What are the best Hellblade 2 settings for PC? With a capped frame rate on consoles, it looked as though Hellblade 2 might also be challenging to run on PC. Luckily this isn’t the case, and most modern GPUs should achieve high frame rates in this game.
You won’t need the best graphics card to get Hellblade 2 running on PC, but the game packs in some intense visuals that help immerse you in the story. The good news is that the Hellblade 2 system requirements show us that the game is capable of running on later Nvidia GTX GPUs.
Here are the best video and gameplay settings for Hellblade 2:
Best Hellblade 2 video settings on PC
- Custom Upscaler: Nvidia DLSS
- Frame Generation: On (if using RTX 40 series GPU)
- Super Resolution: Quality
- VSync: On
- Post-Processing Quality: High
- Shadow Quality: High
- Effects Quality: High
- Reflection Quality: High
- Global Illumination Quality: High
- Volumetrics: High
- Texture Quality: High
- View Distance: High
- Foliage Detail: High
There aren’t many video settings that you can tweak in Hellblade 2, but the above configuration netted us an average of 133fps on our GeForce RTX 4070 system, with 0.2% lows of 62fps at 2,560 x 1,440. This number, however, is inflated due to the sheer volume of interactive cutscenes, where gameplay elements are active, but the performance is far smoother as you’re not in direct control of Senua, or you’re simply following a set path.
When focusing explicitly on areas of the game where I was in complete control of Senua, and during combat, the max frame rate average dropped to 103fps, but the 0.2% lows stayed strong at the 58fps mark.
It can be argued that 60fps is the most you would need for a single-player narrative game such as Hellblade 2, but in this case, securing 60fps as the lowest of the low makes for the best and smoothest visual experience.
In general, dropping the video settings to the lowest preset creates a blurry image and, during gameplay, the light will sometimes reflect abnormally around Senua, further adding to the smudgy image quality.
Our chosen settings consume just over 50% of the VRAM on our 12GB graphics card but the difference between high and low settings isn’t huge, which suggests that older 4GB and 6GB graphics cards may struggle to handle Hellblade 2 even on low presets. These performance struggles also extend to the Steam Deck, which just about passes the 30fps mark.
The GPU usage during gameplay consistently sat at 99%, whereas CPU usage was much lower at a steady 55% on average for our eight-core, 16-thread processor.
While there is no benchmarking tool available in Hellblade 2, there is a preview window that will let you see how your changes look in the game before you exit out of the menus. This is useful for detecting any big visual changes from your chosen settings, but the real-time performance of the settings is only noticeable once you’re back playing the game.
Hellblade 2 gameplay and accessibility settings
There are only two gameplay settings in Hellblade 2. One is for difficulty, which we recommend leaving on Dynamic for the most authentic experience, while the other is a focus setting that will automatically pause the game whenever the game window isn’t active.
On the accessibility front, there are some great options in play that will go as far as completing the offensive and defensive combat actions automatically. You can also change the input types from holds to toggles, and take button mashing out of the game entirely.
There is also an adjustment for the camera bobble to aid anyone who may struggle with motion sickness. Meanwhile, hidden away in the graphics settings is a further accessibility menu, from where you can adjust the motion blur and activate one of three color blind modes; Deuteranope, Protanope, and Tritanope.
How we tested Hellblade 2
At PCGamesN, we use dedicated gaming rigs to test the best settings for performance and gameplay in the latest releases. The test rig used for Hellblade 2 includes the following components; Intel Core i7 11700F, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 12GB, 32GB of DDR4 3200MHz RAM, MSI B560 motherboard. We also test using Widows 11 64-bit.
We always run our testing first at 1,920 x 1080 to identify the best settings, then again at 2,560 x 1440 using the same setup to gauge the difference in performance. We use CapFrameX to capture frame data and compare testing sessions.
Can you play Hellblade 2 on a hard drive?
Hellblade 2 requires a gaming SSD rather than a hard drive. While you can install and play the game from an HDD, using a gaming SSD will help eliminate the potentially disruptive load times.
How to monitor performance in Hellblade 2
If you want to keep an eye on performance in Hellblade 2, which doesn’t feature a traditional benchmarking tool, an easy method works whether you’re using an Nvidia or AMD graphics card.
For Nvidia cards, ensure you have GeForce Experience or the Nvidia App installed and the in-game overlay enabled, and then hit ALT + R in-game to bring up your performance monitor. With AMD cards, you can enable performance monitoring via the Radeon overlay using the shortcut CTRL + SHIFT + O.
Alternatively, you can download free software such as CapFrameX or Nvidia FrameView, to get a cleaner, more simplified benchmarking tool that works with any graphics card.
If you fancy trying your hand assembling a machine to take on Hellblade 2, follow our handy guide on how to build a gaming PC and we’ll take you through the process step by step from start to finish.