People who made Hellblade are starting to say goodbye. Since last week, several developers have posted on LinkedIn about Ninja Theory redundancy, saying their jobs are at risk. It comes a couple of weeks after Xbox said two separate deals to move the studio to new owners fell through.
To be clear, this is not a confirmed closure yet. Xbox calls it a proposed closure, and says it is still looking at other ways forward.
How it got here
In July, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma announced what she called the most significant restructure in XBOX history. That meant roughly 3,200 roles cut over Microsoft’s 2027 fiscal year, plus four studios leaving Xbox. Compulsion Games and Double Fine went back to their own management. Ninja Theory and Undead Labs, in Sharma’s words, had “entered terms to join new ownership with funding to complete and grow Senua and State of Decay 3.”
Undead Labs made it across. Ninja Theory did not. In a September 22 letter to staff, Xbox’s Matt Booty wrote that “two separate agreements for Ninja Theory fell through.” The same letter cut another 268 roles across Halo Studios, other first-party studios, and central teams, and said the company would “begin consultation with employees on a proposed closure while continuing to explore other paths forward.”
Ninja Theory is based in Cambridge, England. A consultation is the formal stage where a company works through proposed job cuts with the staff affected before anything is final. The LinkedIn posts are what that looks like from the inside.
What the developers are saying
Stefano Prosperi wrote that “with Ninja Theory facing closure and all of us facing redundancy, it’s difficult to process the idea that this chapter may be coming to an end.” He said that more than sadness, he feels “incredibly fortunate” to have spent those years with people “at the very top of their craft.”
Alessio Mellina, who describes himself as the studio’s only technical sound designer, posted this morning that “after almost 12 years at Ninja Theory, my role here is now at risk of redundancy.” He joined in January 2015 and has owned most of the studio’s dynamic audio systems on recent projects.
Loong-Wei Ding turned his own post into a hiring call. He wrote that the studio is “now facing closure and our teams are being made redundant,” then listed who is looking: programmers, designers, artists, animators, audio, cinematics, production, and the mocap stage team. He asked anyone hiring to reach out to him or any of his colleagues.
What about Senua?
Ninja Theory revealed Senua at the Xbox Games Showcase in June. It is an action-adventure set after the first two Hellblade games, announced for 2027 on PS5, Steam, Xbox Series X|S, and supported handhelds. Xbox has not said what happens to it now, and the studio’s own games page currently lists it as “Releasing TBA.” Ninja Theory’s last release was Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II in 2024.
Booty’s letter also points to an all-Xbox town hall tomorrow, Tuesday, October 6, which he says will look ahead to “one of the strongest game lineups in our history.” One piece of that lineup, Gears of War: E-Day, opens to everyone the same day. For the people who made Hellblade, the wait is for a different kind of news.