Was Senua's Sacrifice also done by Ninja Theory?
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Hugues Giboire, art director of previous Ninja Theory game "Heavenly Sword", returned to work on the game. A Microsoft Windows version of the game was announced on January 9, 2015. The game is powered by Unreal Engine 4, and was made by Ninja Theory with a team of around twenty developers. Its subtitle, "Senua's Sacrifice", was announced in March 2016. "Hellblade: Senua's Psychosis", a short documentary film included with the game, details the concept behind its story and inspirations, notably the team's study of mental illness. It was written and narrated by Antoniades, and edited by Juergens.
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
43577855#0
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is a dark fantasy action-adventure game developed and published by the British video game development studio Ninja Theory. Self-described as an "independent AAA game", it was created by a team of approximately twenty developers led by writer and director Tameem Antoniades. It was released worldwide for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 4 in August 2017, with an Xbox One version in April 2018. The game features support for virtual reality, which was added in an update in 2018.
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
43577855#18
Operating on a much smaller budget with "Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice" than their previous games, Ninja Theory went out of their usual ways to film the cut scenes of the game. Instead of going to bigger studios and having a team of approximately 20 people film several actors together, like they did in the past, they filmed only Juergens in a small space, with only three other people needed on set: Antoniades directing and filming, one person to look after the audio, and one person to look after the motion capture process. To save more money, the team used equipment described by Antoniades as "fairly cheap", including material bought at a low price at IKEA and on Amazon. As a further cost-saving measure, they used their own boardroom for the motion capture scenes, rather than using external motion capture studio spaces.
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
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While only released in digital form, "Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice" was a commercial success. It was the best selling game on the PlayStation Store in Europe for the month of its release. According to director Tameem Antoniades the game sold "better than expected" and broke even in approximately three months, ahead of the six to nine months the developers expected. "PC Gamer" stated about "Hellblade"s success that "the news can only be positive. Perhaps if other developers see an experimental game like "Hellblade" finding commercial success then they'll be more likely to take risks on their own titles—and that, ultimately, will lead to more interesting games". To celebrate World Mental Health Day on October 10, 2017, Ninja Theory donated all profit made from the sales of "Hellblade" on that day to Rethink Mental Illness. By June 2018, the game had sold over a million copies across all three platforms.
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
9909905#14
The failure of "Razor", and questions from Garland about why the gaming development scene did not have many independent projects similar to the independent film industry prompted the team to begin to evaluate the idea of "independent AAA", where the team would own the intellectual property and publish the game themselves without mainstream game publishers. The game would still have high production values but would be sold at a lower price. The team firmly believed that there was "a middle ground between the low budget pure indie development and AAA [projects]". The team opted not to use Kickstarter having decided to fund it themselves. This led to the creation of "", which had a team of only 15 people working on it. Since the game had a small budget, the studio did not promote the game heavily with advertisements instead creating numerous developer diaries for players who were interested in it. The team collaborated with several technology companies like 3Lacteal, Cubic Motion and Xsens to help with motion capture, which allowed the actors to preview their performance while acting. In September 2016, Ninja Theory announced their Senua Studio division, which would work on real-time virtual character technology. As the game explored mental illness and psychosis, the company consulted professional neuroscientists and obtained financial backing from the Wellcome Trust. After a three-year development cycle "Hellblade" was a critical success when it launched in August 2017, with praise for its depiction of mental illnesses. The game was also a commercial success, becoming profitable within three months of its release, generating more than $13 million with sales of more than 500,000 units. The game was nominated for five awards at the 14th British Academy Games Awards. Antoniades considered the critical acclaim validation that the independent AAA business model worked.
Ninja Theory
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Michael Briers of "PlayStationLifeStyle.net", stated that, "by working closely with neuroscientists and those unfortunate few who have been diagnosed as psychotic, "Hellblade" carefully avoids those cheap, half-assed tropes that render a character insane and, therefore, woefully one-dimensional. Not only does it act as a disservice to those who suffer with mental illness, this practice of painting in broad strokes only minimizes the room for nuance, but "Senua’s Sacrifice" boldly cuts through the white noise". Leif Johnson of "PC Gamer" praised the gripping depiction of a character suffering from psychosis, stating "Ninja Theory uses haunted eyes to full effect in long, moody closeups peppering the narrative. [Senua] peers not only into the darkness, but seemingly past the camera, past the screen. Looking back, I found depths of despair and anger there that were sometimes hard to meet head on [...] Some people would crumble under such pain. But still Senua fights. It's a little inspiring."
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
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Reid McCarter of "PC Gamer" strongly defended Ninja Theory's move, calling it "great game design and a modern expression of unreliable narration". He stated "As the story progresses, the nature of the corruption becomes clearer as the player comes to understand a correlation between Senua’s backstory and psychology and the way they perceive the game’s dangers. It is a beautifully executed bit of narrative design, game systems and story working in tandem." "PCGamesN" called it a "clever decision", as it "focuses on Senua’s own fear of her enemies and degrading mental state". "Eurogamer" called it "a cool trick that makes the player feel a sense of dread as they're playing the game. Dread, anxiety and death are all themes "Hellblade" revolves around. It certainly fits".
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
102676#39
In 2017 Ninja Theory used binaural recording techniques for the video game . This was done to immerse the player in the mindset of the player character, Senua, who is affected by psychosis and hears multiple voices in her head.
Binaural recording
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Antoniades admitted that during his research, he "didn't have to look very far to discover my own ignorance of the subject". To portray psychosis properly, Ninja Theory "consulted world-leading neuroscientists and non-profit organizations like Wellcome Trust to properly capture the experience of psychosis and its devastating effects on the human mind". Antoniades "learnt that people can experience hallucinations and delusional beliefs without it being a problem – the illness comes when those experiences cause suffering. Often the recovery is not about curing yourself of hallucinations, but finding ways to live with them. That was a revelation to me".
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
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Experts who worked closely with the team include Professor Paul Fletcher from the University of Cambridge, and writer and psychologist Professor Charles Fernyhough from the University of Durham, an expert on voice hearing. Ninja Theory received funding for the game from the Wellcome Trust, who also helped them creatively in their depiction of mental illness, notably by helping them to get in contact with people suffering from it. They also worked with a "recovery college", an establishment which acts as both a health facility, and a college for its patients. Antoniades was marked by the story of "a girl who has to live with an angry voice screaming at her, slamming on her doors and walls 24 hours a day. That's someone who would often see corpses hanging in the room, so real that they would sometimes try to rescue them"; this inspired several events featured in the game as well.
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
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"Hellblade" was announced for the PlayStation 4 at Sony's Gamescom media briefing on August 12, 2014, where a trailer was shown. In a joint statement, Ninja Theory described the game as "an experience focused on delivering a deep character in a twisted world, with brutal uncompromising combat", and stated that they wanted to "make a smaller, more focused game experience that is uncompromising in its combat, art and story". The developers called it an "independent AAA game", with their goal being to make a game with all the qualities and production values of any AAA game on the market, but with creative freedom and an "indie spirit". The team eventually succeeded in releasing the game independently, but to achieve this could only release it via digital distribution.
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice