Ninja Theory has been dedicated to keeping fans up to date on Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrafice with their developer diaries, and their newest one is about the combat.

The combat revolves around light and heavy melee attacks with blocking and evading as defensive options. I’d compare the sword fighting to Dark Souls, but it’s more like a fighting game like Tekken since it locks you into 2D forwards-backwards movement with a sideways roll to get around enemy attacks or change position. Since Senua is half the size of most of her foes, there’s an emphasis on speed and technique over brute force. You’ll be able to break guards, but counter-hits and staggering are the name of the game.

Since counter-hits the best way to get damage in, enemies telegraph their moves with grunts and windups even if they’re out of view. Since there are no HUD elements cluttering the screen, all the action will be in your field of view with hitsparks, bloody vignettes, wounds, and flashes showing up during combat to give you some semblance of whether you’re winning or getting beat into the ground.