Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 [XBSX|S, PC, XGP]

[Johnny Awesome]

I gave the 1st game a 9/10 so I know I'm going to love this one. Short is a feature, not a bug for me.

 

[iroboto]

Played the prologue on PC. Runs very well on my admittedly high end PC (max settings, 4k DLSS Quality => 80-120fps). Graphics look very good - even on lower settings - although it's fair to expect a higher level of polish with such a linear/scripted/cinematic game. HDR looks nice on my new OLED monitor. You can change any of the graphics settings live and see how they affect both performance and the current frame. Audio is neat with headphones, as with the first game.

Hey Andrew, not looking to put you on the spot. But curious if HB2 is representative of the internal team targets Epic had with UE5?

Like is there a discussion happening that is along the lines of “yes, this was always the goal, and we finally see the fruits of our labour?” Or is there an expectation that even more should be achievable ?

 

[Remij]

Hey Andrew, not looking to put you on the spot. But curious if HB2 is representative of the internal team targets Epic had with UE5?

Like is there a discussion happening that is along the lines of “yes, this was always the goal, and we finally see the fruits of our labour?” Or is there an expectation that even more should be achievable ?

I was wondering that too! Hellblade 2 is the first game that makes me feel like I'm playing "Lumen in the Land of Nanite" tech demo quality visuals in a game. It's extremely impressive.

I think regardless of what he says, it's got to be pretty good feeling for them that so much of their hard work has allowed something like that to be created. It's clearly one of the best looking games out by a pure rendering perspective, and it runs very well and doesn't have any big technical issues on any platform. That's rare these days.

 

[Globalisateur]

View attachment 11343View attachment 11342

Taken not via the photo mode, but by xbox share fonction.

The amount of CA is offensive. On those 2 pics the graphics are neither impressive nor pretty. Everything is super blurry. This is worse looking than both Ryse: son of Rome and The order: 1886. Do I need to look at others more impressive pics?

 

[Scott_Arm]

Spoilers but very high quality video.

 

[Karamazov]

i don't like the pauses in animations during fights, it's very annoying with such good graphics.

 

[Nesh]

i don't like the pauses in animations during fights, it's very annoying with such good graphics.

Not a fun of those either. They do it in a lot of games and I don't understand why.

 

[Andrew Lauritzen]

Hey Andrew, not looking to put you on the spot. But curious if HB2 is representative of the internal team targets Epic had with UE5?

I don't really know how to answer that question unfortunately as there's not really a single target in mind for an engine the size of Unreal. Obviously when we put out various demos the hope is that licensees should be able to meet or even exceed the quality in those. Speaking for myself though, I don't know that I have specific expectation since there is such a variety of uses and the engine itself is constantly evolving.

I think regardless of what he says, it's got to be pretty good feeling for them that so much of their hard work has allowed something like that to be created.

This is a good summary. It feels good when people are able to use the tools to make something that looks great. That said - similar to the opposite situation - Ninja Theory deserves the credit for making a good looking, polished product. It's certainly nice for there to be more proof points that such things are very possible to accomplish with Unreal, but as I do frequently note, engines are a toolbox that games can use/modify as much or as little as they want to achieve their goals.

 

[homerdog]

I'm trying to install this game on PC Gamepass and it says "This is rated above Homerless's Restrictions" an says "To install, please ask an adult to sign in and download". How old do you have to be to play this game? I'm 37 and my DOB is correct in my account settings.

 

[snc]

Gave it a try, defenitly The Order/Ryse of this generation (both graphicaly and gameplay wise). Looks very cgish, main character looks awsome, lighting, rocks/stones all of it looks very good. Drawbacks I seen in graphics term: much fog reducing draw distance, water waves/splashes can looks very basic, other character are not as detailed as Senua, interaction very limited. Picture is quite soft and also noisy but that not a big problem for me tough chromatic abberation is, defenitly should be option do disable it. Gameplay is very poor tough game is short so maybe will try to finish it just for graphic. Would never pay for it full price but for gamepass addition is perfect. I hope Ninja Theory will survive and next time they will try to keep this level of graphics but also focus on gameplay and create more standard single player narratrive game closer to maybe Naughty Dogs/Kojima/Coalition titles.

 

[homerdog]

Gave it a try, defenitly The Order/Ryse of this generation (both graphicaly and gameplay wise). Looks very cgish, main character looks awsome, lighting, rocks/stones all of it looks very good. Drawbacks I seen in graphics term: much fog reducing draw distance, water waves/splashes can looks very basic, other character are not as detailed as Senua, interaction very limited. Picture is quite soft and also noisy but that not a big problem for me tough chromatic abberation is, defenitly should be option do disable it. Gameplay is very poor tough game is short so maybe will try to finish it just for graphic. Would never pay for it full price but for gamepass addition is perfect. I hope Ninja Theory will survive and next time they will try to keep this level of graphics but also focus on gameplay and create more standard single player narratrive game closer to maybe Naughty Dogs/Kojima/Coalition titles.

