Senua is an ordinary character, except for the blue tattoo.
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How Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice changed lives with its thoughtful portrayal of mental illness

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 3 min

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice was my favorite game of 2017. But this tale of a sword-wielding Pict warrior was also a groundbreaking portrayal of mental illness, and its impact is still being measured by the people who created it.

Paul Fletcher, a professor of health neuroscience from Cambridge University, was a consultant on Ninja Theory’s game and he described its impact in a video that was shown at The International Game Summit on Mental Health, a first-time event held recently in Toronto.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.