Very similar to the unique Hellblade, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II is a story motion sport that places gamers within the perspective of Senua, a traumatized Celtic warrior with psychosis. As a sport about studying to see actuality and Senua’s visions as one and the identical, Hellblade II delivers an expertise that makes use of distinctive visible and, most particularly, audio results that emphasize the protagonist’s way of thinking all through her journey.
In the course of the 2025 Sport Builders Convention, Ninja Concept principal sound designer Daniele Galante gave an in depth presentation on the sound design of Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, and the way the unique sport’s progressive use of binaural audio was expanded for the sequel. Along with breaking down how actors carried out their classes with binaural audio setups, the sound designer defined the challenges and advantages of heightened sound design for video games.
Making a hallucinatory soundscape
Developer Ninja Concept has constructed fairly a pedigree for crafting video games with wealthy visible types and spectacular sound design. The unique Hellblade acquired important reward for not solely being a sport with a modest funds and scope but additionally for the way the builders managed to push their sources to provide a visually gorgeous sport with stellar audio design and intelligent use of binaural audio – audio design that re-creates sound inside a 3D house.
For Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, Ninja Concept acquired extra sources and a bigger staff to make a extra high-end follow-up, and the sound design was one space that the builders needed to enhance upon. All through the sport, Senua battles foes from rival clans and different unsettling foes—however her journey is fraught with visible and auditory hallucinations that flip her already dire circumstances right into a harrowing ordeal. Finally, she makes use of her survival expertise and notion to middle herself, and by the sport’s finish, she as soon as once more accepts herself and involves phrases with traumas.
In keeping with Galante, persevering with with using binaural audio was obligatory because it allowed them to assist gamers get a greater understanding of how people hear auditory hallucinations and to immerse them inside Senua’s perspective.
“Many individuals assume that you just hear [auditory hallucinations] inside your head, however that is not correct.” In most peoples’ experiences, they hear voices round them, very very similar to how I am chatting with you or after we speak to one another,” mentioned Galante. “Utilizing binaural audio was an apparent alternative as a result of we wish to reproduce these voices across the participant to get them inside this expertise. On prime of that, we may give our performers a really highly effective instrument, which is their physique language motion. They often can’t use it once they play video video games. They’ve to face in entrance of the mic, which is a strong instrument. They must fill their efficiency with extra emotion, and due to that, we discovered that actors with a theater background often work very nicely with binaural audio.”
As Galante defined with a number of movies in his presentation, the actors taking part in the Furies (Abbi Greenland and Helen Goalen)—the voices that Senua hears all through the sport – carried out their strains whereas additionally shifting round a Neumann KU 100 Binaural Dummy Head mic through the seize classes—treating the mic as if it have been Senua and each the participant. The particular mic simulates the average-sized head and captures sound in a 3D house, however Galante made some extent to say that the effectiveness of binaural audio tends to differ for some individuals, and he confused one of the best ways to expertise the sport’s sound design is with headphones.
Sound drives story, however story is “king”
One notice that Galante confused was that the sport’s audio design needed to serve the storytelling. For Hellblade II, the principal sound designer handled the binaural audio recordings from the actors as if it have been an acoustic instrument. The reverb created from the performers’ voices and the sound designers adjusting it in post-production with Visible Studio Expertise (VST) helped put gamers within the way of thinking that Senua was in.
The usage of non-verbal voice seize – to create eerie noises and different off-putting sounds—proved particularly necessary in serving to to create an unsettling temper, all in service of Senua’s perspective. Actor Edward Spence offered voice strains and non-verbal audio for a sequence the place Senua travels by a sunken cave stuffed with the voices of the lifeless reaching out to her.
“Our voice is a particularly highly effective instrument, and we should always use it extra after we do sound design,” he mentioned. “We additionally report nondialect stuff, so any doable noise you can also make together with your mouth is there as a result of we wish to be experimental and take it to the participant’s mind and make them really feel uncomfortable. As a result of after we hear a voice that isn’t speculated to be there, that may make you’re feeling weirded out by it.”
Picture by way of Ninja Concept/Microsoft.
Picture by way of Ninja Concept/Microsoft.
One of many main sequences in Ninja Concept’s sequel was Seuna’s confrontation with the Tyrant—an emotionally difficult and brutal boss battle in opposition to the protagonist’s father. To current this boss battle as a sequence the place Senua confronts a serious supply of trauma and abuse in her life, the builders mixed the voices of six completely different voice actors to make the voice of the Tyrant. They utilized the 3D audio results to offer the sequence an oppressive and all-consuming really feel.
Galante later acknowledged that, regardless of the huge advantages of binaural audio for immersion, it additionally presents a number of challenges. Along with being time-consuming to provide, in depth post-production work is required to make sure the binaural audio works within the sport for basic audiences. Most significantly, Galante acknowledged you could have a transparent imaginative and prescient of what you wish to do when recording, as 3D audio is ready in stone.
One mistake the Ninja Concept sound designer made got here early into the making of the audio design for the Tyrant battle, and it was as a result of the remainder of the staff did not have a selected imaginative and prescient for what the struggle can be like. When he revisited the primary actor’s recording following the staff having a clearer concept of how the encounter would play out he discovered it wasn’t fairly appropriate for the brand new idea, and he needed to do the painstaking means of readjusting the 3D audio, which meant duplicating the observe and inverting and altering the sound to make it work for the idea of six completely different actors offering voices for the sequence.
Nonetheless, he remarked that binaural audio has super benefits for immersing gamers within the sport. Nonetheless, as a result of there haven’t been many makes use of within the inventive fields, it may be difficult to discover a clear imaginative and prescient and roadmap for its makes use of, however he expressed that it was price making an attempt and that he hoped extra builders would attempt to pursue it.
“For now, there’s not a lot documentation concerning binaural audio on the inventive facet because it’s largely used for scientific functions and never usually in a inventive subject,” mentioned Galante. “So every thing we did, we discovered by making errors, and we did make errors alongside the best way. Due to this, recording binaural audio may be fairly an costly a part of our job. So what I am sharing right here is our expertise, and what labored for us, and isn’t the principles set in stone, however hopefully, this may help a few of you if you wish to do some binaural recording [for your games].”
