What you need to know
- As part of a round of previews for its upcoming game, Ninja Theory confirmed that Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 runs at 30 FPS on Xbox Series X|S consoles.
- This is a conscious choice due to the nature of the game's presentation, involving various graphical effects from across the Unreal Engine 5 tech suite.
- Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 is set to launch on May 21, 2024 across Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and Xbox Game Pass.
We've got some of the first technical details for how Senua's second adventure will be playing on gaming hardware.
There's a new round of previews for Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2, the upcoming third-person adventure being developed by Ninja Theory and Xbox Game Studios. Speaking with Gamepro.de, Ninja Theory confirms that Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 runs at 30 FPS on Xbox Series X|S, though players with a beefy PC rig — the Windows PC requirements have not yet been revealed — will be able to push the framerate higher.
Why does Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 run at 30 FPS on Xbox Series X|S?
While the game is not yet released and as such, a full technical breakdown is not yet available, it's fair to say that Ninja Theory has focused on visual fidelity, prioritizing the way the game looks as a conscious choice. The team has been using new techniques and features to push what's possible, including scanning handcrafted items like doors, tools, and outfits to make them look more realistic, as well as taking advantage of Unreal Engine 5's virtual geometry system Nanite.
Speaking with Polygon, Ninja Theory environment art director Dan Attwell notes that by using Unreal Engine 5 “the turnaround between scanning the thing and putting it in the level is drastically cut, and you can spend that time finessing,” adding that this tech pipeline has given the team the "trajectory we wanted."
Analysis: Not surprising in the least
While I certainly understand players who want everything to be 60 FPS, CPUs have limitations, and I'm not even remotely shocked that Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 is locked to 30 FPS on current-generation Xbox hardware.
Whenever I have the option, I'll almost always choose a higher framerate in a game, but if it isn't possible without sacrificing integral parts of the design, like we saw in Starfield, then I trust developers to make the best choice for the game.
All of the previews I've read today (Polygon's in particular is excellent, and you should read it) extensively praise the way the game looks, so as far as I can tell without actually playing myself, it seems like Ninja Theory made the right choices for the story they are crafting and the world they are building.
Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 is slated to launch on May 21, 2024 across Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC. The game will be $50 at launch, and like all Xbox first-party titles, it's included day one in Xbox Game Pass.
