VIDEO: THIS VIDEO GAME TESTS YOUR MENTAL CAPACITY!
We are all prisoners of our own minds to some extent and these illusions lead to dark whisperings, and strange insights that are part of a video game called Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice and, in this context, the darkness is a metaphor for mental illness.
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is a cinematic psychological horror action-adventure video game developed and published by Ninja Theory for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 4.Hellblade developer Ninja Theory has been open about its desire to use video games to tell a story about mental health issues.
Hellblade tells the story of Senua—a warrior woman on an Orpheus-style quest to free the soul of her dead lover. To do so, she must journey through Viking hell and face her personal demons as well as the horrors of the afterlife. Those personal demons are well-researched and more terrifying than any of the game's more conventional challenges.
Here's the thing, Senua suffers from psychosis. That's the clinical term—more common in the UK (where Ninja Theory is based) than in the US—for a broad range of symptoms usually bundled under the diagnosis of schizophrenia. Senua, like some other people with that condition, hears voices that aren't there and sees things that aren't real.
Other mechanics layer on the frustration. The game offers no instruction on how to play. There's no combat tutorial, no good explanation of its save deleting despair mechanic, and no way to know what's real and what's not.
Hellblade isn't the first game to tackle mental health issues or mess with the player. Metal Gear Solid's Psycho Mantis boss fight freaked players out by messing with their TV and reading their save file. The Gamecube's Eternal Darkness pretended to delete save files. Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, Darkest Dungeon, and Bloodborne all use the mental health of their characters as a kind of secondary health bar.
It feels very unfair. People with mental health issues are often on the frontlines of a battle in their own mind. One that can last their entire life. One where every victory reminds you of the consequences of defeat. One where you might go years without symptoms only to find yourself in the throes of an episode after hearing the wrong song or eating the wrong meal.
The video shows you 10 minutes of game play by IGN and anything close to the emotional intensity that courses through this game might lead you to second guessing your own sanity.