’s a great example of the narrative uniqueness of games, but, I think that you get a bit of a step up, in terms of asking people to connect with a character, if you’re asking that player to be responsible for them, be the person that’s making choices and looking after them.
R: I did feel very connected to Senua. I was surprised about how much – it’s strange, just protective of her.
L: I think again – the big advantage is that we can we ask players to not only identify with that character, and feel scared if they’re physically threatened. But on top of that, you feel responsible for that person. So, in a way that maybe doesn’t work as well say in films, because you don’t really have that, ‘I am the one choosing what to do for this person’. We have that, double connection. So, you see the person as a person, but you also see them as yourself.
R: Why was it so important at this point in Senua’s journey to involve other people?
L: The first game was a journey through her past. And then a resolution and a promise, to that past. And fulfilling that promise, means helping other people, and that can be a very messy business. So, we wanted to show that messiness. It’s also showing Senua interacting with others, and influencing them, and how she negotiates that dual reality of her internal world, and the conflict that might have with other people’s. It’s just something we wanted to tackle. Because, it’s part of living. It was very important to us that her relationship with her experiences of psychosis not be a static thing either, because it’s a journey for most people, and, we wanted to show that dynamic relationship.
R: At some points – and Eddy talks about it too – things felt, overwhelming and confusing.
L: That’s entirely intentional. In the first game, because it’s not something that people had experienced before, having just the Furies felt overwhelming and confusing. Because it is overwhelming and confusing. Or it can be overwhelming and confusing. So, we were just continuing that trajectory I think, by trying to show how overwhelming it can be. But it’s not a static thing. The Furies can be helpful, they can be gentle. But they can also be hostile, distracting. All of those things. But, speaking to Eddy and other people with those lived experience of psychosis, was really helpful because it gave us a lot of hints about ways the Furies could react to other people. And some of those was providing a commentary on what those people were talking about.
R: The process of navigating voices, of balancing the turmoil inside with the chaos outside, is a theme running bright through Hellblade II. At times, the Furies gently support Senua and infuse her with confidence; ‘You can do this Senua. We believe in you. You are strong’, and help her: ‘look out! Behind you – move, move!’ At others, they join The Shadow in hissing abuse and eroding her sense of purpose; ‘you can’t do this. What were you thinking? Pathetic.’ And sometimes, they are just petty: ‘We’re not talking to you anymore.’ In the panel discussion, you talk about how you left space for the Furies to comment on the scripted conversation; they were largely unscripted. So, how was this aspect of the writing process? Were there moments anticipating what they might say that shaped the script? And do you think this writing process, in some ways, speaks to the confusing experience of navigating a dual reality, for Senua and others with experiences like hers?
L: Yes, it absolutely does. And I don’t think it was necessarily intentional, but those performances feel really… real. Because they are responding in real time to what is happening. So, the way it works, is that I am aware that the Furies will be commenting on pretty much everything. And – obviously a conversation in real life doesn’t wait for other voices to chime in. So, we just run the scenes as usual. But Mel knows that she’ll have the Furies speaking to her, so, we lean into moments where she looks distracted, where something important is being said, that the Furies would definitely have a response to. David García Díaz, he’s our audio director. He works with Helen and Abbi [voicing the Furies], primarily, as they have an existing relationship that goes back to Hellblade I. They work so well together. We’ll give them suggestions, prompts, for things they might like to highlight. But then let Helen and Abbi just run with it. Then David works to make sure he’s got what he needs, from them, from the recording session. And then, edits it into the game. So, we have a certain amount of freedom there to write a narrative for them. But it is very much improvised.
R: Though Senua has shifted in her way of relating to her reality, Hellblade II explores the threat of doubt that comes with healing, that terror of being on fire again: ‘I warned you. You are back there now. In the worst time of your life. The darkness is all that persists. There is no way out.’ Speaking from personal experience, Senua’s battle to stay in her new mental space felt very real to me. What were some challenges and affordances of the game medium in engaging with these experiences?
L: I think it’s that you can show and immerse, rather than tell. I think that’s a perk of an audio-visual medium. It was important to us that we show Senua’s viewpoint, Senua’s perspective on the world, Senua’s version of the world. We’re not saying what goes on outside that viewpoint, it’s just that viewpoint. So, if she’s shifting in-between moments, and things feel like they’re threatening to overwhelm the reality that she’s, the player, is existing in, that’s because that’s what it is for Senua. That reality is that threat of breaking down. That she feels so overwhelmed by memories, by visual stimuli, whatever is overwhelming her, we can show that just by literally showing it, which would be difficult to do in another medium.
