How Ninja Theory fuses narrative and technology for Senua's Saga: Hellblade II | BAFTA
you get to stand on there and then you do a little [Music] dance narrative leads everything for us so we start with the story and the The Narrative the journey that we want to take the place on and then we see everything uh every discipline in the studio as a tool to achieve that our sound our animation our environment art is all there in service of uh the story that we want to tell Ninja Theory games prioritize The Narrative above everything else and a story is crucial and every element of the game is in the service of that story whether it's the cinematics the game play the combat it all tells the story at the center of my work my work even if it's sound is not really sound or music is narrative I'm telling a story play is uh continues to be a game that is about traversal and puzzle solving and and combat but we've really lent into the idea that all of these elements should be in service of uh the journey and the story so that every step you take in the game is is Meaningful and is seen through uh sena's unique lens so this is the performance capture stage this is where all the magic happens and where we shot sen Saga hellblade too and yeah this is usually where our stage crew is seated and they're running all the motion capture from up here this is the HMC which is a head mounted camera that I get to wear during the performance capture shoots this is my um personal one got my name one usually when I'm um filming there's a green light that goes on and just my facial expressions and then I get to wear this um little computer around my waist as well so this is not fully put together right now um usually there's a couple more things that are added to it so we've got a large variety of different suits I've got my own customade one um yeah and these are our performance capture shoes very interesting performance capture is such a almost ubiquitous thing in a lot of different of media now that for a lot of people say oh you know this mot capture that's fine but we're so a part of the process here if you look at hellblade one they did amazing things with the system that they had but this is showing you what you do when you go all in the technology has really Advanced since the first game so I think for me it has become a little bit easier to bring across all these emotions because you can really see every little face movement now every little twitch you can see when I'm nervous or anxious like I don't have to overact anymore so I think that's been really really helpful I think the first game is an example of this is what you can do if you have a go but this is this is what you do when you really commit performance capture has taken a real step forward we now have our own performance capture stage here within our studio which is is fantastic certainly a step up from our Board Room uh meeting room Performance captur Set up on the first game yeah so this is our stage and um got lots of cameras that are capturing the movement we can see my movement on that monitor over there we've got um a couple of projectors that can project the environment onto the floor which helps me to kind of know where everything is when I'm performing um and yeah we've got like a structure on the ceiling which allows us to hang stuff down from the ceiling so we can do stunts or I can be put into a harness and I can pretend to be swimming for example so yeah lots of different possibilities here we've had some amazing amazing builds so we had a three section climbing wall that went all the way up to the ceiling and we could adjust the angles on that um we've had a boat deck in here that could accurately pitch and YW and roll where do you te- pose usually is there a t- pose it's right there on this green Mark so this is where I start off every time and then I get to do a range of movements so it's called a ROM and that puts my character basically into the system then s you was born yes of the Dead there's something here you hear them they are not I need to find out what it is they are they are they're dead in hellblade 2 uh our Focus has been on uh immersion and delivering a journey of cinematic immersion the way that we achieve that is by translating the real world into the game technology and techniques have now allowed us to take real life locations in Iceland for example and to bring them into the game world if if you looked at the real life location we have to kind of make some compromises in terms of what the layout is to kind of to fit with with the gameplay and The Narrative of it so we've we've kind of made um alterations to the landscape to kind of facilitate that so adding in different roots and things like that um but fundamentally if you were to go to the real location and kind of do an AB you would get a sense of that it is the same space but we've got kind of a layer of of additional dressing on top of that to kind of help work within the game with our principal cast now we have real world costumes that we create in in real life and then we scan and process those into the game so this time around I got to have a real life costume um obviously I didn't get to wear this on stage because we cannot capture that but um every now and again for reference suits I got to dress up as senoir it takes about eight or nine hours to get into the full costume including hair and makeup so it's quite a a long process um but I think it really helped me to connect with the character more because I got to see myself in the costume in the makeup I got to move around I got to feel all the Fabrics like how do they feel when I move um what sounds do they make like it just made me feel like I was really in the shoes of senua in hellblade one uh we spent two days capturing combat in hellblade two we've spent 69 days capturing our our combat and all of that really is in service of uh making the world and story as believable as possible so that we can truly immerse players realism was was important to us and and but realism means a