Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 - DF Tech Review - The Next Level in Real-Time Visuals

her here trapped in her Helm I need to free her from her prison now [Music] [Music] this is the moment that moment whilst engaged in combat that I first saw it the facial expressions dancing across the face of your opponent engaged in Mortal Combat within a powerful storm you feel something your enemy's Expressions reacting and contorting to every swing of the sword this is the moment when I first understood what Ninja Theory was going for this simple one-on-one Skirmish explodes with life before your eyes showcasing a level of raw emotion typically reserved for cutscenes yet here it is in game reacting to the player HBL 2 is already a game that's interesting from a technical standpoint after all it takes advantage of everything Unreal Engine 5 has to offer Lumen nanite virtual Shadow maps and more are all in full effect and that is exciting but it's in the heat of battle that I realized there's more to this presentation than just a basic list of engine features there's this raw emotion underlying the entire experience and this elevates the presentation to a new level yes this is the same hellblade 2 revealed as the very first Xbox series X game way back in 2019 nothing of the game even existed beyond the trailer at that moment but it communicated a certain level of intent in the performance of its characters and I'm happy to say that the final game lives up to this lofty objective hellblade 2 is an unusual thought-provoking cinematic experience boasting some of the highest quality realtime visuals we've ever seen and that's what we're here to discuss today so join me as we dig into the visual Majesty of hellblade 2 as the name implies Center was Saga Blade 2 is intended as a direct sequel to the original Cinema sacrifice this is a carefully paced cinematic game almost like The Logical conclusion of those early 9s FMV experiments I mean that in the best ways possible though and I'm fascinated by its existence in an era where it feels as if Publishers are pushed to fill their games with arguably too many features and tons of busy work hellblade 2 is this tight pure cinem atic experience that strives to deliver something a little different and it's the singular Focus that allows it to shine so brightly becoming its own thing that you won't soon forget worth mentioning that it follows the structure and design of the original hellblade very closely even with the increased scope of the subject matter you will still spend a lot of time walking taking in the scenery and the various narrative beats there are puzzles to solve in the occasional combat sequence but by and large this is an experienc driven game Above All Else and as a story focused game the characters and character rendering play a significant role in presenting this narrative however while the pre-release media largely focused on senua herself much like the first game hellblade 2 features a surprisingly large number of other humans there are actual proper dialogue sequence and interactions with others in a way that we really didn't see much of in the original game and this becomes one of the standout and defining visual features the character rendering in hellblade 2 sets new standards delivering sequences that at times nearly resemble actual film sequences with real actors it's that good this is one of the first examples of a game that truly stands up against the promise of the original Unreal Engine 5 The Matrix awakens demo which should make sense as hellblade like the Matrix awakens Leverage es epic's metahuman technology to help bring the characters to life the scenes feel realistic and natural in a way that manages to largely sidestep The Uncanny Valley feeling you usually get from games like this and when the camera Zooms in for a close-up the level of detail is astounding to the point that I was left guessing whether it was realtime Graphics or simply a pre-rendered cutscene thankfully photo mode is available at any time from the pause menu allowing you to easily confir irm that they are in fact real time of course it's how these characters are presented during gameplay that perhaps impressed me even more as I said during the introduction the Expressions visible while engaged in combat like in this scene or just exploring really help bring the characters to life if you stop zoom in in photo mode there's also plenty of detail to appreciate at close range look closely at her face here the skin the layers of dirt clogging her pores light penetrating the top layer via subsurface scattering the nearly perfect ambient and direct Shadows it's superb her bloodshot eyes simulate the layer of viscous fluid protecting it with just the right amount of specular while her Iris exhibits actual proper depth then there's the fine details on our eyelashes eyebrows and Beyond if we rotate the camera here you can even appreciate the small grouping of hair spilling out from her headdress there's really no question here hellblade 2 features one of the best depictions of a digital human we've ever seen in an interactive game they managed to keep this illusion of very high levels of detail for every single human character in the game and non-human for that matter this realism however is not achieved purely through the use of detailed High polygon character models after all other engines and games are perfectly capable of such Feats we've seen it before no where hellblade really shines comes from the usage of these tools on the art side and a lot of that ties into the postprocessing and other visual effects yes I know if you dip into the options menu you won't find the option to disable things like chromatic aberration and I get it it's not always a popular effect but hear me out on this these effects were chosen with purpose and I think they serve a very important role in defining the overall look of the game the game attempts to simulate the use of an anamorphic lens with the expected focal effects that go along with it as a result there's this realism that genuinely gives you