It’s been reported that Ninja Theory’s experimental horror game Project Mara has been cancelled, with the developer moving on to make Hellblade 3.
Jez Corden of Windows Central spoke about Project Mara on the Xbox Two podcast, and revealed its current status is, well, nonexistent.
Is Hellblade 3 Stepping Past Project Mara?
Having been first announced half a decade ago, Project Mara has been quiet for quite some time, a psychological horror experience that takes place in a single photorealistic apartment, focusing on the horror of mental health issues.
But it seems it never got past the experimentation stage as Jez Corden stated ‘‘Project Mara was just a concept; it’s not a game they are currently working on. It might be something they work on eventually, but Project Mara is not a game that is currently being worked on at Ninja Theory.”
A shame that we won’t see the fruits of that concept anytime soon, but Ninja Theory isn’t twiddling its collective thumbs. Hellblade 3 is allegedly now the priority project.
What’s more, Corden’s sources have told him there may be some big gameplay changes for the third in Senua’s next psychological voyage. With the first two games criticized for fairly limited gameplay mechanics, Corden’s sources believe Hellblade 3 will be a bit more interactive than Hellblade 1 and 2. They want to make it more of a game and broaden its appeal.”
Ninja Theory is a relatively small studio, so it understandably pivoted back to its successful Hellblade series. Hopefully, it returns to the concept behind Project Mara in the future, because I was more interested in modern psychological horror with a photorealistic chamber-piece setting than in another Hellblade.
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