Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is one of the sleeper hits of 2017. It’s a psychological action-thriller that explores the mental health of its hero, but PC players who use AMD graphics cards were having issues enjoying Hellblade. In the later stages, players with these GPUs were seeing severe performance hits that made the game choppy and unplayable for some. But developer Ninja Theory released a patch yesterday, and it looks like it has solved the AMD problems.
Ninja Theory confirmed on social media that the update directly addresses the problems AMD video cards were encountering. The patch is live now on Steam and other services.
#Hellblade Hotfix 1.01.1 has just been released for PC to resolve reported performance issues seen by players with AMD GPUs. pic.twitter.com/3GvkP80Vrm
— Ninja Theory (@NinjaTheory) August 18, 2017
If you are running one of AMD’s Radeon cards, and you held off on getting into Hellblade because of the reports on its performance problems, it is likely now safe for you to jump in. Responses to Hellblade on Twitter and the Steam forums from players seem to confirm that the game now runs smoothly on all supported AMD GPUs.
Problem fixed! Thank you for making the game playable. #Hellblades is one of my all time favorite games. This patch took a little too long.
— Simon Rockstream (@SimonRockstream) August 18, 2017
Hellblade is Ninja Theory’s experiment with what many are calling “AA” games (as opposed to the triple-A indicator many use for the biggest blockbusters). It’s $30, and the studio wanted to present it as a game that features a tight story combined with high production values. That strategy has worked, leading to more than 100,000 copies sold on PC, according to data-tracking service Steam Spy.
The games industry has split in two with massive-budget franchises on one side and countless indie releases on the other. Plenty of developers and publishers were releasing mid-tier games into the HD Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles’ lifespans. But eventually, rising productions costs and aversion to risk largely stamped out that class of game.
Some gamers see Hellblade, with its character-action combat and beautiful visuals, as a way of proving that a tier above $20 indies and below $60 Call of Duty sequels are viable. But a key to making something like Hellblade work is strong support from Ninja Theory, and the company is proving it can handle that task by quickly addressing the concerns of its AMD players.