this feeling that what you're seeing has been filmed with a physical camera at least to some degree the use of film grain and chromatic aberration also work hand in hand to heighten the filmic presentation now I know these aren't always popular in games and the option to disable them would be nice for those that genuinely get a headache from seeing them but I do feel that it's key to creating this soft analog like presentation and it's suitable for very specific games it worked brilliantly in Alien Isolation for instance and it works very well here it specifically lends the game this more naturalistic feel something that extends to the PC version by the way even when running in much higher resolutions with things like daa it's just intended to be a soft presentation and I do think it works and this soft presentation is just one of many things that kind of reminded me of the last generation's the order 1886 like the order this is a simple straightforward Affair that prioritizes narrative experience and presentation Above All Else both games rely on soft filmic image quality and both are also way ahead of their time in terms of visual quality I might argue also like the order hellblade 2 is presented using a wider aspect ratio resulting in black bars on a 16x9 screen and this is where talk of resolution comes into play as reported pre-release the final game presents in the 1296 to 1440p range which when factoring in the black bars comes out to 964 to 1070p this is one running on Xbox series X I should mention we'll have more info on the series s in a second video but obviously it runs at a lower resolution playing hellblade though recalls the musings of one Timothy Lots the inventor of FXAA more than a decade ago where there was this discussion over sharpness and high resolutions versus a lower resolution more filmic realistic and high-end output that's more comparable to something like a Blu-ray movie hellblade is the sort of game that tries to answer such a question and when you factor in all the various post-processing effects and the anamorphic simulation of the lens I'm not so sure that adding more pixels really makes that much of a difference in terms of image quality so yeah the characters in camera likee presentation are I would say a success and achieve the goal Ninja Theory set out for itself but there's a lot more here as well hellway 2 is one of the first Unreal Engine 5 Games to ship taking full advantage of everything the engine has promised and it does feel like a genuine Leap Forward so how does it actually manifest in game well firstly there's Lumen hellblade 2 is a game that relies primarily on natural lighting split between Sunlight Moonlight and things such as fire or even Magic by and large hellblade is a very dark game but there are some sequences that take place during the daytime and Lumen allows very natural indirect and direct lighting for that matter as the lighting is entirely real time without a baked component this allows the developers to pull off some rather fancy visual tricks for instance when there's a time Jump the game can simply pull the camera out shift the position of the sun in real time and continue on shadows and indirect lighting update accordingly enhanced by the excellent volumetric cloud s above now we've seen time of day changes like this in other games before but Lumen helps it feel much more cohesive and natural I think there's also sequences like this which produce huge bursts of light as you move through the world you'll first encounter it in this camp for instance which has these blasts of fire Illuminating the entire scene in a strikingly dramatic manner that scene is bathed ever so briefly in the orange glow of fire below and it just looks awesome the same occurs later when you're asked to to dash between pillars of safety as massive bursts of flame Scorch the world around you in time with the music phenomenal stuff but where Lumen really shines is in the more mundane you know the area is in a scene that one might not necessarily pay super close attention to while playing but if it's wrong it will stand out it basically naturalizes the lighting in a way that just feels right like when you look below this wooden structure here the area is uded from the Sun note how they become gradually darker with this very natural sort of shading and shadowing throughout the crevices stuff like this is really difficult to do with a fully realtime lighting system but Lumen does a great job at tying the scene together here of course it's also just a tool really so it's up to the artists themselves to use it effectively which is exactly what they've done here in hellblade 2 this of course highlights the power of using HDR the game does look great in SDR as you're seeing from this video but when played on a suitable HDR display the highlights so beautifully pierce the darkness in a way that truly Delights the senses but settings can be a little tricky depending on which type of display you're using I tested it on two different OLED screens an LG CX and an LG G4 with the increased capabilities of the G4 I found that the game plays best in hgig mode with a wonderful interplay between dim scenes and extremely bright highlights on the CX however I found that I preferred Dynamic tone mapping instead as hgig lowered the overall picture brightness enough that the highlights didn't really make up for it so basically try playing with the different settings and see what looks best to you Lumin Reflections are also used on shiny surfaces such as pools of water though it does seem to be using the software looming path here essentially they layer screen space Reflections on top of the Lumen Reflections which exhibit obvious SDF artifacts if you look closely the only real issue with this configuration is that SSR can cause issues with certain Dynamic objects such as when you're carrying your torch through these sunken ruins note how it reflects awkwardly across the surface due to the use of SSR what's neat though is that thanks to the fully real-time lighting the photo mode even allows players to add lights