Editor’s Note: Microsoft shared a Universal Xbox copy of Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2, and Dell shared its Alienware Aurora R15 gaming desktop with IGN India for this game performance review.
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2, the sequel to Ninja Theory’s Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice from 2017, was released on Xbox Series X/S and Windows on May 21, 2024. It’s an extremely cinematic, albeit short, game.
In our 9/10 review, we called Hellblade 2 a "worthy chapter in Senua's Saga."
Visually, the graphics are stunning as players control the heroine, Senua, through the Norse mythological realm of Midgard. While the gameplay is brief, the visual fidelity is impressive, let's delve into how the game performs on PC to deliver those fancy graphics.
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 PC Requirements
Hellblade 2's teasers and trailers showcased its graphical prowess before launch, but it was confirmed in April that it runs at 30 FPS on Xbox consoles. On PC, however, it's a different story, and you have various technologies like DLSS 3, FSR 3, or XESS 1.3 at your disposal to boost your FPS.
You need at least 16GB of RAM and 70GB of space on your SSD to run the game. Here are Ninja Theory’s requirements for various graphical presets:
With pre-orders now available for Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, today we’d like to share our PC system requirements to help you get the best experience come May 21st.
Pre-order or pre-install on Xbox
https://t.co/DsMZsuY5VW Wishlist or pre-purchase on Steam https://t.co/3D2IpXZOHf pic.twitter.com/4JJzrl9m5W— Ninja Theory (@NinjaTheory) May 3, 2024
For the minimum preset (low 1080p), players need at least an Intel i5-8400 or AMD Ryzen 5 2600 CPU and either Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070, AMD Radeon RX 5700, or Intel Arc A580 GPU. For the “Very High” preset, you’ll need an Intel i5-12600K or AMD Ryzen 7 5700X CPU and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 or AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPU.
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 PC Benchmarks
I used the Alienware Aurora R15 gaming PC for this performance review, as the machine easily exceeds the recommended system requirements for the "Very High" preset. This ensures that we allow the game all the headroom to offer the best performance at the highest graphics quality it can without worrying about any obvious bottlenecks around the GPU or CPU. You can check all the specifications of the R15 below:
Dell Alienware Aurora R15 gaming desktop specs
| Component | Model |
|---|---|
| CPU | 13th-Gen Intel Core i9-13900KF (24 Cores- 8 Performance and 16 Efficiency Cores) |
| GPU | Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 with 24GB GDDR6X memory |
| RAM | 2×16GB DDR5 @ 4800MT/s |
| Storage | 512GB NVMe M.2 PCIe Gen-4 SSD and 1TB 7200RPM SATA hard drive |
| OS | Windows 11 Home, 64-bit |
| Ports | Rear (2x USB 2.0 Type-A with Smart Power On, 2x USB 2.0 Type-A, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C (20Gbps), 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A (5Gbps), 1 x HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a), Front (2x USB 3.2 Gen-1 Type-A ports, 1x USB 3.2 Gen-2 2×2 Type-C port) |
| Connectivity | Intel Killer Wi-Fi 6E, Intel Killer E3100 GbE RJ45, Bluetooth v5.2 |
| Audio | Rear (1x Center/Subwoofer output, 1x Rear Surround, 1x Side Surround, 3x 3.5mm jack (Microphone, Line Out Line In), 1x SPDIF TOSLINK Digital Output, 1x SPDIF Coax Digital Output), Front (1x 3.5mm port) |
| PSU | 1350W 80+ Platinum |
I played Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 on the highest graphics quality presets at 1080p, as 1080p gaming is more common in India. To evaluate the performance of the game, I tested the game with a range of upscaling technologies. These include game engine-based (Unreal Engine 5 in this case) Temporal Super Resolution (TSR) upscaling tech, Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) — Nvidia’s upscaling along with frame generation, and FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) — AMD's upscaling technology, to see how much of a boost in performance we get.
You can check the average frame rate per second (FPS) that we observed with different settings in the subsections below. We used CapFrameX to capture and include the average 0.1% low FPS and 1% low FPS to understand real-life performance, including stuttering and jittering. As part of the methodology, each test included the character walking in the second chapter Freyslaug (as the game doesn't have an in-built benchmark), for a duration of 180 seconds.
TSR performance of Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2
| Upscaling and Frame Generation settings (Max graphics settings at 1080p) | Average FPS | Average 0.1% Lows | Average 1% Lows |
|---|---|---|---|
| TSR at 100 resolution scale | 110.9 | 31.3 | 64.9 |
The game averaged nearly 111 FPS with TSR at a resolution scale of 100 percent. For context, a lower resolution scale would improve performance at the cost of visual fidelity. We used the "High" graphical preset — Hellblade 2's maximum graphics setting for all our tests.
