{"id":59342,"date":"2026-06-09T17:08:58","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T09:08:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=59342"},"modified":"2026-06-09T17:08:58","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T09:08:58","slug":"ninja-theory-cancels-psychological-horror-game-project-mara","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=59342","title":{"rendered":"Ninja Theory Cancels Psychological Horror Game Project Mara"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"subtitle\">The developer decided to focus on Senua, the upcoming title in the Hellblade franchise.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"slide-key image-holder gallery-image-holder credit-image-wrap lead-image-holder\" data-post-url=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2190214\/ninja-theory-cancels-project-mara\/\" data-post-title=\"Ninja Theory cancels psychological horror game Project Mara\" data-slide-num=\"0\" data-post-id=\"2190214\">\n<picture id=\"pa1b8665ca85559a2e57e44f51732db12\">&#13;<source media=\"(min-width: 429px)\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/img\/gallery\/ninja-theory-cancels-psychological-horror-game-project-mara\/intro-1780984388.webp\" type=\"image\/webp\">&#13;<source media=\"(max-width: 428px)\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/img\/gallery\/ninja-theory-cancels-psychological-horror-game-project-mara\/intro-1780984388.sm.webp\" type=\"image\/webp\">&#13;<br \/>\n                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"gallery-image \" src=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/img\/gallery\/ninja-theory-cancels-psychological-horror-game-project-mara\/intro-1780984388.jpg\" data-slide-url=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2190214\/ninja-theory-cancels-project-mara\/\" data-post-id=\"2190214\" data-slide-num=\"0\" data-slide-title=\"Ninja Theory cancels psychological horror game Project Mara: \" width=\"780\" height=\"438\" alt=\"Project Mara logo\"\/>&#13;<br \/>\n                    <\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n                    <span class=\"gallery-image-credit\">Ninja Theory<\/span>\n                    <\/div>\n<div class=\"columns-holder \">\n<p>Ninja Theory, the developer behind the\u00a0Hellblade saga, is no longer working on <em>Project Mara<\/em> after it had decided to focus on the Hellblade franchise. In an in-depth interview with\u00a0<em>Xbox Wire<\/em> about the Hellblade sequel\u00a0<em>Senua<\/em>, studio head\u00a0Dom Matthews said that he took the 85 people working for Ninja\u00a0Theory and had them build out the previous games&#8217; experience for the upcoming title. &#8220;And with the fact that we have the entire team working on this game, I suspect some people might ask what&#8217;s happened to <em>Project Mara<\/em> \u2013 I took the decision to not work on that any further,&#8221; he continued.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Microsoft-owned studio first announced <em>Project Mara<\/em> way back in 2020, while it was also working on a\u00a04v4 team-based melee combat game called <em>Bleeding Edge<\/em>. Ninja Theory announced that it had stopped developing <em>Bleeding Edge<\/em> back in 2021, less than a year after it came out. <em>Project Mara<\/em> was supposed to all about a &#8220;real-world and grounded representation of mental terror&#8221; featuring &#8220;real lived experience accounts and in-depth research.&#8221; When it was announced, the studio released a teaser video showing a realistic apartment and a close-up of a person who&#8217;s presumably Mara herself.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;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 <em>Senua<\/em> can be,&#8221; Matthews said in the <em>Xbox Wire<\/em> interview.\u00a0Ninja Theory announced <em>Senua<\/em> during the Xbox Games Showcase at Summer Game Fest 2026. It&#8217;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 <em>Project Mara<\/em> could have been dead years before we even heard about the studio&#8217;s decision.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2190214\/ninja-theory-cancels-project-mara\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><br \/>\n<center\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The developer decided to focus on Senua, the upcoming title in the Hellblade franchise. &#13;&#13;&#13; &#13; Ninja Theory Ninja Theory, the developer behind the\u00a0Hellblade saga,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59343,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[8271,258,2424,24456,3027,781,2437,6868],"class_list":["post-59342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-gadgets-reviews","tag-cancels","tag-game","tag-horror","tag-mara","tag-ninja","tag-project","tag-psychological","tag-theory","wpcat-32-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/59343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}