into a scene and manipulate them in real time suddenly photo mode behaves more like an actual film shoot where you can manually Place key lights to get the best shots so for most players the nuts and bolts of lumen really aren't that important rather it's what it produces that matters and I think that anyone just looking at the game in motion will be impressed by the way the scenes are lit even if they do not understand the technical details it just looks right to the eye which is the power of Ray tracing which of course Lumen is a form of feeding into the lighting is the heavy Reliance on environmental effects for instance the robust volumetrics are a standout with many scenes exhibiting this lwh hanging Mist smoke and more Ninja Theory expertly wields unreal's volumetric fog system with additional fog materials designed to truly simulate the impression of swirling smoke and fog around the player it's extremely effective in scenes like this look closely the way the fog is illuminated with the fire is absolutely breathtaking and genuinely lends the scene this remarkable depth you'll see these effects used across the entire game with pockets of fog nested within the valleys and crevices the Fidelity of this effect is also kept impressively high with minimal breakup and noise on Xbox series X but there are other environmental effects as well such as the water specifically the way the water interacts with environments throughout the game this is evident right from the get-go as the game begins with senoa as a prisoner on board the small ship during a storm at sea eventually you're washed up on the beach and I immediately notice the excellent visualization of waves crashing on the shore seriously the effect of the water lapping up on sh is just stunning I think rain droplets fall within this scene beautifully capturing the feeling of existing within inclement weather this mix of rain and volumetrics is absolutely stunning but I was equally impressed by The Game's stream system no not data streaming I mean actual streams of water now this is always is a tricky thing to get right but I feel that scenes with moving water really do capture the essence of flowing water there's even a scene in which you drain a lake to reveal an underground passage which just looks amazing in motion and even basic pools of water can look pretty darn amazing in the right circumstances clearly a lot of time and effort was poured into the visualization of water and it does pay off by now though you should have also picked up on another major benefit of unre engine 5 nanite this virtualized geometry system is designed to allow extreme meshed density while virtually eliminating any signs of Popin that means as you move across the game's world everything should remain stable without any visible assd draw or other distracting artifacts that aspect by itself is very impressive and does contribute to the photo realism on display this is extremely evident when transitioning between different scenes as we saw earlier as the camera swoops down from above there is no visible poppin at all within the entire scene which is something you normally wouldn't see in a game at this scale nanite also helps the artists create these large scale sequences with minimal repetition or tiling the assets themselves rely on scan photogrametry assets of course based on various trips the team took during development but the implementation is superb interestingly the location choice for this game is kind of a perfect match for that initial release of Unreal Engine 5 you remember that first demo right with all the Rocks yeah hellblade does feature scenes with foliage but a lot of the game world really feels like that initial Tech demo only seen through to completion as a shipping game that's not to say everything here is Flawless the scenes look their best from the normal gameplay perspective but if you stop and zoom in you'll notice certain limitations in the Raw assets at times things like these tree branches for instance do not hold up under close scrutiny that's certainly not always the case though but it is something you might notice when poking and prodding now this isn't really a complaint per se as it doesn't negatively affect what you see from the normal in-game camera this is more a photo mode thing so it's just kind of an observation the technology here is not magic basically and we're still ultimately limited by Manpower and time above anything else still when dealing with all this dense geometry Shadows become even more important and that's where the use of virtual Shadow Maps comes into play another key ue5 feature the idea behind vssm is to increase the resolution of Shadows to the point that it can actually reflect the dense fine geometry of nanite driven scenes as well as just character models in general so if you zoom into small scale objects the game is able to retain that fine Shadow detail without any of the usual issues we associate with Shadow maps you can see it on senoa character model as well if you zoom into the various bits and Bobs in our outfit they cast perfectly defined Shadows the key here is that vssm are fully unified all Shadows are now handled in real time using this technique so there's no more need for combining different types of Shadows which was often the case in onreal engine 4 titles that's not to say shadow quality is always perfect there are moments like this where you can see cracks in the vssm presentation but by and large it's very consistent in high quality throughout and a key part of the visual design the real magic of course stems from the combination of all these techniques by The Game's artist this isn't the first shipping game to use these features but it is arguably the best looking example we've seen thus far but this does come at a cost frame rate this topic is a little tricky regarding a game like this so it has been known for a while hellblade 2 is indeed limited to 30 frames per second on Xbox consoles and it does reach this Target basically flawlessly in my experience there's basically zero hiccups throughout it runs at a flat 