Xbox exclusive with best graphics ever is getting enhanced on PS5 Pro

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 is the latest first party Xbox game to come to the PS5 and this time a special effort is being made with its already excellent graphics.

The annoucement of previously exclusive Xbox games coming to PlayStation 5 is becoming increasingly commonplace but so far none of them have been anything more than straightforward ports, with no enhancements or additions beyond DualSense support.

A PlayStation 5 version of Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 was rumoured earlier in the year (along with an already confirmed version of Gears Of War) but according to Microsoft it will be optimised for both the standard PlayStation 5 and the more powerful PS5 Pro.

They’re currently being vague as to what difference this will make but it will coincide with a free update for Xbox Series X/S and PC that will add new features to all versions of the game.

As we explored in our original review, Hellblade 2 isn’t a very good video game, but it does have perhaps the best graphics ever seen in a console title, at least in terms of photorealism.

Things can always be improved though, especially with the benefit of hindsight, and the PS5 Pro is the most powerful console ever made, even if its abilities haven’t really been stretched so far.

Unfortunately, the annoucement of Hellblade 2 for PlayStation 5 is vague across the board, with the release date confirmed only as sometime this summer.

That means It will likely appear as part of the Xbox summer showcase, on June 8, although that’s not entirely guaranteed as Microsoft continues to be very reticent about talking about multiformat releases in public.

Not only that but the pretence of supporting the Switch 2 has so far added up to nothing at all and Hellblade 2 is also not coming to Nintendo’s new console, although in this case it is unlikely the Switch 2 could handle the game and have it look anywhere near as good as the Xbox version.

That said, the original Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice was released on both PlayStation 4 and Switch, before Microsoft bought developer Ninja Theory in 2018.

As the developers point out on their website, the studio got its first big break working on PlayStation 3 exclusive Heavenly Sword, back in 2007.

There had been some concern that Hellblade 2 had performed poorly on Xbox and PC, in terms of sales and Game Pass usage, and that it might put Ninja Theory at risk of being shut down.

But not only are they working on a horror project codenamed Project: Mara, they’re also helping out with Microsoft’s attempts to use generative AI in video games.

Email [email protected], leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter.

To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here.

For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.