Ninja Theory reveals that the development team for Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 will be twice as big as the team that made the first game. It suggests that Hellblade 2, which was announced for the Xbox Series X at The Game Awards 2019, could offer fans a much longer and bigger experience than Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice.
To give fans a look at how it makes its games, Ninja Theory have been a development diary series called "The Dreadnought Diaries." In the first episode of the series, co-founder Tameem Antoniades confirmed that "the team will be about twice the size of Hellblade's team." The Hellblade 2 development team will be "very small by triple AAA standards, but aims to prove that small teams can achieve great things using procedural technologies and smart tools." Ninja Theory is now owned by Microsoft but fans will be glad to see that this hasn't changed the way that the developer makes games.
There have been some big hiring announcements at Ninja Theory, helping to grow this team. It has been confirmed that a Naughty Dog artist has joined Ninja Theory and that this new artist is working on Hellblade 2. Reviews of the first game were incredibly positive about how the game looked, but the new hire will help to grow that and make Hellblade 2 look better.
Antoniades also said that Hellblade 2 will look at "how madness and suffering shapes myths, gods, and religion." The first Hellblade also looked at mental illness and how protagonist Senua handles her psychosis. Ninja Theory also worked with a mental health charity and donated some of its profits to a mental health organization. It seems that the second game will also show mental illness, but potentially on a bigger level, affecting not just Senua but other people and groups around her.
Hellblade 2 isn't the only game that Ninja Theory is developing. The developer has also announced a horror game called Project: Mara. Project: Mara is unlikely to be the game's official name once it's been released and Ninja Theory also hasn't confirmed when fans will be able to play it. The developer likes to keep its teams small, but it also developing a multiplayer game called Bleeding Edge. With Ninja Theory working on so much, it could be a while until fans get to play Project: Mara or Hellblade 2, but if they are as good as the first Hellblade fans will accept the wait.
Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 is coming to the Xbox Series X and PC.