0:00

Games in this podcast range from E to M. We

0:07

are here to talk all things Senua Saga

0:09

Hellblade 2 and I have two amazing people

0:11

who worked on the game here to help

0:13

me through this because they are the real

0:15

stars. I have Laura Durham and Dan Atwell

0:17

who are going to talk about the game,

0:19

talk about what we experienced here in Iceland

0:21

and actually just be the experts. How are

0:23

y'all doing today, by the way? We

0:27

have just endured two days of

0:29

extremely long treks across Iceland and

0:32

it has been amazing. I

0:34

gotta start with you, Laura. I think that

0:36

this has been an amazing journey.

0:39

I'm curious, what is your role

0:41

here at Nuzhithiri? I

0:44

was the script writer for Senua

0:46

Saga Hellblade 2 and I also

0:48

directed the performance capture. We

0:51

have a lot of questions posed to you because this

0:53

game is such a narrative experience that we're going to

0:55

come to you about a lot of that stuff. Well,

0:58

yes, but you can come to Dan

1:00

as well because everybody

1:04

on the team is involved in telling that story.

1:06

So we all know. Yeah,

1:09

you're in there. Well, speaking of you,

1:11

Dan, what's your role here at Nuzhithiri?

1:13

I'm the Environment Art Director and also

1:15

one of the Product Direction team as

1:17

well. Awesome. And it's

1:19

very obvious why you chose Iceland. And we'll

1:21

get into that in just a little bit.

1:24

But, Laura, can you set it

1:26

up for folks who may be jumping into this game

1:28

for the first time and maybe haven't played the first

1:30

one? Can you explain a little bit about Senua's

1:32

journey in the first game and where that leads us in

1:34

the sequel? Yes, of course. So

1:36

Senua is a Pictish

1:39

warrior from Orkney and

1:42

she sees and hears

1:44

the world differently from other people. Her

1:47

father made that feel

1:50

like a curse. So she retreated

1:52

from the world. But she

1:54

met a young man who not only opened

1:56

her heart to the world, but also taught

1:58

her how to be a warrior. warrior. And

2:02

when he's killed in

2:04

a rage by

2:07

Viking flavors, she

2:10

sets out to free

2:13

his soul from hell. And

2:17

that's her experience in the first game.

2:20

She's very traumatized

2:24

and buffeted by her experiences. By the

2:26

time we come to the beginning of

2:28

the second game, she's found a kind

2:30

of peace with

2:32

her experiences. She's

2:35

found some agency. So

2:38

when the Vikings come back to her village, she

2:41

makes a promise to

2:43

Dillion that nobody

2:45

else will suffer like he did. And

2:48

she will stop the

2:50

slave trade at its source. And

2:53

that promise is what leads her to

2:56

Iceland. That is so badass if

2:58

I can say that. From

3:01

your perspective, that journey

3:03

you mentioned by the word you use, where

3:05

by the time we get to the second

3:07

game, how important is it to have that

3:09

character arc and that character development where you're

3:12

building a story? It's really important

3:14

to us that we don't press the reset button

3:16

on Senua. She's not –

3:19

the events of the first game change it. And

3:21

that has to remain true. That has to stay

3:23

true for her character to

3:25

be convincing and authentic

3:27

and feel real. She has to change.

3:31

She has to grow. And so in the

3:34

second game, the first game was very insular.

