In the Studio: Senua's Saga - Hellblade II

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary

4.3 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 10 June 2024

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Released in 2017, the video game Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice saw players take control of dark-age warrior Senua as she battled to rescue the soul of her dead lover from the Norse underworld. The action-adventure game from British studio Ninja Theory won awards for its gameplay, acting and storytelling, as well as plaudits for its nuanced and well-researched depiction of psychosis. German actor Melina Juergens was awarded a Bafta for her performance as the titular character. Now studio head Dominic Matthews and his team are working on the sequel, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II. Nathan Jones joins Dominic, Melina and the rest of the team in Cambridge as they tell this next chapter of their story.

Transcript

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0:00.0	What?
0:02.0	What are you all alone?
0:05.0	It's just me.
0:06.0	Our mission as a studio is to craft life changing art with game changing tech.
0:10.0	I want to understand you.
0:12.0	Sanoa? I want to understand you. Senoah?
0:14.0	Welcome to the documentary in the studio from the BBC World Service.
0:19.0	I'm Nathan Jones and I'm going behind the scenes of Sena Saga Hellblade 2, one of the most hotly anticipated
0:26.4	video games launching in 2024.
0:28.8	We're trying to make video games and interactive experiences that have the potential to impact people in the same way that the best film and literature and art does.
0:41.5	I spend my life playing and making content around video games and I was captivated by the
0:46.7	atmospheric storytelling of the game's predecessor, Hellblade Sena was sacrifice when it came out in 2017. In it you play as Senua, a traumatized
0:56.9	warrior journeying to rescue the soul with her dead lovers. It's a deeply moving
1:01.5	exploration of loss, fear and strength and it won a number of awards,
1:06.2	notably for its actor's performances as well as for its portrayal of psychosis.
1:10.9	I want to put people in the shoes of people that have lived experiences from
1:15.0	psychosis and make it as real as I possibly can. It's August 2023 and I'm in the
1:21.9	University City of Cambridge in the east of England.
1:24.8	Senua Saga, Hellblade 2, with its new setting in the rocky landscape of Dark Ages
1:30.0	Iceland has now been six years in the making. Studios are notoriously secretive
1:35.2	about the games that they make, so it's great to be invited to the offices of
1:39.0	Hellblade's developer Ninja Theory. I'm going to meet Studio Head, Dominic Matthews, and find out where they are now in the process.
	...

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