Ninja Theory killed Project Mara to put all 85 developers on a new Senua game

Ninja Theory studio head Dom Matthews confirmed that Project Mara — the studio's mysterious "horrors of the mind" project announced in 2020 — is dead. In its place comes a new game simply called Senua, targeting a 2027 launch and already up for wishlisting on Steam.

Matthews described Senua in an Xbox Wire interview as "an out-and-out action adventure game" with "broader gameplay, more combat depth, and an interconnected world." The game isn't called Hellblade 3 by design — the title Senua, Matthews says, reflects that this is "something fresh and new and different." Story-wise, it picks up after Hellblade 1 and 2, with Senua trapped between life and death in Purgatory — specifically her own vision of it — on a quest to reach the afterlife and reunite with people she's loved and lost. Returning players will recognize characters and themes, but Matthews is clear that new players are fully welcome: everything is presented so that no prior knowledge is needed. It's also the first time since DMC: Devil May Cry in 2013 that the entire studio — all 85 developers — will be working on a single game.

Project Mara launched as a concept in 2020, promising to combine game design with clinical neuroscience and psychiatry to simulate mental terror in a grounded, realistic way. A photorealistic apartment demo surfaced in 2021, then the project went quiet. Matthews said the call to end it was never easy, but it was necessary to focus the full weight of the studio's talent on what Senua could become.

The reaction is a mixed bag — Senua fans are excited, but Project Mara had a genuinely unusual premise and its cancellation stings for anyone who was curious where that experiment was heading. 2027 is a ways off, but at least Ninja Theory is all-in on one clear direction.