very grounded combat and I think it's been a a very interesting Journey because we used to do super crazy things but we had to deal with with proper fighting we couldn't go beyond that and that means that um we had to treat the combat like like like you would treat a movie therefore we had to film the combat the same way as you would film a movie we see Sena really um in a brutal battle for survival so we've worked hard to bring through um the emotion and the the feeling and particularly in the case of combat the the brutality of the combat in the game I mean ablade one was all about you you had the story but then you had the combat and there were no real relation between both of them so when we started El 2 our goal was really to embed in into it so everything all the combat kind of try to tell a little bit of a story and that story is defined by the main script we've got in the game and that has been key for us uh everything we've done has been it's been our appe for combat is is if he doesn't support or it doesn't help the story then we don't do it so this is the script for h 2 um this isn't the final uh this was the one of the ones that we went to shooting with and it's changed a little bit since then um but yeah this is this is the size of it pretty much I cannot count the number of jobs I honestly can't it's been ISAC on so much um it's in revision control and uh I probably update it at least three times a week well and not anymore no not anymore cuz we're done but before that yes a lot of Polish a lot of iteration a lot of love usually before I shoot I try to um kind of have a bit of a quiet time listen to some music over my headphones read the script and like rehearse the script and yeah just trying to get into that head space of senua um obviously it can be quite tricky sometimes if it's a very emotional scene you really have to kind of cut yourself off from everyone around you and get into this dark hole so to say um and then there's other days where we for example shoot combat stuff um where I get to swing around a sword and everything is a bit more action like so I try to listen to something a bit more upbeat and like get into Warrior mode I had um uh combat stage training I had sword fighting lessons mixed martial arts lessons um but yeah we also had a stunt team that did most of the heavy lifting thank God because there was a lot of um combat to shoot so I could have never done this all by myself that scream that voice something dark you need to go up there don't let them see you coming you need to find out don't let the monsters find you you can do this I think a Ninja Theory game is one that is focused on our studio Mission which is to craft life-changing art with gamechanging tech which sounds really lofty but what we really mean by that is that we want to push the boundaries of of technology and techniques to make games that have an impact on people that make them think and and feel things particularly with hellblade um we really valued the impact that that game had on people in terms of the mental health Journey that the character went on and that's being at the Forefront of our thinking on hellway 2 is um how do we make a game that has that chance again to as a byproduct of a really compelling game help help people to understand a little bit more what it can be like to experience things like psychosis we're obviously tackling a very important subject um mental health and that resonates with a lot of people so we had a lot of people message us like telling us how meaningful sena's Journey was to them and how they felt seen and sometimes they even have relatives that don't understood what they were going through but then they got them to play the game and they could finally see what people are going through that suffer from mental health condition or psychosis in this case so just like hellblade sen sacrifice we've worked really closely with experts in both neuroscience and uh in the lived experience community so it's uh just over 10 years ago now that I first reached out to Professor Paul Fletcher at the University of Cambridge and he's been working with us very closely to understand uh from a neuroscience perspective what it's like to live with psychosis and really importantly working with people at a local recovery College uh who live dayto day with uh seeing things that other people don't hearing things that other people don't and having unique beliefs about the world around them obviously we have sena's Furies as a constant presence in the game and how we develop those I think is actually quite interesting so the the exterior characters s was companions through the Journey and C herself um those events are kind of prescripted and recorded and put in the game and at that point that's when um our amazing audio director deid works with Helen and Abby who other fues um and they improvise a kind of commentary on everything that c is hearing and seeing that way we get that kind of in the moment reactions that is so valuable um I don't think you could script the furies um obviously uh David or I will will have suggestions for things that they could comment on and directions they could take but that kind of um spontaneous improvisation I think is really really important for the their Genesis this is our main way of getting into Sena mind with with with this m we record all the furies in this room is a room that sounds good has when we put the computer down has no noise and basic basically what it does is super simple as you see represents it mimics a average size head and it has the two ears as we do so basically when you record it has a microphone inside every year what it does is replicates the way we hear and we hear in three dimensions like we hear specialized so this is the same imagine a sound is coming from here and it's going to hit there it's going to come first to this year so the time that it to go from here and the time difference to the other year you're going to understand where it's coming from how loud it is the the the the volume of the