Hellblade II: Senua’s Saga news & patch notes

The Enhanced update for Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II has arrived, and with it, comes some new features and enhancements for you to explore.

Very High

When the game launched last year we offered Low, Medium and High graphics presets. With this update we’ve made some select visual enhancements to take advantage of newer, more powerful hardware, which you can enable with our new ‘Very High’ graphics preset. Rather than dialling everything up, our team carefully considered where we could make the most impactful improvements for a visual quality bump at a reasonable performance cost. The result sees more detailed and accurate shadows, improved AntiAliasing, better post-processing such as depth of field, motion blur and bloom. Very High will also offer increased view distances and improved volumetrics. For those with hardware that supports it, we’ve also included DLSS 4 and Multi Frame Generation for boosted frame rates.

Steam Deck

Something else we wanted to revisit with this update was performance on Steam Deck to achieve Verified compatibility, and we’re pleased to report that this work was successful. Deck performance at launch wasn’t an out-of-the-box experience, so players would find themselves needing to tweak settings to achieve optimal performance. We’ve now made the game ‘Deck-aware’, so the game will now automatically select the best settings for this hardware. We’ve also found some CPU performance improvements for a better game experience on Steam Deck.

New features

Once you have completed the game, you’ll now unlock two new ways to experience Senua’s story. Select Dev Commentary mode to hear from our team, cast and collaborators as you play. You’ll learn about the craft, care and creative decisions that went into making Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II. For those looking for a challenge, Dark Rot mode will truly put your skills to the test. Not only is the combat harder in this mode, but die too many times and the Dark Rot will consume Senua, wiping your progress. Sound familiar?

For the virtual photographers, we’ve added some new photo mode features to push your creativity even further. Motion, ambient sounds and music can now be added to your captures. We’ve also made some improvements to a range of settings to make sure you have the tools you need to capture incredible images from the game.

We hope you enjoy these new enhancements and features, whether you’re a returning player, or you’re embarking on Senua’s quest to Iceland for the first time.

Check out the full patch notes:

• Dark Rot mode can be selected after completing the game.
• Dark Rot Achievement added.
• Developer Commentary can be selected after completing the game.
• Very High graphs preset added.
• DLSS4 / Multi Frame Gen.
• Dolby Atmos for speakers.
• Enhanced Photo mode.
• Steam Deck Verified + performance improvements.
• DualSense controller support.
• Fixed overlaps present in localised languages in pause menu when text size is set to large.
• Fixed Senua's hair turning white when she steps into the light in Chapter 4 "Act of Sacrifice".
• Fixed a bug where changing upscaler for the first time does not load upscaler quality mode properly
• Fixed Senua's hair sometimes turning white when using Intel XeSS or AMD FSR Ultra Performance mode in Chapter 2 "Return Home".
• Fixed a bug where holding input does not always work for getting up, when button mash input method is set as ‘Hold’.
• Fixed speaker colour settings.
• Fixed an enemy encounter in the 2nd fight of Chapter 6 where an opponent continues an attack sequence after Senua is knocked down on the ground against a wall.
• Fixed Senua's footprints moving alongside her in Chapter 4 caves after the ‘Trial of Wisdom’ checkpoint, if reached in asingle game session that started in a previous chapter's checkpoint.
• Fixed Senua dying after climbing elevated ground in the first part of the Sea Giant's ritual in Chapter 5.
• Fixed assets without collision spawning after skipping a cinematic with Astridr in the forest, during Chapter 6.
• Fixed a Hiddenfolk puzzle disappearing if the graphic preset is changed.
• Fixed the speaker disappearing from the subtitles after pausing and resuming the game.
• Fixed Thorgestr and Senua's subtitles not syncing with audio during the Draugr fight at the settlement in Chapter 5
• Fixed The Goði spawning on screen behind Senua if she performs the neck breaking animation on the last Axe Northman warrior
• Fixed Northman enemies spinning around jarringly if attacked in the back with Focus attacks during Chapter 6.
• Fixed a red light highlighting Senua after the 4th fight with devourers during a checkpoint.
• Several menu narration fixes across the board.

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II Enhanced, a special update with new features and ways to experience the game, arrives on Steam August 12.

Pushing Performance

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II is a cinematic experience of immersion where we push real-time visuals to deliver rich, believable environments and characters to sink you deep into Senua’s story. In this update we’re adding a new ‘Very High’ graphics preset to push the visuals even further, and we’re also happy to confirm that the game will be Steam Deck Verified when the update drops in August.

The Dark Rot Returns

The Dark Rot from Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice has returned and offers an additional challenge for Senua on her quest to Iceland in this optional game mode. The Dark Rot will grow each time you fail, and if it reaches Senua’s head, her quest is over and all progress will be lost.

Enhanced Photo Mode

We’re really excited to offer an enhanced set of tools for virtual photographers with our updated photo mode, as well as an all-new ‘Motion’ tab for custom cinematic video capture. We can’t wait to see what you create with these new tools.

Developer Commentary

Hear from the Ninja Theory team, cast and collaborators as you play through the game, with insights into the craft, and creative decisions that went into making Senua's Saga: Hellblade II.

Whether you’re a returning player or brand new to Senua’s story, there will be plenty to explore when Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II Enhanced arrives on Steam as a free update August 12.

• Best Visual Design
• Best Audio Design
• Best Lead Performer – Melina Juergens as Senua
• Best Supporting Performer - Abbi Greenland & Helen Goalen as The Furies

• Steam Trading Cards now available.
• Fix for a rare FSR3 crash.
• Added the option to link your Microsoft account. This will enable cross-achievements (earn Xbox achievements as you play and unlock achievements on Steam).

• Added a warning prompt when selecting ‘New Story’ as this option resets the current save's story progress.
• Fixed the large text size option, which was causing UI elements in chapter selection to go out of bounds.
• Animation sync issues during some enemy executions in combat have been adjusted and fixed.
• Adjusted the combat events during the Thórgestr battle at the end of Chapter 1
• Several localization fixes.
• Tree collision fixes in Chapter 2 settlement puzzle.
• Fixed the crash when closing photo mode after extended gameplay.
• Fixed a few cases of memory leaks game-wide.
• Ultrawide fix during Chapter 3 cinematic to prevent Fargrímr from disappearing.
• Indoor rain inside the broken house in Chapter 1 is fixed.
• Ghosting issues fixed when running Frame Generation.
• Added missing SFX during Chapter 3 puzzle and Chapter 4 combat
• Fixed missing captions in several areas across the game.
• Missing facial animations in Chapter 5 cinematic after village battle.
• Misaligned peach fuzz around Senua's neck and face has been corrected.
• Goði combat crowd push events have been adjusted for a better combat experience.
• Improved FSR3 artefacts.
• Fixed the case of some animated objects were invisible during gameplay.
• Fixed instances of black marks appearing on faces around beards and fine hairs on Low preset.