3:37

It was a very personal journey for

3:39

her. In the second game, we're taking

3:41

her out into the world and she

3:43

will meet other people and be

3:46

changed by them and change them. And it

3:49

is really a continuation of that journey for

3:52

her. I love that. And we're excited to

3:54

see how she tackles it. Now, Dan, we

3:57

are in Iceland and a lot of what

3:59

you've mentioned – We've been here with

4:01

creators and we've been talking to creators

4:03

and Dan, I think you set up

4:05

the reason we're here in Iceland so well. The

4:08

first game wasn't necessarily in a real location and

4:10

now we are. What are some of the benefits

4:12

that that affords you and some of the things

4:15

you have to consider? Yes. So,

4:17

like, basing on real locations and

4:19

capturing those real locations kind of offers us

4:22

the opportunity to

4:24

kind of increase immersion because

4:26

we're using real world reference, things like

4:28

that, real world locations. It means that

4:30

you kind of don't question what

4:32

you're seeing on the screen. So

4:34

there's a groundedness, sort of legal identity to it,

4:37

which is fitting perfectly with

4:39

how the centre was kind of

4:41

interacting now in this game

4:43

compared to the first one. Yeah, and we

4:45

were actually talking the first night at dinner

4:48

about how exactly what you said is true of

4:50

so many games, even some of the biggest

4:52

games in the world, if you think GTA

4:54

5, which is not necessarily Los Angeles, but

4:56

the reason why I think it resonated with

4:58

so many people is because it is a

5:00

version of Los Angeles. And I think

5:03

it's interesting and we'll get into it as we go

5:05

into each location, how some of the liberties that you

5:07

have to take with each location,

5:09

but also just how true to each

5:12

location and the elements that you kept

5:14

from each location as we went through.

5:16

So on the first day, we

5:19

went to Jupilon and that

5:21

was an experience. I had never,

5:24

everyone knows who watches this podcast knows I'm a city

5:26

boy. I grew up in New York City. So that

5:28

is the furthest thing from New York City. And

5:31

so when I was there, we got there, it was kind

5:33

of overcast and I was like, oh, I hope it starts

5:35

raining because I feel like this game, like

5:37

it shines in the rain. I mean, we can talk about

5:39

how beautiful the game is just generally speaking, but I think

5:42

in the rain and everything. But

5:45

yeah, that location, can you tell us a little bit, Lara,

5:47

about the benefits

5:49

of going there? I've shown

5:51

that location before as part of

5:53

a gameplay trailer we released, which shows Senua's

5:56

encounter with the sea giant.

5:58

Yes. So we want to. wanted to

6:01

take everyone there, just

6:03

to show how we've

6:06

recreated that location in-game.

6:09

It's a hugely important moment for Senua. She

6:13

can't give too much

6:15

away, but she meets a character

6:17

that is really, really important to her. That

6:22

location, I think going there

6:24

really inspired the creation of the

6:26

Sea Giant and that encounter because

6:29

when you go there and it's such

6:32

a stark landscape, there's all these

6:34

huge rocks crouched

6:36

there like giants. A hundred

6:39

percent. The Sea is such a

6:41

presence. It just

6:43

seemed really fitting to create an

6:45

encounter like that in that location. Yeah,

6:47

and a few things there. One,

6:50

I just remember the reveal that everyone

6:52

remembers where they were when they saw

6:54

that gameplay trailer. I just think there's

6:57

so much going on from the graphical

6:59

fidelity of that moment to the urgency

7:01

of that moment for Senua trying to

7:03

run away. Everything was so

7:05

great, but I love what you mentioned about

7:08

the Sea being sort of a presence there

7:10

because that is what I felt. You almost

7:12

felt every wave crashing against a rock in

7:14

your chest. I feel like that was awesome

7:16

to see. Now, from your perspective, Dan, when

7:19

you're going to build that and you go

7:21

onto this beach and you see all these

7:23

different elements from the black rocks to the

7:25

impressive rock formations to the sea, what

7:28

is the first thing that comes to your mind of how you're going

7:30

to recreate that in the game? Crikey.

7:33

Well, yeah, basically that. How are we going to do

7:35

this? Well, yeah, in

7:37

terms of the process, because

7:39

we knew we wanted to have representation

7:42

of the location as faithful as possible.

7:45

We used satellite data to get the kind

7:47

of topology of the land. And

7:52

then we eventually used drone-based

7:56

photogrammetry on top of that to get a higher resolution.