difference volume and he more or less going to tell he's coming from there and I think it's a car and I think it's this far this is also that we experimented with in helade now there is all the Acoustics are playing a part so it's very beautiful what's uh changed in hellblade 2 is that for the first time we're seeing senaa um experience her own Unique Reality at the same time as sharing the world with other people who have different models of the world so we're exploring things like what it can be like to hear voices whilst trying to maintain a conversation with someone else at the same time we also find Sena as a character who at the end of hellblade one has to an extent accepted and come to a point of understanding of her experiences so in hellblade 2 her uh psychosis is no less strong but there's certainly a different balance of power so it's been really important for us to talk to people about what it's like um in that stage of their mental health Journey psychosis and I think mental health is certainly not static people do go on a journey so it's been really important for us to understand after that initial phase of of experience ing it for the first time what happens beyond that and that's been really really useful for us to to have that opportunity to speak to those people I think um Sena and I have a lot in common um because I was there from the beginning of the project um I got to help shape the character a lot and also I got to put my own personal experiences with psychosis and some trauma and things like that into the character so um what I usually do is if I get a script for um the game is I read it and I try to figure out what the emotions are and then I kind of go deep within myself and try to remember times in my life where I felt the same or similar emotions as the character and then I try to connect the two so um yeah it can get quite deep sometimes jumping up to a way more realistic looking game is that you then start noticing the things that aren't as realistic and so that gives you a lot more work into sort of bringing the other things up to the same level um so it's it's a double-edged sword in a way like you go oh yeah yeah the the environment now looks incredible right now we have to get the animation incredible the VFX incredible like so so it does give you more work um but it's it's a good challenge I think making games is all about problem solving um when you start you you're right you sort of go okay let's let's do this and you're like how do we do that I have no idea let's let's figure out how to do it and that's that's one of the joys of it it's definitely it's a labor of love that's for sure lots of problems to solve new technology to learn um I think you know that never stops in the games industry it evolves so quickly so you always have to be on your toes and kind of keeping up to date on on what's new and and what you need to learn it's extremely hard like it's really really hard it requires a lot of effort communication technology math physics is just really complic ated and after spending years doing something when you get a little message they say hey I play your game and I feel all these things just is amazing you can it makes you completely whole like okay what I do it matters it it matters to someone it doesn't matter it's just one person uh but if it change the way you perceive the world if it make you think a bit if make you feel something if make you a little tear that is great one of the things that people might not know is that hellblade 2 has been built entirely from scratch so there is nothing of hellblade one in hellblade to we built it entirely from scratch and that's a really difficult thing to do like creating games is actually very difficult and takes a lot of passion and energy and it's why I love our studio and our team here because they're so full of that passion and we're all aligned on on what we want to achieve what our ambition is but it's hard it's really hard to for developers it takes a lot out of them it's not just the time they put into it in the energy but it's a it's a a work of of passion and ultimately as a studio and I think this is the case for many studios we're trying to create art and really for me the purpose of art is to uh to be interpreted and to have meaning for people and that's really difficult thing to do and I think it's also a very brave thing to do you know we stand out there as a studio saying this is our art this is our creative and we're proud of it and we hope you love it too and I think um that's a very brave thing for for any creative to do and um we we feel very proud we feel Brave at the same time it's been a great journey building this game it's been a tough Journey for the team we have such a wonderful team here about 80 developers working on the game so we're very close team so we're very excited uh for launch beyond that as a studio we'll continue to focus on on trying to immerse our players in in in Worlds and taking them on on on Journeys we've got a really amazing team here we've got um a lot of expertise in a lot of areas we've built some amazing new tools and systems for hellblade 2 that we want to continue evolving kind of push into our next game in game development you're always learning like and you you're never completely satisfied you always see something in the go I wish we could have done ABC or something to improve this um so I'm really excited to do that continue telling these rich mive narratives and I'm really really glad to to be a part of that the team here just puts sort of so much love and passion into it and they constantly want to push where we're going so so we just want to keep pushing and keep telling kind of really interesting stories that are meaningful and and make players think about things I feel a responsibility as a studio that we have an opportunity to not just make great games but also use those games to uh to do good in the world and so that's what we'll Contin to focus on we just have to wait and see what comes next [Music]
2024-05-25 01:58
