Just last year, Ninja Theory released a very interesting game called Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. What made the game so interesting? Senua, the heroine of Hellblade, suffers from psychosis. Her disorder most prominently takes the form of disembodied voices and monstrous, barely-human savages that attack her throughout the game. To say much more would spoil the experience – and this game is quite an experience – so if you’re even slightly interested and haven’t seen or played the game yet, bookmark this page and go do it. This is one of those speedruns that will ruin it in advance. For the speedrun itself, you might want to turn the volume up, as the audio didn’t record very well.
One and three-quarter hours is the record for Hellblade‘s any%, while the glitchless category adds another hour on top of that. The first glitch used in this run is called pause breaching. Rapidly pressing the pause button during certain animations stores that animation and disables collision. After that, air walking is possible by mashing the “focus” button. (Alright Senua, I know you have a problem, but this is just getting out of hand.) These are the two major tricks used for skips in any% runs. Other than that, it’s a relatively straightforward playthrough.
Hellblade took three wins in 2017’s The Game Awards, including Games for Impact and Best Audio Design. Melina Juergens, Senua’s voice actress, also snagged the trophy for Best Performance. A lot of thought and effort went into making Hellblade, even to the point of consulting people who have experienced psychosis themselves. The result is a compelling and often frightening narrative that does a wonderful job making even the player wonder how much of the game is real and how much is in Senua’s mind.
One thing that’s definitely very real: this mind-blowing run of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. On European Extreme difficulty. Yikes.