'It’s Incredibly Sad Knowing That We Won’t Get to Finish What We Were Working on' — Hellblade Devs Say Goodbye to Ninja Theory as Layoffs Start

Last month, Xbox revealed plans to shut down Hellblade developer Ninja Theory after two rescue deals fell through. Now the fallout is becoming clear, as studio staff share their farewells on LinkedIn, as spotted by journalist Chris Kerr.

“I’ve been trying to figure out how to write this because Ninja Theory was never just a job to me,” said gameplay programmer Katrin Mair. “After four years, it’s hard to put into words how much this place and the people in it have meant to me.

“What I’ll remember most is how much people cared. About the work, about the details, and about each other. I feel very lucky that this was the place where I got to start my career and grow into the programmer I am today. It’s incredibly sad knowing that we won’t get to finish what we were working on. So much care, talent and effort went into it, and I really wish we’d had the chance to see what it could have become.”

Mair relocated to the U.K. to join Ninja Theory. Technical director Loong-Wei Ding is also among those affected, using his departure post to urge other studios to hire his former colleagues.

Expert technical sound designer Alessio Mellina is also facing redundancy after 12 years at the studio, where he worked on the industry-leading binaural audio that gave Hellblade its haunting whispers. “As the only Technical Sound Designer here, I've been the owner of most of our dynamic audio systems on recent projects,” he said.

Performance capture expert Xoe Suvari has also been let go. “Hundreds of shoot days,” he said. “Hours and hours of data. Sweat and bruises from set builds. New pipelines and the never ending battle of naming conventions. I saw my team grow at work and as people, and together we built a performance capture stage that was truly top of its class.”

All the posts mention colleagues, indicating layoffs are widespread across the studio. In June, at an Xbox Games Showcase event, Microsoft announced Senua, the third game in the Hellblade series. Many speculate the trailer was meant to attract potential buyers for Ninja Theory, since Microsoft would have already known it had no plans to publish the title.

Last month, Microsoft announced that the next mainline Halo game will be developed by Call of Duty maker Activision, with mass layoffs hitting Halo Studios. Xbox has moved Age of Empires developer World's Edge and Sea of Thieves developer Rare under the Activision umbrella.

Outside Activision, Obsidian, developer of Grounded and The Outer Worlds, is now a Bethesda studio, as it begins work on a new Fallout game. According to Xbox Chief Content Officer Matt Booty, these changes bring us three quarters of the way through planned restructures, which suggests more job losses will happen over the course of the next few months.