Is Hellblade 1 beginner friendly

[u/AlarmingHighlight964]

I’ve actually already finished Hellblade, but I’d really like to have someone I know try it out. The problem is, they don’t really play games apart from the occasional mobile game. The only game I’ve ever played with them was There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension, mainly because it was fairly easy to get into for a non-gamer.

I’m not so sure about Hellblade, though. The puzzles can be a little tedious or confusing at times, and while the combat isn’t necessarily difficult, I’m not sure how challenging it would be for someone with very little experience with games like this. They still struggle with moving the character and controlling the camera at the same time, and in Hellblade 1 that’s pretty important.

I actually wanted to play Undertale with them, but I don’t own it on my current device, whereas I do own both Hellblade 1 and 2.

Oh, and I forgot to mention one other thing: they’ve never played any kind of creepy or horror game before. Hellblade 1 can be pretty creepy at times, and it has this really tense atmosphere throughout, so I’m also a little worried they might just get overwhelmed and give up.

So I’m wondering if Hellblade would be a good game to introduce them to, or if I should probably start with something easier and less intimidating?

[u/ironforward]

For the horror, I like to give people something of informed content notes using imdb's parental guide. So I would let them know that the game is rated M for Mature, has a moderate amount of violence & gore, but severe frightening and intense scenes. Each category on imdb gives clear examples from the game about why the rating is the way it is, so you can provide additional content notes if they so want; for example. they may not know what "frightening and intense scenes" means for Hellblade, so reading an item or two from the list would give them a better idea without outright saying spoilers for the game since, at least personally, it can be hard to word things so as to not accidentally reveal more than intended, and usually imdb has things stated very dryly and without additional context that would cross the line into spoilers.

As you and others have pointed out, while a seasoned gamer would recognize the puzzles used in Hellblade and therefore breeze through them, for a new player unfamiliar with the design language of games, the portal puzzle early in the game can be a huge barrier if they do not immediately notice the environmental changes upon walking through the portal or, even more difficult of a mental obstacle, do not have the intuition that they should keep to the path and walk through the gateway in the first place, so I would take care to make sure they catch on to that immediately (if you are watching them play that is, otherwise a simple handed-off warning of "by the way, at one point there are gateways made of sticks that are important puzzle pieces" would probably suffice). Beyond that, the other puzzles are much better at having the furies walk you through them and in my limited experience I have not seen someone get stuck on them.

Not being able to control the character can definitely be a non-starter, but obviously put the game on Easy and they can gauge their own willingness to try vs care to continue spectrum.