Ninja Theory Cancels Psychological Horror Game Project Mara

Ninja Theory, the developer behind the Hellblade saga, is no longer working on Project Mara after it had decided to focus on the Hellblade franchise. In an in-depth interview with Xbox Wire about the Hellblade sequel Senua, studio head Dom Matthews said that he took the 85 people working for Ninja Theory and had them build out the previous games’ experience for the upcoming title. “And with the fact that we have the entire team working on this game, I suspect some people might ask what’s happened to Project Mara – I took the decision to not work on that any further,” he continued. 

The Microsoft-owned studio first announced Project Mara way back in 2020, while it was also working on a 4v4 team-based melee combat game called Bleeding Edge. Ninja Theory announced that it had stopped developing Bleeding Edge back in 2021, less than a year after it came out. Project Mara was supposed to all about a “real-world and grounded representation of mental terror” featuring “real lived experience accounts and in-depth research.” When it was announced, the studio released a teaser video showing a realistic apartment and a close-up of a person who’s presumably Mara herself.

“These decisions are never easy, but I did so to take the opportunity to have all of the talent and expertise in the studio, all 85 creatives, working together to realize the potential of what Senua can be,” Matthews said in the Xbox Wire interview. Ninja Theory announced Senua during the Xbox Games Showcase at Summer Game Fest 2026. It’s a full-on action-adventure with expanded combat, more puzzles to solve and more freedom to explore than its predecessors. It has apparently been in development since 2024, so Project Mara could have been dead years before we even heard about the studio’s decision.