be a vision of a possible future), the rot will spread further up, until it reaches her head and consumes her soul; the game implies that, if this happens, it will result in a permadeath, as the player's save would be deleted, and all game progress until then would be erased. However, several media outlets later found out that the rot stops spreading after a certain number of deaths, and cannot progress further before a certain point in the game, ultimately making it impossible for it to reach Senua's head. Antoniades said that the permadeath mechanic was a bluff: while the rot will spread on Senua's body over repeated deaths, it will never fully reach her head; the wording they chose to describe this was meant to convey part of the fear associated with mental illness and psychosis directly to the player. Antoniades said "We were looking for ideas of how you introduce fear, and one of those ideas was the permadeath mechanic. It's the only time we're very explicit about what will happen to you in the game." He considered that they believed that players and critics have mistaken their wording on the permadeath mechanic when the game was released, which created a "blowout", but he defended their use of the wording as "it's your interpretation as a player that taints the meaning behind it. That's something we wanted to do on purpose, because with mental illness it's your frame of mind that interprets the world, and that can cause you distress." Reid McCarter of PC Gamer strongly defended Ninja Theory's move, calling it "great game design and a modern expression of unreliable narration". He stated "As the story progresses, the nature of the corruption becomes clearer as the player comes to understand a correlation between Senua's backstory and psychology and the way they perceive the game's dangers. It is a beautifully executed bit of narrative design, game systems and story working in tandem." PCGamesN called it a "clever decision", as it "focuses on Senua's own fear of her enemies and degrading mental state". Eurogamer called it "a cool trick that makes the player feel a sense of dread as they're playing the game. Dread, anxiety and death are all themes Hellblade revolves around. It certainly fits". Sales While only released in digital form, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice was a commercial success. It was the best selling game on the