Ninja Theory made an appearance at the XBOX Games Showcase to reveal Senua, a new action-adventure game that continues the character’s story while shifting into what the studio calls a very different kind of game from the Hellblade titles. Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II leaned on intimate cinematic storytelling when it launched in 2024 and later expanded to PlayStation 5, but this follow-up widens the scope with deeper combat, more puzzle-solving, and an interconnected world to explore. Studio head Dom Matthews walked through the details in a long interview, and the game is set to arrive in 2027.
On why it’s titled simply Senua rather than Hellblade III, Matthews framed it as a fresh and different style of game, one that builds on what Hellblade delivered while adding the kind of systems players expect from a premium action-adventure game. He pointed to feedback from Hellblade II, where players praised the presentation, story, and atmosphere but wanted more gameplay and agency, and said the goal here is to meet those expectations. The project also brings Ninja Theory’s entire 85-person team onto a single game for the first time in over 12 years, since DmC: Devil May Cry, drawing on the studio’s history with titles like Enslaved and Heavenly Sword. To make that happen, Matthews confirmed the studio’s previously announced horror title Project Mara is no longer in development, a decision he made to put all of the studio’s talent behind Senua.
Combat sits at the center of the reveal trailer, and Matthews described the guiding idea as “tactical choice,” giving players options for how to approach a fight or whether to engage at all. Senua now takes on multiple enemies at once, with verticality and environmental elements to use, alongside a broader weapon set that includes a long axe, a short axe, dual-wielding, and throwing weapons. Players can grab weapons off enemies or find them in the world, holstering some to carry along or using others in the moment, like hurling a short axe to take out a distant foe. The studio is also leaning into Focus Abilities tied to Senua’s beliefs, such as a power to shatter reality that opens up spaces in the world and works as crowd control in combat, and it teased fantastical boss fights toward the end of the trailer.
The world is built as a single interconnected map about twice the size of Hellblade II’s, though Matthews stressed it is not an open world but a linear story told across connected locations. Exploration is meant to reward perception, with secrets that open up over time, like an unusually shaped tree that matters more once Senua develops a new belief later in the game and gains a power tied to it. That framing ties back to the series’ grounding in Senua’s experience of psychosis, with the studio inviting players to believe in the world the way she does. Traversal has been reworked to feel freer and snappier with faster movement, more vaulting, climbing, and jumping, and more verticality across multi-level spaces.
Storywise, Senua takes place after both Hellblade games and is set in Purgatory, specifically Senua’s vision of it shaped as her childhood homeland, so she is in one sense returning home. Trapped between life and death, she is on a quest to reach the afterlife and reunite with those she has lost, believing that healing the wounds of her life is the key that unlocks the gate. Matthews said the game is built to welcome newcomers as much as returning fans, presenting its characters and themes so new players can follow along without prior Hellblade experience. The recurring wave of gold in the trailer represents what he called an insidious but beautiful force that threatens to erase what Senua believes in and reflects what she risks becoming, though he kept further details under wraps.
The roughly three-year gap between Hellblade II and Senua is deliberate, with Matthews noting the studio began work on Senua in September 2024, a few months after Hellblade II shipped, and saying it wants to ship games more regularly going forward. Senua arrives in 2027 on PlayStation 5, XBOX Series X|S, and PC, including on Steam and in XBOX Game Pass, with XBOX Play Anywhere support across console and PC.
