Hellblade 2 Looks Great on PlayStation! – Opinion

The lords had a chance to try out Ninja Theory’s Hellblade 2: Senua’s Sacrifice Enhanced Edition on the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro. The game was well received last year, however, let’s see what new goodies come in the Enhanced Edition package.

PS5 Pro Graphics

Hellblade 2, on the Playstation 5 Pro, at the time of writing, has better performance implementation settings than on Xbox Series X. It includes additional performance settings that allow for both a performance mode and a quality mode. Specifically, the performance setting prioritizes framerate over visuals. On August 12, 2025, the Xbox Series X version should also feature a Performance mode with a 60 fps (frames per second/framerate).

Gameplay in the performance mode is beautiful; color me impressed. To test this, I switched between the performance and visual modes multiple times. I kept coming to the conclusion that the performance mode looked better and felt smoother , overall. This is unexpected, because although smoother motion was expected in the performance mode, improved visuals were not. Performance mode actually looked better. Could it be my old eyes? (Please let me know if I’m wrong in the comments. Be nice!)

This anomaly could be explained by the fact that the graphic options on the PS5 Pro include the ability to choose between TSR (Temporal Scaling Resolution) and PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution). PSSR is Sony’s own AI enhanced upscaling technology developed exclusively for the PS5 Pro. This might also explain the improvement on visuals and framerate because PSSR is a more advanced upscaling technology than TSR. Correspondingly, I don’t anticipate the XBOX Enhanced version to look as good as the PS5 Pro reason due to the lack of PSSR on XBOX.

PS5 (OG/Slim) Graphics

The PlayStation 5 version has both quality and performance modes. However, there is no option to choose between upscaling technologies (PSSR and TSR) because the base PS5 doesn’t have PSSR technology. As a result, the visuals look the same in both modes. This can be due to additional optimization efforts.

Admittedly, I hadn’t played more than 2 hours of the original Hellblade 1 on the Xbox release of Hellblade II. I went through the gamer trope of placing Hellblade 2 into my backlog so I could play the first one. Then, after the two hours of the first one, life and new games took over, and I lost my chance to walk in Senua’s shoes. Now, however, I’m going to play because I know that I don’t need to experience Hellblade 1 to enjoy Hellblade 2. It takes you into the gameplay and combat more quickly and becomes engaging. Albeit, while there are some long cut scenes, they can be skipped. I’m ready!

Thanks for reading! Let me know your thoughts in the comments, below!

Author Credit: Soiltek (Aka Mo)