30 frames per second and that's exactly what you're going to get from start to finish so there is something to be said for perfect consistency and perfect frame pacing however the conversation around this target is a little more delicate in a matter of personal opinion I've always felt that certain types of presentations can work well at 30fps and hellblade 2 is one of those games but not everyone is going to be on board with this but thankfully there is a PC version as well and it left me wondering just how far away from hitting 60 FPS on Xbox is this game well that's where I come in with a bit of theory crafting based on our Frankenstein's console we're going to be running the PC version of hellblade 2 on a PC built from the AMD 4800s desktop kit which is literally using the Xbox series X CPU paired with 16 gigs of GD dr6 memory just like the console along with the radon RX 6700 10 gig an rdna2 GPU that performs very much like the ps5s GPU because architecturally it's very very similar and as we've seen in so many cross-platform comparisons well PS5 is Graphics power is close to series X so consider this like a a ballpark PC build that should give us some idea if 60 FPS is possible on the Microsoft console first up some words of praise for the PC Port begins with a Shader PR compilation step which doesn't take too long and does seem to solve the usual PSO based stutter struggle inherent to many Unreal Engine games next up the menu screen is really very impressive a wealth of options are available and field of view emission apart pretty well featured I'd say uh but here's what I really like at any point in the game you can pause and tweak any settings in real time highlighter setting engage the preview and you can see exactly how the setting adjusts the scene plus you see the performance changes in real time too it's really neat both CPU and GPU scores needs to be below 16.7 milliseconds to sustain 60 frames per second so we've got a very Xbox like PC here and we can set up its performance profile like Xboxes out of the box we can set output resolution on our decidedly mid-range RX 6700 to Output 3840 by 2160 4K k then we can set Dynamic resolution scaling to Target 30 FPS I'm even able to stay at high settings here and uh early work on settings comparisons to the console version well we're seeing a mixture of medium and high so far in our testing but I'm able to run Flatout on high settings here the end result is a game that looks just as fantastic as Xbox if not more so very similar performance but what about 60 FPS for this testing we can only really guess what Ninja the itself might try to do if it was so inclined to make a performance mode but I settled on reducing output resolution to 1440p moving the DRS Target up to 60 frames per second and dropping down to medium settings which should say still very attractive cut scenes can be challenging dropping into the 50s and sometimes down into the 40s on the most demanding scenes gameplay however is in the high 50s and often at 4 60 frames per second and this is important as graphic quality settings and resolution is scalable but CPU performance not so much the 4800s desktop kit seems to deliver performance in line with a high-end Zen one CPU generally occasionally encroaching into desktop Zen 2 levels it doesn't have the cach or low latency of desktop Zen 2 chips but even so I don't think CPU performance is the problem in hitting 60 frames per second and I do think on that regard series X could probably we do it based on what we're seeing here though maybe the dynamic resolution Scala just isn't responsive enough to consistently hit 60 frames per second or maybe the lower bounds just isn't low enough everything does seem to work a treat at 30 FPS though at least on this particular GPU however there is another problem traversal stutter here I'm comparing runs on my 60fps profile against my maxed out 4K DRS 30fps capture at the same point every time you see a stutter like this Frame times leap to a Max 140 milliseconds an annoying pause at 30 FPS but a massive glitch at 60 it's not a great look for the PC version but might possibly be improved by a faster CPU but here's the thing if we run this sequence on Xbox series X it runs at a totally consistent 30 frames per second no traversal stutter so let the velocity architecture theories begin now but here's an intriguing final test here I'm using medium settings but with high LOD High textures and high foliage which are settings that are confirmed on series X whether I'm at 1080P 1440p or 4K output no 60 FPS here I think the lower bounds on Dynamic res is identical for all resolutions hence the very similar frame rate readout despite very different Target resolutions so the PC version is pretty good I'd say based on these first impression questions and we have more on this in the fullness of time on more conventional rigs but for now I'd say that 60 FPS is theoretically possible on series X with reduced resolution and effects but as for a stable 60fps well that's another thing uh resolution may need to drop very very low for consistency and meanwhile well I agree with John basically play the game and you'll see that 60 FPS is what you might call a nice to have but 30 FPS is just fine for this type of experience the option is there for PC along with so much more uh more soon on this game but for now back to John thanks Rich but as you know there's more to the presentation than just the visuals audio plays just as large a role specifically in hellblade 2 and it takes a very different approach compared to most other games you see one of the key elements of this game are the voices senoa hears throughout the manifestation of psychosis really he died because of them do you remember they took him from you you're Dean they killed him to that end like the original Ninja Theory relies on binaural audio and suggests playing the game in headphones while the home theater experience is indeed still excellent the effect definitely works best with headphones reason being the idea of bino audio is to simulate the physical characteristics of our