Page 92 - BBC Focus - August 2017

OUT THERE

02 EXPERIENCE PSYCHOSIS

New video game Hellblade follows
the story of Senua, a traumatised sets off on a quest to Hel, the and hallucinations, but also to go
Viking underworld, to retrieve his
below the surface and explore
HELLBLADE: Celtic warrior who is on a quest to soul and lay him to rest. During what we know about normal
SENUA’S
SACRIFICE save her lover’s soul from the the game, Senua experiences perception. We all tend to think
PS4/PC underworld. Senua experiences visions, voices and delusional that we have a clear representation
OUT 8 AUGUST frequent hallucinations and beliefs – symptoms of what we of reality, but most of the time our
delusions during her journey, all now call psychosis. minds are actually making it up,
symptoms of psychosis – a deciding what should be there
condition that the game’s How does Senua’s psychosis fit in with rather than what is there. It’s a
developers Ninja Theory were her backstory? kind of controlled hallucination.
keen to portray as accurately PF: To some extent, Senua has This idea, too, is deeply embedded
as possible. always seen the world differently in the game: the player becomes
Hellblade has received funding from others, but the idea is that the sensitive to the visual clues and
from the Wellcome Trust, and its profound trauma she’s illusions around them as they
creators have been working closely experienced has triggered these progress through the world.
with Prof Paul Fletcher, a symptoms. Because of her Psychosis used to be thought of
neuroscientist and psychosis experiences, Senua has lost touch as this extreme phenomenon that
expert at the University of with the reality of those around was completely separate from
Cambridge. We spoke to Fletcher her. That’s really the formal the normal experience of the
and Hellblade’s creative director definition of psychosis. We’re all world. But we are coming to
Tameem Antoniades about how more or less prone to psychosis, realise that there’s a continuum,
they went about representing depending on how we view and and all of us are prone to
mental illness onscreen. experience the world, but trauma becoming separate from reality.
can often act as a trigger. Hopefully this game will help to
Who is Senua and what is her story? demonstrate that.
TA: Senua is a Celtic warrior from How did the latest research and
the late 8th Century whose Orkney thinking around psychosis feed into How did you represent such internal
homeland has been invaded by the the game’s development? and subjective experiences onscreen?
Vikings. They’ve sacrificed her PF: We wanted to represent TA: Throughout her journey,
lover to the Norse gods and so she symptoms such as voice-hearing Senua hears her internal chatter as

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