Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2, which finally has a release date courtesy of Xbox’s 2024 Developer Direct, will be a digital-only release, Microsoft has confirmed. It will retail for $50, and will be available on Xbox Series X|S consoles, Xbox Game Pass, and on PC via Windows and Steam.
In an Xbox Wire blog post, Ninja Theory studio head Dom Matthews stated when Hellblade 2 launches on May 21, it will be sold as a digital-only title, one that is similar in length to the first game in the series with a “focus on narrative.” According to How Long To Beat, which tracks game lengths as reported by users, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice clocked in at around 7.5 hours for an average, main story playthrough, with a few additional hours for a completionist playthrough.
Ninja Theory doubled down on Hellblade 2 in terms of its brutal combat, which has been reinvented for the sequel and will see Senua battling against Vikings and supernatural threats. All the while, Senua will be dealing with psychosis, something that heavily informs how the game’s story unfolds and is told.
“You can once again expect to join Senua in understanding her world through perception puzzles led by her experiences of psychosis, in brutal and visceral combat and in traversal gameplay…crucially, all these elements are intertwined in a unique visual and audio experience, where everything is in service of Senua’s story,” Matthews said.
Hellblade 2 isn’t the only major game to recently receive a digital-only release. Remedy’s Alan Wake 2 is also a digital-only release for Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5, and was only available on PC via the Epic Games Store.