Senua's Saga: Hellblade II is gorgeous but has performance issues on consoles

Ninja Theory and Xbox Game Studios just released the sequel to the critically acclaimed Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, with Senua's Saga: Hellblade II now available on PC and Xbox consoles.

Senua's Saga: Hellblade II was a highly anticipated release from Ninja Theory, as the game was in development for nearly five years and any trailer or screenshots showcasing the title left fans in awe at the phenomenal graphics - particularly the motion capture. But, with intense graphics there is a cost to performance, or framerate, and that is now being reported by players on the Xbox Series X|S.

According to an analysis by ElAnalistaDeBits, Hellblade II runs at a dynamic 2560x1070p with an average res of around 2304x963p on Xbox Series X and a dynamic 1920x803p with an average of 1472x615p on Xbox Series S. If you are wondering why the resolutions aren't familiar it's because Ninja Theory chose to run the game in a cinematic aspect ratio of 2.39:1, which means black bars at the top and bottom of the screen.

Unfortunately, neither the Series X or S is capable of hitting the target 30FPS consistently, with the analysis saying it was able to reach 30FPS approximately 80% of the time, with dips in the FPS becoming noticeable in particularly graphically intense environments. On the worse side of things, the framerate on the Xbox Series X can even reach down to the low 20's in some locations.

With these reports I hope that some optimization patches are rolled out to both the Xbox Series X and S versions of the game, especially considering Hellblade 2 is a Xbox-exclusive title.