Ninja Theory, The UK based independent developing studio, invites you to plunge into madness through their new third-person action adventure game – Hellblade.
Based on the legends of Celtic mythology, Hellblade centers around the warrior Senua, who after a Viking invasion is left emotionally wounded and mentally distressed, and finds herself embarking on a journey through a horrific landscape of her own hell.
In an effort to bring a wider awareness to the issues of mental illness, the 15 employees of Ninja theory have worked together with Paul Fletcher, a professor of Health and Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge and those with first hand experience of living with mental difficulties, to ensure the game is an accurate and sensitive portrayal of the subject.
It appears that working with the team has even given professor Fletcher a renewed feeling that the culture of video games could help give society a more empathetic view on what it perceives as disabilities, by having players experience them first hand through the eyes of an emotionally complex main character. Describing the stiffness of academic lectures and textbooks, he states that “this approach will contribute powerful new ways of challenging stigma.”
The 15 member team developing this achievement in interactive story-telling has been described as an Independent AAA developer. Meaning that their quality of work is more than capable of rivaling the creations of other heavy hitters in the industry, while retaining the creative freedom that exists by developing games outside of the industry itself.
In fact, not only are they free from the development problems that exist in the committees and executives that require a mass marketable product, their self distribution ensures that a smaller profit margin is required for the game to be a success, allowing them to sell a high quality AAA title at half the cost of a local retailer.
The project is so highly praised that ‘Welcome trust”, a science and health charity, has signed on to help promote the game. Hellblade will be available for the PC and PlayStation 4 console in 2016.
