Announcing Senua’s Scholarship
Senua’s Scholarship is a Ninja Theory funded scholarship that will support the training of mental health tutors and their incredible work at CPFT NHS Recovery College East, one of our key mental health collaborators on Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice.
To celebrate the announcement of Senua’s Scholarship and World Mental Health Day you can see our ‘Senua’s Psychosis’ making-of feature online for the first time – this has previously only be available to watch in-game.
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.
Inspired by Norse mythology and Celtic culture, Hellblade follows Senua, a Pict warrior who must make her way to Helheim by defeating otherworldly entities and facing their challenges, in order to rescue the soul of her dead lover from the goddess Hela. In parallel, the game acts as a metaphor for the character’s struggle with psychosis, as Senua, who suffers from the condition but believes it to be a curse, is haunted by an entity known as the “Darkness”, voices in her head known as “Furies”, and memories from her past. To properly represent psychosis, developers worked closely with neuroscientists, mental health specialists, and people suffering from the condition.
The game blends several genres, including hack and slash, puzzle solving, and psychological horror. Voice acting is an integral part of the game, while its cutscenes combine motion capture by Melina Juergens, and live action performances by other actors. Hellblade was a commercial success and was well received by critics, who praised it as a work of art and applauded its uncommon choice of revolving around psychosis, the quality and uniqueness of its approach of the condition, and its story and main character. Its overall presentation, along with Juergens’ performance, were also considered superior in quality to what independent games usually provide, although its gameplay and other elements received some criticism. The game sold over a million copies across all platforms by June 2018.
Green Hell Launches the Animal Update – Pumas n’ Spiders n’ Lizards, Oh My!