7:58

And then we went in. there and we took

8:01

the scans of all the different rocks and

8:03

things like that and kind of recreated them

8:05

back in the game engine. Yeah, so

8:08

it's kind of it was a multi-layered

8:11

thing and that location in general was

8:13

one of the first kind of test beds that we did

8:15

as well. Oh, nice. And I think as well, like, the

8:18

kind of parts of that story came out of

8:21

being there anyway, like that inspired us

8:24

to do that chunk of the story as

8:26

well. And now the cave though, where the

8:28

sea creature was, wasn't there. And so just

8:31

for any of the locations, but this one specifically,

8:33

what were some of the, you're making

8:35

a game, right? And so you have this place

8:38

that you're taking inspiration from and then you have

8:40

to take it and make a game. And so

8:42

I'm assuming that that cave came into it, like,

8:44

how do we make it so that the player

8:46

walks into it and find something? So I mean,

8:48

if you look at the area that we placed

8:50

that you can kind of imagine how

8:52

that headland was connected to some of the sea

8:54

stacks that are out there. And what

8:56

we also did as well as we took, there's

8:59

a location further up around the peninsula

9:01

where there's kind of a sea cave

9:03

there. And we use that as an

9:05

inspiration and we scanned that as well.

9:07

And we kind of transplanted that into

9:09

that area. So it kind of feels

9:11

integrated. But

9:13

yeah, and you've got to like, in terms of how

9:15

the narrative plays out, where the key beats are and

9:17

things like that, there's things that we have to remove,

9:20

there's things that we have to add. But

9:22

then in essence, we want to keep the feeling of

9:25

the location to be quite faithful though. 100%.

9:27

And I think you all did a great

9:29

job just from that gameplay trailer. I can't wait to actually

9:31

jump in. But Lara, from the

9:33

perspective of someone who obviously is

9:36

a scriptwriter, but also you oversaw

9:38

the motion capture, we got the

9:40

chance to hike some of those hills

9:42

and I quickly realized how out of shape I

9:44

am. So that was great. Thank you for that.

9:48

But then one thing that I

9:50

kept thinking in my head is like, not only

9:52

is Senno of battling any foes

9:54

that she may come across, but it's really

9:56

she's battling the terrain and the

9:59

physical I guess fortitude

10:01

needed to get over the terrain. What

10:03

was it like capturing those kinds of

10:06

scenes, I guess? So we try to be as

10:10

one-to-one as possible with emotion capture.

10:12

So that means if

10:15

we have to do a tricky traversal

10:17

sequence, then we recreate

10:19

it on stage and

10:21

have Melina, our amazing actress,

10:25

actually make her way through that

10:28

and record that as a sequence. And then that's what

10:30

we use in the game. So you really

10:32

have that fidelity of performance that adds

10:34

to the immersion. We have a really,

10:36

really talented team of people who make

10:38

that happen. Yeah. And it was so

10:40

evident. And I think, you know, as

10:42

we're going, we've only talked about one

10:44

location, but I think one thing that

10:47

maybe players have noticed from the trailers and just

10:49

from the gameplay in general is just the

10:52

mastery, the level of mastery that you

10:54

all have in building these, like the

10:56

attention to detail is

10:58

just impressive. But I want to move on to

11:01

the second location and help me with this name

11:03

pronunciation. I am a city boy, remember? Ray-y-an-es.

11:08

Yeah, pretty close. Pretty close. Okay, cool.

11:10

Cool. Tell you that. How would you

11:12

say that? So that specific area, Ray-ke-nesta.

11:14

Ray-ke-nesta. There you go. So I wasn't

11:16

that close, but I appreciate you giving

11:18

me credit. That's where we

11:20

went on day two. There's so much to talk

11:23

about in that space. But

11:25

I think you did a great

11:27

job of setting up that that's

11:29

Sennawa's landing point as she's coming to the

11:31

southern tip of Iceland. What is

11:33

the other significance of that location for

11:35

Sennawa? It's the first time she encounters

11:38

this strange island that she'll

11:40

come to. She doesn't know where she's going.

11:43

She doesn't know what this is. So

11:45

she turns up and,

11:48

well, you've seen it. We

11:50

had nice sunshine when

11:52

we were there. But if you imagine a night

11:56

thunderstorm with driving

11:59

rain and a... a furious sea, you

12:01

can see how imposing

12:03

and terrifying that would feel.

12:06

So it's really quite

12:09

a confronting and, um,

12:13

what's the word I want? Like dynamic

12:16

scene for her to stumble upon.

