Senua’s Saga Hellblade 2 review: a visual step forward even more contemptuous of interactivity than the first

Par for the Norse

Image credit:Ninja Theory

• Developer: Ninja Theory
• Publisher: Xbox Game Studios
• Release: May 21st, 2024
• On: Windows
• From: Steam , Microsoft Store , Game Pass
• Price: £50/€50/$50
• Reviewed on: AMD Ryzen 5 3600, Nvidia RTX 2080 Super, 32 GB RAM, Windows 10

Three questions before we start:

If you answered ‘yes’ to all of the above, then I come bearing wonderful tidings for you about Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 . The sequel to Ninja Theory’s 2018 action adventure is a bleak and brutal Norse tale about revenge and redemption told with a rigorous cinematic eye, set across volcanic landscapes that make Death Stranding ’s Icelandic hiking trails look like they’re made from painted polystyrene.

If, however, you answered ’no’ to any of the above questions, consider your purchase carefully. Hellblade 2 doesn’t so much expand upon the ideas of the original as double-down on them, offering a leaner, meaner version of a concept that wasn’t exactly overgenerous in the first instance. It’s more harrowing, more fleeting, more linear and more contemptuous of player agency. It’s entirely happy to make sacrifices to get to where it wants, and if you try to step in the way, well, up on the altar you’ll go.

Hellblade 2 kicks off with Pict warrior Senua on a mission that’s part rescue, part revenge. Having vanquished her personal demons in the first game, Senua now wants to stop the Norse raiding parties that killed her lover and adopted tribe, setting her off on that initial journey. To achieve this, Senua deliberately gets herself captured by slavers so they’ll take her to their land. But the boat sinks in a storm before they arrive, leaving Senua in the odd position of having to capture a surviving slaver who can guide her to their settlement.

The opening sequence sets the tone of the game’s first half, as Senua navigates a Nordic nightmare that makes her previous journey through actual hell look like a nice summer holiday. Lashed by rain and gouged by igneous razors on an eerie Scandinavian coastline, Senua scrambles across the scree while the slavers massacre the unfortunates who escaped the shipwreck, before taking her own blade to the raiders who come lumbering at her through the gloom.

Image credit:Ninja Theory

The whole level is striking in its savagery, and the next is even more barbaric. Like the Northman, atavism is a key theme in the game’s depiction of both Norse legend and the violence attached to it. As Senua pushes deeper into the primordial Nordic landscape, she witnesses humanity regressing in steps, twisted into increasingly monstrous forms in their desire to survive and seek vengeance.

Yet while Hellblade 2 delves to nastier extremes than Eggers’ film, it’s also ultimately less nihilistic. As Senua’ learns more about the land she’s travelled to, her quest for vengeance against the slavers evolves into a different mission, one where the ability to forgive and absolve, which she learned for herself in the first game, plays a central role.

It’s a good story, one that I was pretty invested in by its end. It helps that it’s phenomenally presented. We may have reached the point where progress in the ol’ graphics factory is made in nudges rather than leaps, but Hellblade 2 represents a noticeable nudge. There are moments in this where Senua just looks like a real person, and I’m pretty sure that, unlike the first game, it doesn’t switch between real-time rendering and footage of Milena Juergens in makeup. Other elements like lighting, weather effects, and water simulation are similarly convincing.

Image credit:Ninja Theory

Then there are the rocks. I wasn’t joking when I said you shouldn’t play Hellblade 2 if you don’t like rocks. This game is obsessed with them. From giant, fractal lava formations that curl like burned roses, through fist-sized, water-smoothed pebbles all rendered individually, all the way down to tiny granules of grit that deform under NPCs’ feet as they trudge along hillside pathways, Hellblade 2 is a scintillating celebration of strata. I look forward to the inevitable “Geologist REACTS?!?!” YouTube video.

Stunningly detailed as its rocks are, I should point out that the presentational excellence is not merely graphical. The game’s virtual camera work is impressive, particularly the way it uses landscape flyovers to switch between scenes without breaking immersion. It’s also superbly written and acted, and displays similar quality in its audio design. As in the first game, this is most evident in its simulation of Senua’s psychosis.

On this point, Hellblade 2 states at the outset that Senua has accepted her psychosis as part of herself, so the game is less of a direct exploration of this part of Senua’s personal experience. But that doesn’t mean it has gone away. The voices still whisper at her, question her, mock her, and perhaps most disconcertingly of all, try to help her. There are also moments when the hallucinations become more overt.