ears and the way sound enters the ear canal by duplicating this via recording with something like a head mic or using another technique it creates that illusion it really simulates the way your ears work the way this is leveraged for hellblade though means that as the voices speak to the player through the headphones it genuinely gives the impression that there is someone directly whispering in your ears and around your head you did it son now people will be free again you brought home yes you think you have triumphed but this means nothing this woman was no God she was weak like you this changes nothing I need to go home it's incredibly engaging but of course the overall audio presentation is as well here's one example The Haunting chance and rising of the music in this part really showcase what I mean [Music] what's that [ __ ] curing slaughtering her thought it couldn't get so yeah when it comes to presentation it's clear that hellblade 2 stands among the best looking games ever created it's a great Fusion of ue5 and ninja Theory's talented art team everything about the presentation feels polished to Perfection the thing about this presentation though is we've seen it before sort of in Prior demos now we know the original 2019 trailer does not represent the in-game visuals but the gameplay reveal trailer that occurred later does exist in the final game you know the one with the giant encounter in the cave well comparing the two side by side I noticed some changes right away things like color grading the weather conditions and the overall look of the scene it looks great in both cases just a little different this is true both inside and outside the cave I was not able to get a perfect lineup here because there are some differences in the way the camera fov is handled along with changes to animation as the giant begins crawling into the cave however it's at this point that the animation does actually line up almost perfectly suggesting this scene was animated a while ago and they were happy with the results which I agree are very good now at this point the people surrounding the giant are readying their attack and I did notice a difference in how the Torches are represented the lens effects are less pronounced in the demo there's no flare around the fire then watch as the giant is lit on fire first let's look at the final game that's a pretty cool effect I think it looks great but if we bring the demo in I did notice that the flame seemed to boast smoother overall animation while the intensity of the flame itself has been ramped up to Pure White so they definitely made some changes here I do love the way this smoke fills the scene though after that initial attack it's very atmospheric in evocative but then we see the Flames emerge once again and I still think it looks great in the final game but the fluidity of that demo is even more visible here thankfully this is in my opinion the only real noticeable loss in terms of rendering quality everything else is basically a s step where the result looks amazing even if a little different from the original demo which is nice to see Ninja Theory clearly reached their goal in terms of building a worldclass presentation I can say that much it's an interesting release in the sense that the team decided to focus in on this very narrow experience while delivering it at the highest possible Fidelity basically hellblade 2 is less of a typical game and more of something that washes over you it's a style of release not unlike cyan's original manhole from the80s even back then arguments about over what was a game and what wasn't continued and however you feel about that topic I do think it's a journey worth taking I've been thinking about this and I think the reason it doesn't resonate with some folks may come down to expectations and simply preference hellblade 2 is a story-driven experience more than one might think of as a typical video game but this style of experience has existed for a while now this type of narrative driven game is very common in the Indie space but it's unusual to see it in the tripa space which makes hellblade 2 rather unique but this starts to get into what makes something more of a narrative game versus an actual action game I think it comes down to what sort of control is provided to the player and how that factors into the experience for instance the input there's a lot of scenes throughout this game where you'll push up to climb a cliff or simply walk forward but in reality you push up watch an anim play out and then when that animation stops you can push up again to continue so you're not really actively climbing you're just triggering a series of animations and it's kind of the same in combat basically every encounter is a series of one-on-one faceoffs you attack parry and Dodge but when you've drained enough life from that specific enemy the game switches to a canned animation that finishes him off before bringing in the next enemy it looks incredible during these moments but it's a very simplistic design but I think that's okay it actually works really well and manages to feel surprisingly visceral they're not trying to make a deep combat game here and frankly I think it's great that such an experience can be made at this level of fidelity whether it's for you or not is up to the individual but what's here has been executed perfectly which I think deserves Kudos Ninja Theory has made one of the most technically accomplished examples of realtime Graphics in a game that we've seen to date which is why given its availability on services such as Game Pass I think everyone should at least give it a look I admit the introduction is very slow and it did not initially work for me but in time I found myself drawn into this world and I really enjoyed the overall experience and hopefully you enjoyed this video here because we've reached the end so let us know what you think of hellblade 2 and we'll see you next time

Channel: Digital Foundry

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Id: cpsRNCKiVCk

Length: 33min 58sec (2038 seconds)

Published: Thu May 23 2024