Hellblade Tips – Puzzles and Combat

ellblade Senua’s Sacrifice features puzzles and combat as you play through the moderately short adventure. While there are some exceptions, most of the Hellblade puzzles are all completed in a similar manner. This article offers Hellblade tips that help you solve these puzzles and become better at combat. Once you understand how Hellblade puzzles and combat work, the game becomes much easier to play through.

Puzzle Tips

For the most part there are two types of puzzles in Hellblade Senua’s Sacrifice. The most prominent is a puzzle in which you need to locate a specific symbol somewhere in the surrounding area. Usually these symbols are found on locked doors. You may find a single symbol or several symbols, but usually you’ll only find one symbol at a time, even if you are tasked with finding multiple symbols to unlock the door.

The symbol above is an example of what you might see on a door in Hellblade. You will need to find this symbol in the surrounding area. However, you won’t be looking for a red cross with two lines on the side. The symbol will be hidden in the environment, meaning it may be two trees and a cross-like structure between them, or a gate that blends in with the trees behind it to create the symbol. It’s generally not very straight forward, but there are ways to help you find these symbols.

You’ll know when you’re close to a symbol because you’ll see the symbol appear all over your screen. It’s basically the voices in Senua’s head telling her she’s looking in the right location. When you see these symbols appear you know what you’re looking for is close by. Look around for anything that resembles the shape of the symbol you’re looking for.

Once you think you’ve found the symbol, use your Focus ability and the symbol you’re close to will appear in the center of the screen. You can then move the camera around until you focus in on the point where you believe the symbol is hidden. If you know you’re close by a symbol, but you’re having trouble finding it, use your Focus ability and start looking around with the symbol visible in the middle of your screen. You may get lucky and stumble upon the symbol.

Keep in mind, you may be looking at the right area, but from the wrong distance or angle. In many cases you will need to match up an object in the foreground with another object in the background to create the symbol you’re looking for. If you’re too close, too far away, or just looking from the wrong angle, the objects may not line up correctly and you won’t see the symbol.

Combat Tips

The combat in Hellblade is fairly straight forward, but there are still some tips and tricks you can learn to help you take down those pesky enemies.

Parry

First and foremost, if you block just as attack is about to make contact, you will get a special parry animation. When this happens, the opponent is knocked off balance and you can attack freely. If you follow a parry with a Heavy Attack or two, you will usually get an instant knockdown. This is very useful when you’re fighting against multiple enemies, because you can knock down one enemy, then move on to knock down or finish off the next enemy before the first opponent gets back on their feet.

It’s important to note that not all attacks can be parried. Usually an attack that has some sort of windup, or would be considered a Heavy Attack, cannot be parried. These are the attacks that knock Senua back even if you block the attack normally. When you see these attacks you should evade instead of trying to block or parry.

Guard Breaks

There are times when an enemy will be blocking and you may have difficulty landing an attack. When this happens, use a Heavy Attack or Melee Attack to break the enemy’s guard and land an attack. It’s a good idea to mix in Heavy Attacks and Melee Attacks into your combos so that you can break an enemy’s guard if they happen to start blocking at any point. You can also start combos with either of these attacks if you believe they are guarding.

Dodging

You only really need to dodge if the opponent is using some sort of Heavy Attack, or if it’s an attack you cannot block. However, dodging (or evading) also comes in handy if you’re fighting against multiple enemies. Remember that you can use a Light Attack immediately after dodging to get a special attack that occurs immediately after the dodge animation. This allows you to keep your offense going, even when you’re evading attacks.

Combos

Hellblade has a very open combo system. You can pretty much mash Light or Heavy Attack and you’ll get a combo of some sort. However, in most cases it’s best to start with a few Light Attacks, then end with a Heavy Attack or two, or a single Melee Attack. Using this combination of attacks will usually lead to an enemy getting knocked back by the Heavy or Melee Attack, giving you a bit of breathing room. This works especially well against multiple enemies when you need time to evade their attacks.

If you’ve completed Hellblade you may want to take a look at our ending explained article to find out just what happened at the end of the game!