There’s a lot not to like about this latest round of corporate-mandated Xbox misery. Hundreds more people are losing their livelihoods. The adoption of low-risk factory chain development. The fact that no one, yet, knows what’s going on with Arkane.
Personally, I keep thinking about the likely closure of Ninja Theory. Not because I desperately yearn for more Hellblade games in my life – I don’t – but more. unlikely this proposal seemed, when a thunderous trailer for their Celtic action sequel, Senua hit screens at Summer Game Fest in June. Four weeks later, the people who made it will collectively be put up for sale. Eleven weeks later, Microsoft CEO Matt Booty publicly dedicate the two sentences on how two separate deals fell through, triggering a “closing proposal.” Perhaps the greatest individual failure of this sad affair so far, confessed in as many words as those devoted to a new Halo.
It is a failure which also gives an even more macabre side to this revelation of SGF. Although Microsoft has never openly explained why it was promoting a game it was about to sell, the most commonly reported explanation is the sight of an impeccably ray-traced Senua slicing up cultists – day one on Game Pass! – would attract potential buyers for Ninja Theory.
This is clearly sinister. And quite possibly counterproductive, if the push for the sale were to be interpreted by studio buyers as a lack of confidence in Senua’s post-release success (and, by extension, Ninja Theory as a whole). But what I think is generally missing from discussions of trailer timing is the recognition that all the alternative possibilities are even worse. If Microsoft knew it wanted to sell Ninja Theory and doesn’t plan to promote Senua, they are even crueler than we thought. If Microsoft didn’t know they wanted to sell Ninja Theory and did believe they were just showing off an upcoming game, they are even more incompetent and short-sighted than we thought. If Microsoft knew it wanted to sell Ninja Theory and decided not to reveal Senua at all, then NDA developers about to lose their jobs would be kicked out with a two-year gap in their wallets. Maybe longer, if they weren’t around for Hellblade II.
Again, the chosen presentation and then sales tactic has its own nastiness, especially if the Ninja Theory staff was not aware of the plan beforehand. But, coldly and logically, we must admit it. if all that hyper-polished sword fighting footage helped loosen a purse string or two, and thus allowed the developers to get back on solid ground… would anyone on the outside wring their hands over these methods? I don’t know if I would, and I’m twisting mine right now.
But no. Whatever the terms of these two doomed deals, Microsoft—whose broader business apparently involves pouring enough money into military contracts to invest in the latest AI wunderwaffe—decided they weren’t worth a studio’s existence. At this point, it doesn’t matter what the intention was, or whether the decision was careful strategy or clumsy shenanigans, because the sum total of this glittering summer game reveal is now zero. Nothing. Oversight. The one opportunity for the Xbox brand to squeeze something positive out of the bottom of its barrel of insensitivity – to look savvy and cunning, even – and they blew it.
Barring a miracle, Ninja Theory, an impeccable studio and multiple BAFTA winner, will become the first studio affected by Microsoft’s budget cut regime in 2026 to close completely. The last chance for something approaching justice is that it eliminates any lingering belief in Xbox’s benevolence, and with it, frankly, its core competence.