Image credit:Ninja Theory

But Hellblade 2 is more about how Senua’s personal experience affects her relationships with others. On this journey, Senua is accompanied by several travelling companions, and we see her struggle with how much to reveal about herself for fear of being judged or rejected. But she also uses her understanding of both her psychosis and past traumas to assist others going through similar moments of crisis. One character refers to Senua as a ‘Seer’. But it’s her empathy, not her visions, that make her uniquely perceptive.

As both a technical showcase and a story, Hellblade 2 is undoubtedly well made. The price of this, however, is that Hellblade 2 is even less of a game than the first one. It’s a fairly short experience, about 8 hours long, and a big chunk of that involves walking slowly forward along oppressively linear paths, occasionally mantling over a ledge or picking up the 8th century equivalent of an audio log.

The remaining time, as in the first game, is divided between puzzles and combat. Also like the first game, the puzzles aren’t very good. They all involve either wandering around the environment looking at objects from a particular angle, or wandering around the environment collecting stone orbs. Most involve some interesting visual effect that plays into Senua’s divergent perspective on reality, but they require minimal deduction to solve and are interactively unsatisfying.

Image credit:Ninja Theory

Combat is more entertaining. Senua’s moveset remains fairly straightforward: she can perform light and heavy attacks with her sword, as well as block and dodge. She can also use her mirror to enter a sort-of berserker state, slowing down time while speeding up her own attacks, and execute an enemy instantly if she performs a perfect block. But Hellblade 2 places additional emphasis on cinematic consistency. Battles are essentially a sequence of one-on-one duels that the game dictates the order of, with each duel interweaved by mini-cutscenes designed to add drama, making you feel like part of a bigger melee.

The advantage of this is that battles look superb. Senua will get smacked to the floor by some mace-wielding brute, roll to avoid an overarm deathblow, rise up to thrust her sword through his chest, before being stumbled into by another enemy who becomes the next focus in the fight. It’s impressively seamless, although the number of times Senua gets run into by someone else, like a tourist lost in London King’s Cross, has considerable meme potential.

The disadvantage is that, even in these moments, the game constantly pulls away control, to the point where it’s often unclear whether you’re playing or not. The original Hellblade felt like it could have been a decent Soulslike with a bit more depth, but Hellblade 2 pulls the game further away from that, bringing it closer to a game like Asura’s Wrath. The result is an experience that makes you feel hemmed in by its cinematic aspirations, to the point where it’s like playing a game next to your selfish big brother, who reluctantly lets you sit in front of the keyboard and then constantly mithers for his chair back. I was happier to overlook these tendencies in the first game, because the story it told was so different from other action-adventures. But I don’t think Hellblade 2’s story does enough that’s new or different to justify it being even more restrictive.

I like Hellblade 2, and without wishing to sound churlish, I’d definitely give it a whirl if I had a Game Pass subscription. But in a month that’s included Animal Well and Crow Country and Cryptmaster and Little Kitty, Big City and Dread Delusion and Indika and Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, dropping fifty notes on this shiny but safe sequel just seems daft. Amid such a cornucopia of imagination, Hellblade 2 needed to be more than just more Hellblade, to elevate the ideas of the first game and build them out. But for all its technical wizardry and narrative worth, more Hellblade is exactly what Hellblade 2 is.

This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.

Find out how we conduct our reviews by reading our review policy .

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II

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All 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints and where to get them

These areas have the highest chance of giving you Blueprints

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Looking for more Arc Raiders Blueprints? It’s a special day when you find a Blueprint, as they’re among the most valuable items in Arc Raiders. If you find a Blueprint that you haven’t already found, then you must make sure you hold onto it at all costs, because Blueprints are the key to one of the most important and powerful systems of meta-progression in the game.

This guide aims to be the very best guide on Blueprints you can find, starting with a primer on what exactly they are and how they work in Arc Raiders, before delving into exactly where to get Blueprints and the very best farming spots for you to take in your search.

We’ll also go over how to get Blueprints from other unlikely activities, such as destroying Surveyors and completing specific quests. And you’ll also find the full list of all 75 Blueprints in Arc Raiders on this page (including the newest Blueprints added with the Cold Snap update , such as the Deadline Blueprint and Firework Box Blueprint), giving you all the information you need to expand your own crafting repertoire.

