Enemy Types

Learn about the different enemy types in Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, including Swordsmen, Shadow Swordsmen, Bludgeons, and Defenders. Master their attack patterns and weaknesses to survive.

This section contains information about the normal enemies found in the game. Information about boss enemies can be found in their appropriate sections in the Walkthrough.

• Swordsman — The most common and often weakest enemy. They can evade and block attacks. Staggered by Fast Strikes, always by Melee and Heavy Strikes. Their move set is similar to Senua's but slower. They can perform thrust attacks (quick, medium range, low damage), horizontal attacks (quick, low damage, up to two in a string), and a stronger vertical attack (slow, medium damage, breaks guard). With Gramr, a full combo of +, , , , , , will always kill them.
• Shadow Swordsman — Identical to Swordsmen but cloaked in shadow, making them immune to all attacks until the shadow is dispelled. Shadows can be dispelled using a charge of Focus, a perfect parry with Gramr, or certain heavy attacks with Gramr. Even when shadows are dispelled, they are partially transparent and surrounded by wisps of smoke. Crucially, they are not affected by the slowdown of Senua's Focus ability, making them dangerous in groups as they can interrupt Senua's attacks on other enemies.
• Bludgeon — Appears after choosing either the Surt or Valravn mission. Armed with a mace, they are similar to Swordsmen but generally not staggered by Fast Strikes. Melee or Heavy Strikes are needed to stagger them. They evade but do not block. They have more health and take more damage to defeat than Swordsmen. They have a smaller variety of attacks: Fast Horizontal Attacks (always two strikes, can be blocked/parried), Fast Diagonal Attack (single strike, can be blocked/parried), and a Heavy Vertical Attack (can be blocked but breaks guard, can be parried after obtaining Gramr). A combo of +, , , , , , will kill a Bludgeon with Gramr on normal difficulty.
• Defender — Appear around the same time as Bludgeons. Defenders carry mac