Senua's Saga: Hellblade II (Ninja Theory) sound redesign exercise. Combat and focus mode.

Last year, I played “Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice” for the first time, and I immediately fell in love with its visuals, its narrative, and—of course—its audio design. I'm currently playing the second chapter of the saga and decided to put my own spin on this breathtaking continuous shot.

Now, although the voices and use of binaural techniques undoubtedly stand out as the major pillars of the audio experience of this game, what really got me the most was the authenticity and naturalness of the ambience and foley effects, which are the elements I chose to focus on for this specific redesign.

On the one hand, I believe that "close-up and in-your-face" foley effects immensely help the player feel the action.

On the other hand, one thing I always try to aim for when designing the sound for a sequence, a skill—or whatever—is to let the sound effects communicate meaning on their own, without relying on voices, which of course represent our first and major way of communication. And I think this last point is definitely one of the most significant challenges in this job.

(I do not own any copyrights on this video, I only redesigned the sound.)

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Official video game webpage: https://senuassaga.com/