In this guide:

• What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?
• Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes
• Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders Blueprints obtained from quests Blueprints obtained from Trials Best Blueprint farming locations

What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?

Blueprints in Arc Raiders are special items which, if you manage to extract with them, you can expend to permanently unlock a new crafting recipe in your Workshop. If you manage to extract from a raid with an Anvil Blueprint, for example, you can unlock the ability to craft your very own Anvil Pistol, as many times as you like (as long as you have the crafting materials).

To use a Blueprint, simply open your Inventory while in the lobby, then right-click on the Blueprint and click “Learn And Consume” . This will permanently unlock the recipe for that item in your Workshop. As of the Stella Montis update, there are allegedly 75 different Blueprints to unlock - although only 68 are confirmed to be in the game so far. You can see all the Blueprints you’ve found and unlocked by going to the Workshop menu, and hitting “R” to bring up the Blueprint screen.

It’s possible to find duplicates of past Blueprints you’ve already unlocked. If you find these, then you can either sell them, or - if you like to play with friends - you can take it into a match and gift it to your friend so they can unlock that recipe for themselves. Another option is to keep hold of them until the time comes to donate them to the Expedition.

Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes

Below is the full list of all the Blueprints that are currently available to find in Arc Raiders, and the crafting recipe required for each item:

Note: The missing Blueprints in this list likely have not actually been added to the game at the time of writing, because none of the playerbase has managed to find any of them. As they are added to the game, I will update this page with the most relevant information so you know exactly how to get all 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints.

Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders

Below is a list of all containers, modifiers, and events which maximise your chances of finding Blueprints:

• Certain quests reward you with specific Blueprints .
• Completing Trials has a high chance of offering Blueprints as rewards.
• Surveyors have a decent chance of dropping Blueprints on death.
• High loot value areas tend to have a greater chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Night Raids and Storms may increase rare Blueprint spawn chances in containers.
• Containers with higher numbers of items may have a higher tendency to spawn Blueprints. As a result, Blue Gate (which has many “large” containers containing multiple items) may give you a higher chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Raider containers (Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, Medical Bags, Grenade Tubes) have increased Blueprint drop rates. As a result, the Uncovered Caches event gives you a high chance of finding Blueprints.
• Security Lockers have a higher than average chance of containing Blueprints.
• Certain Blueprints only seem to spawn under specific circumstances: Tempest Blueprint only spawns during Night Raid events. Vulcano Blueprint only spawns during Hidden Bunker events. Jupiter and Equaliser Blueprints only spawn during Harvester events.

Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, and other raider-oriented container types have a good chance of offering Blueprints. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints have a very low chance of spawning in any container in Arc Raiders, around 1-2% on average. However, there is a higher chance of finding Blueprints in particular container types. Specifically, you can find more Blueprints in Raider containers and security lockers.

Beyond this, if you’re looking for Blueprints you should focus on regions of the map which are marked as having particularly high-value loot. Areas such as the Control Tower in Dam Battlegrounds, the Arrival and Departure Buildings in Spaceport, and Pilgrim’s Peak in Blue Gate all have a better-than-average chance of spawning Blueprints somewhere amongst all their containers. Night Raids and Electromagnetic Storm events also increase the drop chances of certain Blueprints .

In addition to these containers, you can often loot Blueprints from destroyed Surveyors - the largest of the rolling ball ARC. Surveyors are more commonly found on the later maps - Spaceport and Blue Gate - and if one spawns in your match, you’ll likely see it by the blue laser beam that it casts into the sky while “surveying”.

Surveyors are quite well-armoured and will very speedily run away from you once it notices you, but if you can take one down then make sure you loot all its parts for a chance of obtaining certain unusual Blueprints.

Blueprints obtained from quests

One way in which you can get Blueprints is by completing certain quests for the vendors in Speranza. Some quests will reward you with a specific item Blueprint upon completion, so as long as you work through all the quests in Arc Raiders, you are guaranteed those Blueprints.

Here is the full list of all Blueprints you can get from quest rewards:

• Trigger Nade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Sparks Fly”.
• Lure Grenade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Greasing Her Palms”.
• Burletta Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Industrial Espionage”.
• Hullcracker Blueprint (and Launcher Ammo Blueprint): Rewarded after completing “The Major’s Footlocker”.

