Ninja Theory Is Looking To Create Real Psychological Horror With Project: MARA

Okay, when did Ninja Theory start making all of the games? I’m not mad, I love Ninja Theory. They just used to come out with a cool new game once every three years. Heavenly Sword, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, DmC: Devil May Cry, then Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. They all came out three years apart, and they were all one of my favorite games of that year. Now, they are working on Bleeding Edge, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, and Project: Mara all at once. Exactly how much money did Microsoft give you? You do realize I have other games I have to review, right?

Revealed today in the trailer above, Project: Mara is a new game that seeks to depict the horrors of the mind as realistically as possible. Releasing a statement to Microsoft’s Xbox Wire, Ninja Theory claims that the game will, “be an experimental title and a showcase of what could become a new storytelling medium.” What exactly does that mean? Who knows! From what the trailer shows, it’s probably the juxtaposition between cold clinical modern offices and the turmoil we feel within. Funny enough, I actually can’t tell what in the trailer is digital and what is real. I’m pretty sure that’s an actual office, so perhaps the game will blend real filmed locations with video game characters. Kind of an inverse of what they did for some of the Hellblade cutscenes. Or they just got REALLY fucking good at developing environments.

While I normally worry about the depiction of mental illness in video games, Ninja Theory has already proven they can handle the topic in Hellblade. So I’m eager to see what they come up with in Project: Mara. There’s no word yet on when it will come out, but you can be confident it’s going to be on the Xbox. And before you worry that the game wont’ have any spooky monster in it, here’s a picture of the one in the trailer: