{"id":84582,"date":"2026-06-17T08:11:59","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T12:11:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=84582"},"modified":"2026-06-17T08:39:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T12:39:17","slug":"microsoft-apparently-already-knew-it-would-be-closing-ninja-theory-when-it-announced-senua","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/?p=84582","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft Apparently Already Knew It Would Be Closing Ninja Theory When It Announced Senua"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Earlier this week, it was reported that Microsoft was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/articles\/double-fine-ninja-theory-and-more-reportedly-trying-to-spin-off-from-xbox-game-studios\/\">planning to close<\/a>, or spin out, Compulsion Games, Double Fine, Ninja Theory, and potential other studios as part of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/articles\/xbox-reportedly-planning-big-layoffs-for-next-month\/\">a round of layoffs<\/a> and studio closures. Now, a report suggests that Microsoft knew it planned to close Ninja Theory before the studio announced its new Hellblade game, Senua, during the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/articles\/xbox-game-showcase-2026-all-the-biggest-announcements-so-far\/\">Xbox Games Showcase<\/a> just ten days ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to Stephen Totilo&#8217;s<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamefile.news\/p\/xbox-studio-contraction\"> Game File<\/a>, Microsoft &#8220;had already planned to sunset or split&#8221; with Ninja Theory by the time Senua&#8217;s trailer debuted, thinking that a newly announced game would &#8220;draw investor interest.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Totilo notes that it&#8217;s unclear whether anyone in Ninja Theory&#8217;s leadership team was involved with, or even aware of, that plan. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The report follows a bumper interview that <a href=\"https:\/\/news.xbox.com\/en-us\/2026\/06\/07\/senua-ninja-theory-details-interview-action-adventure-xbox-games-showcase-2026\/\">Xbox Wire <\/a>published about Senua, in which it said, &#8220;The original\u00a0Hellblade\u00a0famously ended with the line, &#8216;There are more stories to tell.&#8217;\u00a0Senua\u00a0feels like Ninja Theory has expanded that to a philosophy of, &#8216;There are new kinds of games to make.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ninja Theory studio head Dom Matthews also noted that the gap between Hellblade 2 and Senua being small is deliberate. &#8220;It\u2019s not about rushing something out the door&#8211;we would never do that&#8211;but<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this week, it was reported that Microsoft was planning to close, or spin out, Compulsion Games, Double Fine, Ninja Theory, and potential other studios as part of a round of layoffs and studio closures. Now, a report suggests that Microsoft knew it planned to close Ninja Theory before the studio announced its new Hellblade&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":84584,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-external"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84582"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=84582"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84585,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84582\/revisions\/84585"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/84584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=84582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=84582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgvote.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=84582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}