Alas, that’s only 4 Blueprints out of a total of 75 to unlock, so for the vast majority you will need to find them yourself during a raid. If you’re intent on farming Blueprints, then it’s best to equip yourself with cheap gear in case you lose it, but don’t use a free loadout because then you won’t get a safe pocket to stash any new Blueprint you find. No pain in Arc Raiders is sharper than failing to extract with a new Blueprint you’ve been after for a dozen hours already.

One of the best ways to get Blueprints is by hitting three stars on all five Trials every week. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints obtained from Trials

One of the very best ways to get Blueprints is as rewards for completing Trials in Arc Raiders. Trials are unlocked from Level 15 onwards, and allow you to earn rewards by focusing on certain tasks over the course of several raids. For example, one Trial might task you with dealing damage to Hornets, while another might challenge you to loot Supply Drops.

Trials refresh on a weekly basis, with a new week bringing five new Trials. Each Trial can offer up to three rewards after passing certain score milestones, and it’s possible to receive very high level loot from these reward crates - including Blueprints. So if you want to unlock as many Blueprints as possible, you should make a point of completing as many Trials as possible each week.

Best Blueprint farming locations

The very best way to get Blueprints is to frequent specific areas of the maps which combine high-tier loot pools with the right types of containers to search. Here are my recommendations for where to find Blueprints on every map, so you can always keep the search going for new crafting recipes to unlock.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Dam Battlegrounds

The best places to farm Blueprints on Dam Battlegrounds are the Control Tower, Power Generation Complex, Ruby Residence, and Pale Apartments . The first two regions, despite only being marked on the map as mid-tier loot, contain a phenomenal number of containers to loot. The Control Tower can also contain a couple of high-tier Security Lockers - though of course, you’ll need to have unlocked the Security Breach skill at the end of the Survival tree.

There’s also a lot of reporting amongst the playerbase that the Residential areas in the top-left of the map - Pale Apartments and Ruby Residence - give you a comparatively strong chance of finding Blueprints. Considering their size, there’s a high density of containers to loot in both locations, and they also have the benefit of being fairly out of the way. So you’re more likely to have all the containers to yourself.

Buried City

The best Blueprint farming locations on Buried City are the Santa Maria Houses, Grandioso Apartments, Town Hall, and the various buildings of the New District . Grandioso Apartments has a lower number of containers than the rest, but a high chance of spawning weapon cases - which have good Blueprint drop rates. The others are high-tier loot areas, with plenty of lootable containers - including Security Lockers.

Spaceport

The best places to find Blueprints on Spaceport are the Arrival and Departure Buildings, as well as Control Tower A6 and the Launch Towers . All these areas are labelled as high-value loot regions, and many of them are also very handily connected to one another by the Spaceport wall, which you can use to quickly run from one area to the next. At the tops of most of these buildings you’ll find at least one Security Locker, so this is an excellent farming route for players looking to find Blueprints.

The downside to looting Blueprints on Spaceport is that all these areas are hotly contested, particularly in Duos and Squads. You’ll need to be very focused and fast in order to complete the full farming route.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blue Gate

Blue Gate tends to have a good chance of dropping Blueprints, potentially because it generally has a high number of containers which can hold lots of items; so there’s a higher chance of a Blueprint spawning in each container. In my experience, the best Blueprint farming spots on Blue Gate are Pilgrim’s Peak, Raider’s Refuge, the Ancient Fort, and the Underground Complex beneath the Warehouse .

All of these areas contain a wealth of containers to loot. Raider’s Refuge has less to loot, but the majority of the containers in and around the Refuge are raider containers, which have a high chance of containing Blueprints - particularly during major events.

Stella Montis

On the whole, Stella Montis seems to have a very low drop rate for Blueprints (though a high chance of dropping other high-tier loot). If you do want to try farming Blueprints on this map, the best places to find Blueprints in Stella Montis are Medical Research, Assembly Workshop, and the Business Center . These areas have the highest density of containers to loot on the map.

In addition to this, the Western Tunnel has a few different Security Lockers to loot, so while there’s very little to loot elsewhere in this area of the map, it’s worth hitting those Security Lockers if you spawn there at the start of a match.

That wraps up this primer on how to get all the Blueprints in Arc Raiders as quickly as possible. With the Expedition system constantly resetting a large number of players’ Blueprints, it’s more important than ever to have the most up-to-date information on where to find all these Blueprints.

While you’re here, be sure to check out our Arc Raiders best guns tier list , as well as our primers on the best skills to unlock and all the different Field Depot locations on every map.

ARC Raiders

PS5 , Xbox Series X/S , PC

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