Hellblade studio kills its mysterious 'horrors of the mind' project so it can make a new Senua game instead

Back in 2020, Senua studio Ninja Theory announced a new game, Project Mara, that aimed to "recreate the horrors of the mind" with a "real-world and grounded representation of mental terror." A year later we got a look at the game's absurdly photorealistic apartment, but beyond that it pretty much fell off the radar until yesterday, when studio head Dom Matthews said work on the project has been ended.

Cancellations suck as a general rule, but word of this one came amidst the announcement of Ninja Theory's new Senua game, entitled simply Senua—"an out-and-out action adventure game," Matthews said in an Xbox Wire interview, with "broader gameplay, more combat depth, and an interconnected world."

That's also part of why the new game isn't called Hellbade 3: "The title of just Senua really reflects that this is something fresh and new and different."

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"It is a different style of game. I think Hellblade 1 and Hellblade 2 had an intention that we delivered on—but this is a different intention," Matthews explained. "I think of it as being additive—we’re taking all of that goodness and adding the types of things that people expect from a premium action-adventure game."

Senua takes place after the events of Hellblade 1 and 2, and is set in Purgatory—specifically, her vision of it. "She’s trapped between life and death on a quest to reach the afterlife and be reunited with the ones that she’s loved and lost," Matthews said.

"Her belief is that by healing the wounds of her life, she can find the peace that is the key that unlocks the gate to the afterlife." Hellblade players will recognize characters and themes from those games, but "this is a game that welcomes in new players as well—it’s all very much presented in a way that, if you haven’t been there, then you’re fully going to understand and get what’s happening in this title."

This will also be the first time since DMC: Devil May Cry, which came out in 2013, that the entire studio will be dedicated to working on a single game—and to make that happen, Project Mara had to die.

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"I took the decision to not work on that any further," Matthews said. "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."

So it's a good news/bad news situation—obviously weighted toward the good, especially if you're a Senua fan. But I can't help feeling a bit disappointed by the demise of Project Mara, a game that looked to "combine the best of game design and technology with cutting edge clinical neuroscience and psychiatry to help with mental suffering and to promote mental well being," except instead of helping the goal was messing with in the worst possible ways. I don't know if that sounds like a good time, exactly, but I'd sure like to try it.

Senua is set to launch sometime in 2027, and is up for wishlisting now on Steam.