Inside Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 - An Unreal Engine 5 Masterpiece - The Ninja Theory Breakdown

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 is - point-blank - one of the best-looking and best-sounding video games you can play. In a special interview with Digital Foundry, Ninja Theory answers all of our questions about the development of the game: the move from Unreal Engine 4 to UE5, exploiting high-end features like Lumen, Nanite and Virtual Shadow Maps, the game’s phenomenal audio, chosen frame-rate targets and much, much more. Thanks to the team for agreeing to talk with us about this remarkable game! Want some DF-branded tee-shirts, mugs, hoodies and various items based on DF catchphrases? Check out our store: Join the DF Supporter Program for pristine video downloads, behind the scenes content, early access to DF Retro, early access to DF Direct Weekly and much, much more: Subscribe for more Digital Foundry: 00:00 Introduction 00:45 Switching to Unreal Engine 5 03:12 Exploiting Nanite 08:43 Lighting and Lumen 14:55 Visual effects: running water and light flashes 17:54 Game audio and binaural audio 24:54 Wave simulation 26:59 Discrepancies between gameplay demo and final game 29:10 Facial animation 31:15 Photogrammetry 34:00 Time jump sequences 36:19 PC version settings menu 37:18 Console frame-rate target and production scheduling 40:14 Epic’s TSR vs other AA solutions 42:19 Conclusion