Nvidia DLSS 3 and Frame Generation
| Upscaling and Frame Generation settings (Max graphics settings at 1080p) | Average FPS | Average 0.1% Lows | Average 1% Lows |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nvidia DLSS Ultra Performance | 121.6 | 69.4 | 82.9 |
| Nvidia DLSS Balanced | 121.7 | 71.2 | 82.2 |
| Nvidia DLSS Quality | 123.2 | 71.2 | 83.5 |
| Nvidia DLSS Ultra Performance + Frame Generation | 224 | 111 | 147.4 |
| Nvidia DLSS Balanced + Frame Generation | 213 | 101 | 146.5 |
| Nvidia DLSS Quality + Frame Generation | 206.1 | 124.2 | 156.3 |
Moving to upscaling and frame generation with Nvidia DLSS 3, Hellblade 2 gets a minor boost of around 10 FPS with DLSS alone. However, the real performance jump comes with Frame Generation, which delivers 200+ as the average FPS in all instances, even with DLSS set to Quality. It is also interesting to note that even after looking at the 0.1 percent lows on average, we got more than 100 FPS in all frame generation tests.
DLSS at Balanced and Quality settings returned very similar results, even in the average 0.1% and 1% lows. We ran the benchmark multiple times, and it appears that Hellblade 2 shows little difference in performance between DLSS Balanced and Quality presets.
AMD FSR 3
| Upscaling and frame generation settings (Max graphics settings at 1080p) | Average FPS | Average 0.1% Lows | Average 1% Lows |
|---|---|---|---|
| AMD FSR 3 Ultra Performance | 113 | 53 | 72 |
| AMD FSR 3 Balanced | 114 | 49 | 72 |
| AMD FSR 3 Quality | 113 | 47 | 71 |
Even though Hellblade 2 has a great graphics menu (probably the best we have seen), which not only shows information about the FPS and how much VRAM is being used, but also the CPU and GPU's latency — it does not let you use DLSS with FSR.
Our performance reviews show that FSR 3 is slightly behind DLSS in terms of visual quality during upscaling. Ultra Performance offers the worst visual quality of all the quality presets available. Looking at the data, the average 1 percent lows, 0.1 percent lows, and even the average FPS seems to be in line, irrespective of the selected preset.
Although FSR 3 is slightly behind DLSS 3 in average FPS, it is still comparable. But, DLSS 3 extends its advantage with its frame generation feature, an option not available with FSR 3.
Performance Analysis
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 fared well in our performance tests conducted on the Alienware Aurora R15 Gaming PC. With its top-of-the-line specs, including the 13th-Gen Intel Core i9-13900KF CPU and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 GPU with 24GB GDDR6X VRAM, we were able to evaluate the Unreal Engine 5 game properly. Naturally, our numbers are much higher than a regular gamer would see in the hardware combinations less powerful than the Aurora R15.
The data shows that our setup offered the best performance with no obvious hardware bottlenecks. The results followed a similar trend between Nvidia DLSS 3 and AMD FSR 3, often indicating a game-engine limit instead of a hardware limitation.
Upscaling technologies like DLSS and FSR did provide a minor boost, but not significantly above TSR. FSR often made things look grainy when directly compared to DLSS at every quality preset. At the same time, Frame Generation delivered what it promised, with almost double the average FPS. But it is also important to note the minor visual glitches that we saw with frame generation.
The Verdict
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 offers a range of graphical options with a very informative graphics settings UI on PC. It would be nice to see this implemented in other games as well. However, the fact that Nvidia’s Frame Generation can’t be paired with AMD FSR 3 is a drawback, especially since it can be implemented as seen in other games.
The minimum hardware requirements for playing this game on a budget include a minimum of 6GB VRAM. This allows you to play at low graphics preset when the display resolution is 1080p. Such reasonable requirements are especially nice in an Unreal Engine 5 game. Beyond that, the game performed considerably well and remained stable on our setup. However, we did not notice significant performance gains with upscaling technologies, except for Frame Generation, which did an incredible job of boosting the performance numbers.
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Rayan Sayyed is a staff writer for IGN India with a primary focus on Asian entertainment spanning from anime, manga, games to films and dramas from the East. You can reach out to him at rayan_sayyed@ign.com, or find him on Twitter @rayanaver and Instagram @rayansayyed.
