Hellblade 2: a video comparison on Xbox Series S Steam Deck and ROG Ally from Digital Foundry
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 is a real feast for the eyes and one of the most visually and technically impressive titles released so far, especially on the console side. From this point of view, Digital Foundry decided to create a new analysis video, this time examining less performing hardware, namely the Xbox Series S and the handheld Steam Deck and ROG Ally .
Starting from Xbox Series S , as one might expect, this version of Senua’s presents some cuts compared to the Xbox Series The most obvious one concerns the reflections, which instead of fully exploiting the Lumen, uses screen-space ones with lower yield. We also find lower resolution volumetric lighting, as well as lower volumetric fog, foliage, asset quality and resolution. Generally speaking, this version still defends itself very well overall and is solid in terms of framerate, which we remember is blocked at 30 fps on consoles.
Hellblade 2: a video comparison on Xbox Series S Steam Deck and ROG Ally from Digital Foundry
Steam Deck and ROG Ally
As far as Steam Deck is concerned , it is possible to play Senua’s Saga Hellblade 2 with more than decent results, but as long as you lower the graphics settings to the minimum and activate the FSR 3 in Performance mode to guarantee a framerate as acceptable as possible around 30 fps , although drops around 20 fps may occur.
Using similar settings on ROG Ally in turbo mode it is possible to reach performance around 40 and 50 fps at 720p and drop to around 30 fps, with occasional peaks at 40 fps, raising the resolution to 900p, more suitable for a 1080p screen like that by Ally. Clearly some compromises are necessary on these platforms, however, according to Digital Foundry, Senua’s Saga Hellblade 2 redefines the concept of graphics in video games .