12:19

I think in this game, players will

12:21

find a lot of those situations where

12:23

you're like, if you thought

12:25

Senua had gone through everything she could possibly go

12:27

through, and then here's this new experience

12:29

for her. And that's so cool. And

12:32

then Dan, from your perspective, you

12:34

know, when I went to that location, they were like pots,

12:36

pops of green, you know, on some of

12:39

the rocks and then the sea moss and,

12:41

but that place also had what seemed like

12:43

the lava rocks that were more recent, the

12:46

place there, because it's like more active

12:48

or out, you know, volcano volcanic wise,

12:51

um, as you're building these location, like what are some

12:53

of the things that you're looking at to

12:55

build out that spot to give it its

12:57

own identity, obviously outside of the inspiration that's

12:59

there. Yeah. I mean, well, I mean, the

13:01

locations that we've picked are all quite distinct

13:03

anyway, and then we

13:05

kind of, we lean into those, like in

13:08

terms of like the lighting and the

13:10

weather and things that we put in

13:12

like the first level, it's very much,

13:14

um, representative of, of, of,

13:17

of Senua's mental state at that point. And

13:19

kind of, and it pushes

13:21

the narrative in a certain direction. So

13:24

like when you, yeah, going through that,

13:26

we wanted it to be oppressive and

13:28

like, and we wanted to kind of

13:30

increase the kind of bleakness of it

13:32

to kind of really hammer home what,

13:35

you know, it's kind of dawned on her that she,

13:37

she, she didn't know where she was going. She doesn't

13:39

know where she is. It's just like all pretty overwhelming

13:41

at that point. So yeah, uh, it was just a

13:44

stunning, I mean, I feel like I'm running out of

13:46

adjectives to describe the scene and Iceland. And I'm just

13:48

like, people are going to think I'm a broke record,

13:50

but it is just overwhelmingly

13:52

beautiful that you just can't help but be

13:55

like, Astra. Our next stop was Chrisovic.

13:58

Um, and Laura, you. had a

14:00

great, you told a great story. And I think one

14:02

of the things that I mentioned at the very beginning

14:05

of this entire experience was

14:08

the decision to go Iceland seemed multifaceted.

14:10

And it is a beautiful location, but

14:12

it's also its lore. And you told

14:14

a great lore story about Christovik, if

14:16

you don't mind kind of sharing. No,

14:18

I can. So

14:21

the name Christovik comes from,

14:23

it means Christ is fate. And

14:26

Christa was supposedly a

14:28

witch who lived there.

14:30

And her sister in some versions of the

14:32

story, who was called, I might pronounce this

14:35

wrong, I've already seen it. Herdis,

14:38

she lived nearby in what

14:40

is now Herdisovik. And

14:44

they had a little dispute over where

14:46

the boundary between the two settlements was.

14:49

And each of the

14:52

settlements had very good fishing spots. So

14:55

one day they met, and they're still

14:57

angry with each other because of this boundary

14:59

dispute. And they saw trading insults, and those

15:01

insults turned into curses. So Christa

15:05

would say, you know, I

15:07

will curse your fishing

15:09

grounds so that all your trout

15:11

turn into fur trout and grow

15:13

fur and become inedible. And

15:16

Herdis would say, I curse

15:18

your fishing spot so that all

15:21

your trout turns to anglerfish. And they

15:23

got angrier and angrier with each

15:25

other until the rage was so overwhelming

15:28

that they exploded. And they

15:30

also took out a shepherd just

15:33

haplessly wandering by. And somewhere

15:36

around there, I haven't been able to find it,

15:38

but somewhere around there, there are three piles of

15:40

stones that represent. I found them. No,

15:42

I didn't. So

15:45

when you hear those stories, like what do

15:47

you pull from that to

15:49

apply to the Seno Saga?

15:52

We've tried with every location

15:55

to to grounds what

15:57

we're doing with it in in some kind

15:59

of connection. back to the folklore and back to the

16:01

land, maybe in an abstract way, maybe in

16:03

a specific way, but we

16:05

always wanted it to have that kind of link to

16:08

the land. So we took

16:10

that figure of Pricer

16:13

and we took

16:15

kind of like feminine

16:18

monstrous energy from that and then we

16:22

used that to create this element

16:24

of Freyslóg. Freyr comes from Freyr,

16:27

the goddess, feminine goddess of

16:30

Norse mythology

16:32

and then the Loig is refers to the hot

16:34

springs that are in that area. And so

16:38

the kind of bubbling fury of the

16:40

hot springs, the rage of the witches and the feminine

16:45

energy becomes Freyrslóg. So

16:48

that was how we kind of came up with a name.

