P5

Effect on the audience


"It’s a powerful approach, immersing you in a mind clouded by deception and self-doubt, and for me – and many others, no doubt – proved to be hugely cathartic. Senua’s Sacrifice, you see, reflected my own experience dealing with social anxiety. Since I was a young teen, I struggled with anxiety. I felt lesser than my peers and always put others first; a selflessness born from a horrible sense of care and confidence in myself."

This article about the cathartic intensity of Hellblade focuses a lot on the trauma and mental health of Senua compared to the writers teen years and the anxiety that is brought up in the game. The writer relates to Senua's anxiety due to a death threat he received during his early teens which changed him mentally for a long time.

The writer closes the article off by finalising his relation to the feelings Senua portrays throughout the story. After Senua throws away her husbands head the voices stopped much like the writer who explains that the voices in his head telling him to avoid things and people stopped once he got rid of the problem that was holding him down.

The comment section has mixed reviews with multiple immature comments which is what you expect from the internet. The mature and normal answers to the article include people arguing and conversing over the best bits of the game in relation to what the writer said. The conversation was roughly 50/50 for whether its a good game or not. Some felt like it didn't stick to Ninja Theory's usual standards yet some thought it was their best game yet.

Clearly, the game has had mixed effects on the players but most of the time it has a positive bond between Senua and the player. This bond gets severed at the end of the storyline but a residue of it is still there. From my consensus, the audience bonded deeply with the plot of the game and with the ambition shown to get through Senua's mental challenges and physical challenges too. One of the comments said, "it felt like my own mental illness was being explained to me by an outsider".
Reviews
The following images are screenshots of popular reviews on sites from Customers and reviews.

These all give a wide range of views as to how good the game is. There is a lot more positive feedback The actual reviews to give an accurate description on the viewpoint and I would agree with most of the reviews. It's a good game which works like a charm, no matter how repetitive the mechanics can get.

Fan-produced art and stories
Image result for hellblade fan artImage result for hellblade cosplayImage result for hellblade fan art


Fan Made Stories


This fan art has been chosen off google and had sources from lots of websites. This fan art produced outfits, stories and artwork were made by dedicated fans who in turn help to advertise the game. The fan-made products can all be found by searching google and there are various qualities for the stories and other works.

Merchandise
Image result for hellblade merch



The merchandise that has been licensed is all professionally made which generates a bit of revenue for Ninja Theory. It doesn't make as much as AAA games but is still effective and useful for Ninja Theory.


Issues of Representation 


Legal and Ethical Problems
Violence is one of the main problems when it comes to games like Hellblade. Games like this have high fighting and killing themes. The violence in Hellblade is considered unethical due to its senseless vibe and the theme of promoting violence. This is the reason this is a PEGI 18 and th3 game devs had to adapt the audience of the game to suit this age rating.

Gore is another problem when it comes to games in this genre. As its an 18 with PEGI it. This would be an ethical problem as this also is a promotion when it comes to violence. Younger audiences would find the gore within this game disturbing which is the main reason it is tailored for older audiences.

Mental Health is a major problem which is a problem for games like Senua's Sacrifice which play with it. It isn't a category on its own but personally, I think it should be. Players that suffer from a psychotic disorder are the people this game is to be avoided by. The game is an attempt to recreate stress and anxiety in the basic form it is generally described. In an interview one of the makers even said "getting it right was more important than making it real". This was said here.

Violence being linked to video games isn't directly real. It's a parents role to make their child realise the difference between the game world and the real world and its the parent's role to enforce the PEGI ratings. The kids who are allowed to play GTA at 7 years old will grow up to be more violent if, and only if the parents don't teach them right or wrong.

PEGI
My PEGI rating for Hellblade Senua's Sacrifice:




I've given Hellblade a 16 because of its graphic violence but not to the point of it needing to be an 18. The fighting mechanics look detailed and the dark rot feature is one of the main reasons it is a 16 in my opinion. It's realistically borderline an 18. It has high fear aspects, especially with the addition of the mental health theme. It has multiple uses of swearing, especially repeated words such as "F**k" or "S**t". Personally, I feel like Mental Health should be a theme like Fear and Violence as lots of games have mental health issues either hidden within or as one of the main themes.

PEGI is the regulation board for most games and stands for Pan European Game Information. This company is a European company that reviews all games for over 30 countries such as the UK. It's age ratings go as follows:

Image result for pegi category


PEGI rates games compared to the categories above. The more there are (especially the type of violence) the higher the age rating will be. If a game were to only have Online as a category it would probably be an age 7 whereas if it had sex, gambling, violence, fear, bad language, discrimination, online and drugs there would be no doubt that it was an 18+ if not an unratable game. If a game is unratable it is blocked from the countries that the regulatory body works with.

PEGI rated it an 18 which I understand but only for bad language and violence., I feel like they should have had fear as one of the classifications too.

This is what they had on the official site for the classification:




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