During the January 2024 Xbox Developer Direct, Ninja Theory announced that Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 will launch on May 21 for PC and Xbox Series X|S. It will also arrive on Xbox Game Pass at launch.
The developer showed a brand new release date trailer showcasing the game’s impressively realistic graphics and gruesome gameplay. Senua wants to get revenge on the Vikings who have enslaved her people and goes to Iceland to face the threat at the source. As she has psychosis, she’ll hear voices throughout her journey, finding patterns and clues around her.
There are also new combat encounters where she fights off grotesque enemies as they try to grab her. Ninja Theory said they want the player to feel how Senua isn’t a superhero and how she’s struggling to survive and barely getting by.
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 was initially revealed in The Game Awards 2019 so it’s been a long four years since. While its predecessor, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, was a multiplatform console release as it was also on PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch, the sequel will be exclusive to Microsoft’s ecosystem. Microsoft acquired Ninja Theory in 2018 to bolster Xbox’s lineup of first-party game studios. Other games Ninja Theory has worked on while under the Microsoft banner so far include 2020’s Bleeding Edge and the upcoming Project Mara. The former was a multiplayer combat game released for PC and Xbox One. The latter was teased in 2020 and billed as an experimental game exploring mental horror.
Before Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, we also got a new look at Avowed.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.