16:51

And again, not to give too much away, but there

16:55

are links to the

16:57

narrative. Yeah, 100%. And then

16:59

Dan, there were multiple

17:01

things I noticed about that place. The smell was

17:04

one, very sulfuric, which

17:06

is fine. It was great. But

17:09

then all the steam coming from that

17:11

place, when you're building

17:13

a game, especially from an environment perspective,

17:18

do you see places like that that are so far

17:20

different than any other place? As like moments to be

17:23

like, okay, I'm going to take a little bit of

17:25

creative freedom, or do you just go

17:27

straightforward and say like, this place is

17:29

so vastly different from some

17:31

of the other places that we visit that we want

17:33

to stay true to the essence of it? They're both

17:35

really. I mean, yeah, we

17:38

have to take some artistic liberties in the layout

17:40

of that anyway, sticking a

17:42

settlement right on top of it. It's a bit of a weird place

17:44

to fit that. But

17:47

it kind of feeds off what you were

17:49

just saying about the ideas behind

17:51

it. And then, yeah, we've kind of

17:53

accentuated some of that that was there,

17:55

with the bubbling mud and things like

17:57

that. We've got areas within it. that

18:00

are even more kind of volatile than things.

18:02

So, yeah, we dial some stuff up, we

18:04

dial some stuff down. Yeah, well people, well

18:07

players, if they touch the water, will they

18:09

like get burned or something? We

18:11

were warned by the bus driver, do not test out

18:13

the water, it is hot. No,

18:16

you can't. Okay, okay, that's confirmed. What

18:19

are some of the encounters that Senn was gonna have

18:21

in Chrisovic? So Chrisovic is

18:23

where we first encounter the joikka.

18:26

Yeah. Which you

18:29

will have seen in some of the trailers. They're

18:32

based really strongly on the joikka

18:35

from the Icelandic sagas.

18:37

Specifically, sorry to

18:40

get a bit specific, but there's

18:42

a saga called the tale of Gratia

18:45

the Strong. And in

18:47

that, Gratia fights a

18:49

joikka. And the

18:52

Norse idea of the unzed was really,

18:55

really compelling to us. And

18:58

for them, the people that came back from the dead were not

19:01

spirits, not ethereal, ghostly spirits.

19:04

They're very, very real, very

19:06

physical, and very violent

19:08

and very dangerous. So in

19:10

this saga, the shepherd who

19:13

comes back from the dead, he

19:15

roams around attacking livestock, attacking people

19:18

and killing them. And the ones that

19:20

he kills, they

19:22

turn into joikka too. So

19:26

there's an element of contagion to it, as well as

19:28

this really violent physical presence. So

19:31

that's what informs our depiction of the

19:33

joikka. And Chrisovic

19:35

Square, you will

19:38

first, and Senna will first encounter them.

19:40

All right, next up on the trip

19:42

was Ruth Halla. I don't know

19:44

what I thought of that place, in the sense of like,

19:46

it was very clear, the striking red

19:48

on those rocks. And actually, Dan, I'll start

19:51

with you on this one. As

19:53

you know, we're in 2024, and we have, like,

19:56

you see this location, you're like, I wanna put this in

19:58

the game. But you realize the game, the game is

20:00

set in 10th century Iceland. And

20:03

again, going back to the fact that you have

20:05

to make a game, what are elements there that

20:07

you change and you say like, let's go and

20:09

let's, how do you make it

20:11

a game? Yeah, well, I mean, number one is

20:14

the vista that you can see when you're there,

20:16

because obviously if you look out beyond it, you

20:18

can see Reykjavik. And there's a motorway

20:20

kind of. It wouldn't work. Yeah,

20:22

exactly. So then, and obviously again, it's

20:24

about kind of dialing everything up. So

20:26

we wanted to kind of expand that

20:28

out. We've kind of, we've accentuated lots

20:30

of it. We've kind of changed the elevation.

