Hero image: Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II key art. Image: Ninja Theory / Xbox Game Studios, via Steam
When Xbox announced in July that it would let go of several studios, the question was what happened to them next. Tuesday’s memo answered it for four of them, and for one the answer is the worst available.
Matt Booty’s message to staff, which also moved Halo to Activision, included what he called an update on the studio divestitures. Read in order, it is a list of three studios that got out and one that did not.
The ones that made it
Double Fine and Compulsion Games returned to their own management in August. According to Booty, both left with their IP, their back catalogues and runway funding. That means Tim Schafer’s studio still owns Psychonauts and its other games, and Compulsion keeps South of Midnight.
Undead Labs has now gone the same way, on similar terms. It has a new publisher, and State of Decay 3 will still launch day one on Game Pass. For anyone waiting on that game, it is the best news in the memo.
The one that didn’t
For Ninja Theory, Booty wrote that two separate agreements fell through. Xbox will now begin consulting employees on a proposed closure, while continuing to look for other options. The studio is based in Cambridge in the UK, where consultation is a formal legal process, so this is not a closure yet. But it is the first step toward one.
Ninja Theory made Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice and 2024’s Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, two games known as much for their treatment of psychosis as for their combat. They were exactly the kind of mid-sized, risky, specific projects that are hardest to justify inside a big publisher and hardest to sell to a buyer looking for a sure thing. That two deals got close and still collapsed says something about how few buyers there are right now.
Arkane Lyon, the Dishonored studio, is the other name still unresolved. Booty says consultation there continues until the end of the year.
What to watch
The line to watch is Booty’s promise to keep exploring other paths for Ninja Theory. That leaves a door open, however narrow. Xbox holds an all-staff town hall on 6 October, and if a third buyer appears, that is the most likely moment we hear about it.
Source: Matt Booty memo, via Insider Gaming, The Game Business, Wccftech