Agreed. This is probably the best graphics I've ever seen but I can't slog it. 30 minutes wandering around a bunch of rocks with the most annoying audio (voices in my head I guess) I can recall in a videogame. I'm out. Really though it looks absolutely incredible.

 

[homerdog]

BTW the game runs very well for this level of visuals and I never noticed a single stutter. Over 100fps maxed out 1080p DLAA VRS=Off Framegen=On with a 4070 and 13600K. 50-60 fps without framegen but I see no reason to not use framegen since input lag doesn't matter when you're not doing anything

 

[Remij]

 

[trinibwoy]

BTW the game runs very well for this level of visuals and I never noticed a single stutter. Over 100fps maxed out 1080p DLAA VRS=Off Framegen=On with a 4070 and 13600K. 50-60 fps without framegen but I see no reason to not use framegen since input lag doesn't matter when you're not doing anything

I fired up the first game today and I must say the voices were already super annoying within the first 5 mins. Don’t know if I can do 8-10 hours of that. The audio positioning is fantastic. Felt like the voices were inside MY head which probably made them even more annoying. Will try again when I’m in a more tolerant mood.

 

[homerdog]

I fired up the first game today and I must say the voices were already super annoying within the first 5 mins. Don’t know if I can do 8-10 hours of that. The audio positioning is fantastic. Felt like the voices were inside MY head which probably made them even more annoying. Will try again when I’m in a more tolerant mood.

Don't think I can take any more but I'm sure some will like it. Having not played the first one I have no idea what happening and I don't care about anything that's being shown to me. The 3 vikings I got to fight were utterly pathetic and then I crawled under a boat where I remained for way too long and I decided to call it.

Having said all that I'm 100% sold on UE5. Hard to describe but it doesn't even look like it's made of textured triangles. This is a technical masterpiece and runs butter smooth on my midrange rig. No frame pacing issues, comp stutter, load time is short, image quality is near perfect at 1080p with DLAA. Absolute technical masterpiece, and I read that the beginning of the game is on the more demanding side.

While playing the game I noticed my CPU was doing next to nothing, using ~20% of one core and pulling ~50W. Good lord this is some sorcery. The game must have compiled shaders when I first opened it because my CPU got hit really hard for a bit, 150W loading all cores. Pure excellence. The menu/options system is also top of class. Everything is adjustable and previewable in realtime, and it let's you use DLAA and framegen at the same time which oddly is not possible in some games I've played. If you're reading this from the future, keep in mind this is all day 1. The game literally just came out. Some incredibly talented people worked on this, and they understood the assignment.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Hellblade is a good game. The voices felt integral to the game. I'm interested in seeing how I feel about this one. I find I'm far less tolerant for on-rails experiences than I used to be.

 

[Davros]

I need to finish the first one I've started it about 5 times but got distracted by something else.

 

[Karamazov]

if other engines don't adopt a similar tech as nanite we'll see more and more leap between non UE5 games and UE5 ones.

I could imagine a Horizon 3 on PS5 having characters that look as good as HB2, but with worse environmental detail. We got great looking characters for many years now, but they always stuck out compared to the rest because backgrounds did not match characters polygonal density, now with nanite it's a lot more balanced i think.

 

[cheapchips]

if other engines don't adopt a similar tech as nanite we'll see more and more leap between non UE5 games and UE5 ones.

I could imagine a Horizon 3 on PS5 having characters that look as good as HB2, but with worse environmental detail. We got great looking characters for many years now, but they always stuck out compared to the rest because backgrounds did not match characters polygonal density, now with nanite it's a lot more balanced i think.

Generally I feel that's the case. Death Stranding 2 looks spectacular on Decima though. It's landscapes are throwing in lots of micro detail up close, like the first game. Nothing as outrageous as HB2's big shiny pebble beach.

I'd expect Horizon 3 to look great as well.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Not a fun of those either. They do it in a lot of games and I don't understand why.

Looks like a gameplay feature, to give the player time to (re)act. Otherwise, if operated at real speed, players would need combat training to match the virtual combatants they face. These pauses should be dialled down in GamePlus/Hard modes.

Game looks on occasions excellent with all that detail. Diffuse light makes it more realistic. Games are still struggling with direct sunlight portrayal. However, with all the scenery and people looking great, the effects are starting to look really retro. eg. The fire breathers...that's fire isn't at all convincing or in keeping with the rest of the game. The sea has great motion and looks good from a distance, but breaks completely up close when in it. It's a difficult situation for games to be in as these aren't necessarily easy fixes. Next-gen fire should be doable, but water...well, we can return Water to our benchmark for quality graphics! Always used to be a standard for visual quality, up until shaders became commonplace and decent water shaders generic. Now we can look at water behaviour.

Also, inner monologue is definitely annoying just from the video!