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  • Unlike DmC: Devil May Cry, Hellblade isn't all about the combat. Combat is important

  • to Hellblade, but at its heart, Hellblade is about the journey and the struggle of Senua

  • on a mythical adventure.

  • In the famous book Don Quixote, the hero sees the world interpreted through madness, seeing giants instead of windmills, and in a similar way when you play

  • the game you experience the world through Senua's mind's eye. (Senua knows that there

  • is no going back to how things were) We like to think that we experience the world almost

  • like a high-definition photograph as it really is. Actually, a lot of the time what we're

  • doing is using what we already know to shape and govern what we perceive. If we recognise

  • that principle of how the brain functions. It may be that we can begin to understand

  • what happens in the context of psychosis, because psychosis can't easily be understood

  • as just some malfunction of the mind. It's actually a very creative process where somebody

  • constructs a world. (She has finally arrived at the land of mist and fog. The place the Northmen call 'hell')

  • In Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, I play a character called Senua,

  • who is a Celtic warrior who goes on a vision quest to the Viking heartland. It's a journey

  • of suffering, which can be quite dark and sometimes brutal. Everything that Senua sees

  • is shaped by visions from her own past, but also Viking mythology.

  • At the start of the project we researched as much as we could - Viking mythology, the art and culture, but

  • the more we looked into it the deeper we went, the more I started to feel like we were out

  • of our depth. So we reached out to Dr. Elizabeth Ashman Rowe, a leading scholar in the department

  • of Anglo Saxon Norse and Celtic from the University of Cambridge. We showed the game to Dr. Elizabeth

  • Ashman Rowe, and she gave us a lot of very detailed feedback on Norse art, culture and

  • myth. We realised that we could go a lot deeper on the Norse legend. She agreed to come on

  • board as consultant and presented a trove of reference materials to the team. I was

  • talking about idols, and we don't have a lot of them left. We hear many descriptions of wooden men, of sacrifices on poles.

  • The more we learned from Elizabeth, the more we wanted

  • to share these myths with you. So we created lore stones and scriptures that relate to

  • the Norse legend for you to find throughout Senua's journey. (The secret path along the

  • cliffs will take you to Gjallarbrú, the bridge that separates the living from the dead. The

  • roots of the tree of death will take you to new lands, where you will face the trials)

  • (Look around and you will see them. The drowned. The sick. Here they lie, rotting in the fields

  • and rivers of hell) I've often been struck by the sense that I get talking to people

  • with psychosis that they do feel themselves on a quest. It may be a figurative one, and

  • in some cases people actually experience a genuine physical quest. They're looking for

  • someone or something or some answer and with the feeling that if they can only achieve

  • that, there will be a release or a resolution to all of the things that are plaguing them.

  • (She will fulfil her vow. Whatever the cost) We've covered in previous diaries how we've

  • worked with experts, organisations and with people with lived experience to simulate

  • voice hearing and visions. Another lesser known aspect of psychosis is the ability to

  • see patterns and associations, and find meaning in them. One individual we spoke to told us in

  • vivid terms how this felt for him, where every day felt like a puzzle, the clues of which

  • were found in symbols, sounds, colours and visions in the world all around him. I and

  • my colleagues at Cambridge University have been doing a lot of work exploring how people

  • can use their prior expectations to increase their sensitivity to stimuli in their environment.

  • One of the very striking things that we found recently is that people with psychosis or

  • prone to experiencing psychotic symptoms may actually be remarkably good at that. Maybe

  • under some circumstances they're actually capable of using their prior knowledge to

  • really enhance the way in which they see patterns and put things together. The idea of illusion

  • and shifts in perception is common in both psychosis and Norse mythology. These ideas

  • form the backbone of the puzzle experiences in the game. But it's not just a gameplay

  • mechanic. Some of it is more experiential. Perhaps the wind is connected to your movement,

  • or just paying attention to something changes the way it sounds. A good example of where

  • perception changes gameplay is a section of the game where Senua loses her sight. She

  • must rely on sound and the barest of vision to navigate the world. One of the service

  • users we worked with told us about her experience with catatonia, where she felt completely

  • cut off from the world. So we put a section in the game where Senua can barely see or

  • hear anything, and as a player you have to try and find a way out of it. When I did the

  • body mocap for that section, I tried to perform everything with my eyes shut so that I could

  • get a sense of fear and anxiety. Hopefully you will feel this when you play the section.

  • We've now captured hundreds of animations to make Senua believable in both gameplay

  • and cutscenes. The decision to create a low cost mocap space in the studio has really

  • paid off, as otherwise the costs would've been prohibitive. Given the complexities of

  • intertwining mythology, backstory, art and gameplay, it took us longer than we expected

  • to get to this point. Now all of the story scenes have been captured, all of the VO recorded

  • and the gameplay is fully playable from start to finish. We now run dailies, where representatives

  • from art, story, sound, design, and gameplay are all present and we spend an hour every

  • day reviewing a section of the game, and that very day we implement everything that we can

  • think of to make it a polished experience. This is a process we're going to rinse and

  • repeat every single day until we've finished the whole experience. (She sounds too scared.

  • The breathing is good, it really gives you presence. The breathing has got to be timed

  • even when she's not scared) We've just completed our alpha milestone for Hellblade: Senua's

  • Sacrifice. That means that for the first time, you can now play the Hellblade experience

  • from beginning right through to the end. This however doesn't mean that the game is finished.

  • There's still a huge amount of work to be done, but all of the levels, gameplay and

  • story are now in place. It does mean that we can now focus on what really matters, and

  • that's the player experience. We look forward to bringing you another update soon.

Unlike DmC: Devil May Cry, Hellblade isn't all about the combat. Combat is important

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