This game is difficult.

Not mechanically.  Psychically?

It's like having Navi as a constant tutorial, if Navi was constantly berating you, laughing at your failures, and feeding the wrong information about the game.

Controls are fairly clunky, and combat is pretty one-dimensional so far, but as a concept?  Holy shit.

I'm having trouble playing for more than 20-30 minutes at a time, so not making much progress.  Lots of factors for that, lack of time, need for complete darkness so I can't play during the day, unused to a big screen and the camera motion makes me slightly nauseous, and the fact that the concept makes it an uncomfortable experience.  (I let myself get really into the games I like.)

Basically, you're playing a Pict warrior woman who is "touched by darkness;" that is, psychotic.  Hearing voices, seeing things that aren't there.  You're carrying the severed head of your lover, questing to bring him back from Hell, ostensibly.  You solve visual puzzles, basically using your hallucinations to open the path forward.  You fight stylized "Northmen," huge, slow warriors with deer-skull masks (so far.)  The bosses are based on Scandinavian mythology.  You seem to die, but that turns out to be just a vision of a possible future, and you wake up with black "corruption" staining your arm, with an explanation that each time you die, the corruption will spread, and if it reaches your head, it's permadeath and your save is erased.

The game was created with input from neuroscientists, psychologists and mental health advocacy groups, in order to make a "realistic" portrayal of someone who suffers from psychosis.

Like I said, the controls are clunky and the levels are quite limited, but as a concept, it is a benchmark for elevating video games well beyond simple Good vs. Evil tropes.

Available (digital DL only, as far as I can tell) on PC, PS4, and recently ported to XBox.

and gog: https://www.gog.com/game/hellblade_senuas_sacrifice

Awesome! I may indeed pick that one up! At the very least it sounds like a unique gameplay experience.

I've been meaning to come back to this, I got three or four bosses in, but I keep getting lost in things like God of War.

Starkjade wrote on May 16^th, 2018 at 12:01pm:

Schizophrenia & psychosis: the O.G. Matrix.