9 Video Games Everyone Played Wrong

4. Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

This is probably going to be one of the least controversial entries on this list because there absolutely is a right way of playing Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice and that way is with headphones. If you kick back in your living room or bedroom, or wherever your gaming platform of choice lives with your speakers on blast to boot up this psychological action-adventure masterpiece, you messed up.

The game is still going to be great, but you’ll miss out on a very cool thing this game does that most games don’t.

For the uninitiated, Hellblade protagonist Senua is going through it. To put it lightly. She’s on a journey to Helheim to rescue the soul of her dead lover and she experiences near constant episodes of psychosis that manifest in various ways. One of these is voices in her head that comment on the things she’s doing, things she’s done, and things she’s set out to do. Sometimes they’re supportive, sometimes angry, insulting, or distressed. Ninja Theory did a tonne of research to get this representation of Senua’s psychoses accurate to real world experiences and if you pop on headphones you’ll be right in the middle of it. Binaural recording was used to properly replicate the 3D position of sound and real people who hear voices were brought in to sign off on the result.

It’s really special and unique and while it makes the somewhat disconcerting experience even moreso, it’s worth playing in this specific way.