Ninja Theory co-founder Tameem Antoniades has left the company

thesixthaxis.com:

Ninja Theory co-founder and chief creative director Tameem Antoniades has left the company, it’s been confirmed by Xbox.

Antoniades has been a key figure at Ninja Theory throughout its history, serving as writer and director on everything from the PS3 debut Heavenly Sword, through Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, DmC: Devil May Cry and then on their acclaimed hit Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. However, he hasn’t seen through the final stages of the sequel’s release.

Hellblade 2: Senua’s Saga is set to launch across Xbox Series X|S and PC on 21st May.

The news has come following a wave of previews of Ninja Theory’s highly anticipated sequel, and Antoniades was conspicuously absent when outlets including Polygon were invited in to visit the Cambridge studio. Microsoft subsequently confirmed that he has left the studio, with Polygon noting that the game is being led by three creative leads: environment art director Dan Attwell, visual effects director Mark Slater-Tunstill, and audio director David Garcia.

It’s not clear when or why he left, but Antoniades was only really involved with the early stages of Hellblade 2’s development. Hellblade 2 was announced with a tech demo alongside the Xbox Series X reveal at The Game Awards 2019. A month later, Antoniades featured prominently in the behind-the-scenes look at something called Project Mara, with Ninja Theory once again aiming to push closer to fully capturing reality in video game form. As far as I can see, Antoniades’ last appearance was in the second and most recent development diary for Project Mara, in January 2021.

Project Mara also hasn’t been heard of since that video, and it’s not clear what has become of this game. We could certainly speculate that Antoniades’ departure is somehow related to Project Mara, especially as Ninja Theory’s focus will certainly have centred around the continuing development and impending launch of Hellblade 2.

Source: Polygon