Highlights
- Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 offers a unique, cinematic experience with locked 30 FPS on Xbox Series X and S.
- Ninja Theory defends the 30 FPS limit, claiming it enhances the game’s presentation and cinematic style.
- The locked framerate on PC feels contradictory, raising questions about the intention behind the decision.
Coming off one of the greatest years for video game releases in history, nobody really expected 2024 to live up to its predecessor, but bit by bit it’s proving people wrong. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Tekken 8, and Helldivers 2 all helped to kick off a surprisingly great start to the year, and that momentum seems to be carrying on through to the Summer months, with the long-awaited Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 now being just a few short weeks away.
Releasing on May 21 2024, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 is set to offer another short but sweet nightmare adventure into Norse and Celtic mythology, once again putting players in the boots of Senua, who’s very much still struggling with her psychosis. While developer Ninja Theory has been refreshingly upfront about the type of experience that it’s offering with Hellblade 2, a recent announcement about the game has caused a bit of a stir among fans, and could end up putting it in the same boat as the recently released Dragon’s Dogma 2.
Hellblade 2’s Surreal Approach to Real-World History Explained
Ninja Theory’s upcoming sequel will see players continue Senua’s journey in its setting that blends historical and surrealist elements.
Hellblade 2 Could Share a Controversy with Dragon’s Dogma 2
Dragon’s Dogma 2’s FPS Controversy Explained
A few months before launch, a rumor started circling that Dragon’s Dogma 2 would be locked at 30 frames per second on console, and this caused a great deal of controversy among fans. While some fans held out hope that the rumor wasn’t true, some fans wasted no time in taking out their pitchforks and aiming them at Capcom, believing that a full-priced AAA game releasing in 2024 shouldn’t be restricted to just 30 FPS.
A few weeks later, Game Informer got to speak with Dragon’s Dogma 2‘s director, Hideaki Itsuno, where he was asked directly about the game’s framerate. Itsuno confirmed that Dragon’s Dogma 2 would be uncapped across all platforms, but on console the game was targeting “around or higher than” 30 FPS. While many fans took this to be a confirmation that the game’s performance would be unstable on console, others believed that this statement meant the game could potentially offer better framerates than were first rumored.
This division among fans continued right up until Dragon’s Dogma 2‘s release a few weeks ago, and arguably, it’s still going in some areas of the internet. In its retail version, Dragon’s Dogma 2 generally runs quite well across all platforms, but its framerate does fall quite dramatically when players are in more crowded areas of the game’s world. These performance issues aren’t nearly as bad as those initial rumors were teeing-up, but those few months of uncertainty and controversy have made them stand out a lot more in the final product.
Hellblade 2 Could Find Itself in a Similar Situation
Unfortunately, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 is already stirring a similar controversy. Just a few days ago, developer Ninja Theory confirmed that Hellblade 2 is locked to 30 FPS on Xbox Series X and S. Immediately, this announcement divided fans, just as Dragon’s Dogma 2‘s own FPS announcement did a few weeks ago, once again bringing up conversations about the price and associated expectations of modern AAA releases.
However, Ninja Theory’s environmental art director, Dan Attwell, and its VFX director, Mark Slater-Tunstill, have since defended this decision, claiming that it’s actually a vital part of Hellblade 2‘s presentation. According to the devs, Hellblade 2‘s locked framerate, along with its movie-like aspect ratio, is an intentional decision that was made to try and make the game feel more cinematic, and it’s been something the team has wanted since the very start of development. So, in theory, Hellblade 2‘s 30 FPS limit has been set to achieve a specific sense of style. However, that makes the game’s PC port a little contradictory, as its own framerate is uncapped, making it feel less like a firm artistic decision in the game’s favor.
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2
Ninja Theory’s highly anticipated sequel, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2, will continue Senua’s journey, with the story rumored to be set in Iceland. The PC, Xbox Series X/S game will be launching directly on Game Pass.
- Released
- May 21, 2024
- Publisher(s)
- Xbox Game Studios
- Genre(s)
- Action-Adventure
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 5