20:33

It's going to give you a really cool opening

20:35

shot as you come in and then give it

20:37

that sense of being kind of lost within it

20:39

when you get to the other end. So yeah,

20:41

there's lots of things that you have to kind

20:43

of tweak definitely to make it feel compelling as

20:45

a gameplay space. I have

20:47

loved this. And like I mentioned,

20:49

this entire experience in Iceland has

20:51

been really eye-opening because, you

20:53

know, I'm glad that we've gotten to take the viewers along

20:56

for this because I don't know that people

20:58

don't quite understand what it takes to

21:00

make a game, but not

21:02

only make a game, but make a game that takes

21:04

a location and builds upon it, takes its

21:06

influence and it's, you know, lots of points

21:09

of references and builds into the game. And

21:11

then to your, to what you work on,

21:13

which is script and everything, you

21:15

also have to consider how a character

21:17

grows in that space and their encounters

21:19

and all of it's been great. And

21:23

then Lara, so I want to kind of pose this question to

21:25

you because as you build this game, as I mentioned at the

21:27

top, with the mastery that

21:29

you all have gone through in many different

21:31

facets, we haven't even gotten to how great

21:33

the game looks or the sound design,

21:35

the binaural audio, all

21:38

of those elements, what

21:40

do you hope players take away from this? What

21:43

I really want is for

21:45

people who love Senua, who

21:48

played the first game and maybe saw something of

21:51

themselves in her, I want them

21:53

to feel that we've continued her journey in

21:56

a way that makes them feel as

21:58

immersed and as... in Senora

22:00

as they did from the first game. But

22:03

I would also like people who haven't

22:06

played the first game to become invested

22:08

in Senora's journey, become

22:10

immersed in her world. Yeah, and I think

22:13

they'll do just that. I mean, just from

22:15

the, again, from the trailers, we've seen that

22:17

level of dedication to her character. And I

22:19

know when we get to play the full

22:21

thing, it's gonna be even more evident. And

22:24

then Dan, what do you hope

22:26

that players take away from kind

22:28

of what you've built off of Iceland?

22:30

I mean, it is a beautiful land, and

22:32

you all went to extreme lengths to make

22:35

sure it was faithful, but also tweaked

22:37

it in a way that it makes sense for a game. What

22:40

do you hope players can understand from this entire

22:42

video or the process of making that? Well, I

22:45

mean, yeah, so the sense of journey,

22:47

like, was really important for us to kind of have

22:49

that beginning, middle, and

22:51

end, have that kind of real sort

22:53

of a roller coaster of emotions and

22:56

locations. And I'd hope that when

22:58

people come away from it, they feel like they've kind

23:00

of gone on a journey too. You

23:02

know, like they've experienced it. Like

23:04

it's still pretty intimate. Like

23:06

the first game was super kind of insular,

23:09

like we talked about, and very introspective. And

23:11

obviously this one, she's following other people and

23:13

she's meeting other people and stuff like that.

23:15

But it's still very, very personal. And

23:18

I think that the way that we've tried

23:22

to represent the locations is

23:25

hopefully kind of amplifies that. Yeah,

23:27

I think players will definitely like

23:31

recognize and appreciate that cohesion

23:33

between source of

23:35

inspiration and the game, how it plays with

23:38

Senua and all those elements together. Just from

23:40

this trip alone, I have a new appreciation

23:42

for what it takes to make a game.

23:44

I have a new appreciation for what it

23:46

takes to build a character that has depth.

23:49

And I know that the players everywhere, when

23:51

they experience it, they're gonna walk away saying

23:53

that this is something special. And it's something

23:55

that quite frankly, if we're being honest, only

23:57

a team like Ninja Theory can build you

24:00

all. have done amazing work and I can't

24:02

wait for players to play. So once again,

24:04

a reminder that Sinnoh is on the Hellblade

24:06

2 is out on May 21st on Xbox

24:08

and PC and of course day one on

24:11

Xbox Game Pass. Thank you so much, Laura

24:13

and Dan. Thanks for stopping

24:15

by. Actually, thanks me for stopping by

24:17

in Iceland, you would say. Thanks

24:30

for watching. I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did,

24:32

please subscribe and like. Thank you so much.