Lara and I touch on how Saga’s game mechanics shape our sense of Senua’s version of the world: ‘part of the experience of psychosis that Senua has, is this ability to see meaning in a world where other people wouldn’t.’ We must find runic symbols in environmental puzzles, in hallucinogenic, pulsing distortions, which crack open our world in new ways; this is part, Lara says, of ‘our attempt to show how that kind of pattern-led, symbol-led drive might feel to experience.’ I ask about Lara’s experience of writing other aspects of Senua’s world.
L: I had such a good time, especially with writing some of the voices that get an opportunity to… provide more of a commentary, tell a story and wax a bit poetic. That stuff was interesting to me, because I had the opportunity to try and polish some lines to make them beautiful, in and of themselves. Rather than them being something that a character would say in that situation, which is what you work to most of the time in the script. You want to provide an in-character response that moves a story forward.
R: Yeah, dialogue and writing. It’s so different.
L: Completely. Completely. [Pause] Not that I really have any experience of either, really. Apart from the game! [Laughs]
R: Well, you do! You have a lot!
L: You do have the opportunity to relish the language a little bit more. Like with the narrator for instance, with the Hiddenfolk. Those voices were a joy to write. Because you are going for something that’s… that’s like poetry, that has the rhythm and the precision that you can hope to achieve, with poetry. So that was – god, I’m not saying I’m a poet, or anything like that. Not at all. But it was a joy to be able to spend some time making a more meditative kind of voice.
R: I’m so excited to delve into this more, in my own time – the mythology and folklore. I love it. What was it like to research?
L: That was absolutely brilliant, I had so much fun with it. You know it’s a dark game with dark subject matter, but that part of it for me was a joy, because it is so interesting, and we were able to move past the orthodox Norse mythology, the Edda, and into more of the folklore that’s quite idiosyncratic to Iceland. And then, we had a series of collectible items that you could pick up. So, there were the lore stones – lore poles in this, Lorestangir – that told a story from Grettir’s Saga, which is one of the Icelandic Sagas. And we chose that because there are points of similarity between the journey that that character makes, and Senua’s. So, we could use that as a way of highlighting certain parts of Senua’s journey, bringing those to the fore. But in quite a subtle way, only there if you wanted to do them. And then there were trees as well, that you could look for hidden faces.
That was really interesting to research, because we were looking for – almost creation myths, or ways which people tried to explain natural phenomena, through gods and spirits. I liked that I didn’t limit myself to just Norse or Celtic mythology, that we went a bit further afield – that was a fascinating journey, as well. Again, that was to highlight, if you wanted to pay attention to it, one of the themes of the story, which is the kinds of ways of constructing reality that people, people we would consider ordinary people, might have.
R: The tree sequences, the tone felt hopeful – the pace felt different. And there was something lovely about seeing trees grow, in the often-hellish setting of Saga.
L: It was intentionally constructed to be a little beautiful moment that you could find in not very nice places. And, our voice actor, has such a lovely voice.
R: This is a very limited question. Loosely, someone’s phenomenological world can be taken as their subjective experience of the world as it appears to them. Would it be fair to say that Hellblade gets at the phenomenological world of Senua?
L: Absolutely one-hundred-percent that is exactly what we’re trying to do.
R: Excellent. Good.
L: Not anything outside that. Exactly Senua. Her… her world.
R: It’s really… beautiful. Thank you.
Lara thanks me in turn, not least for approaching the game with ‘seriousness’, and a ‘genuine kind of curiosity and intellectual analysis.’ She calls it refreshing, cool, even. Though not without criticism – and what art is? – Saga has been critically and commercially well-received, reflected in its recognition this season so far. Making the longlist cut for the 2025 BAFTAs on the 10th and taking home two wins out of four nominations at The Game Awards on the 12th – Best Audio Design and Best Performance – Saga also held four nominations in The Golden Joysticks and eight more in the TIGA’s, where it was granted the Diversity Award. Next year, alongside the BAFTAs, I hope to see Saga recognised in the Annie, D.I.C.E, and NAVGTR awards.
The Hellblade series opens up horizons for what can be possible in games, and interdisciplinary portals between the arts, sciences, humanities, and lived realities. It is now used in medical training, research, has sparked conversation about burgeoning avatar therapy, and has enabled people who experience the world like Senua to share it, often for the first time, with others who don’t. Excruciatingly depicted, Hellblade II doesn’t flinch from the brutality of living, nor from expressing how deeply meaningful, and real, Senua’s experiences are. We move through them with her, beyond empathy, as our worlds meld, as insight into what we don’t share blurs into appreciation of what we do. Hellblade II finds joy and hope in being alive amid nightmares, giving us an experience that feels profound.
By Rosie Williams
The Camera 