Just Add Monsters (2000–2004) Tameem Antoniades, Nina Kristensen and Mike Ball founded Just Add Monsters in March 2000 in
Cambridge, England, with . At the time, the company had three staff but no money, equipment, or technology. Antoniades had ideas for a
kung fu game and brainstormed them for a
hack and slash multiplayer game called
Kung Fu Chaos in his bedroom. As the team settled on the idea, they began actively looking for investment from major
video game publishers, but none of them showed any interest in funding the game. Instead, they offered to buy the small company. As the team began to run out of money, they agreed to be acquired by
Argonaut Games in September 2000. Kristensen became the head of development, Antoniades led the design department, while Ball became the leader of the technology team. San joined as a member of the firm's
board of directors.
Heavenly Sword, Enslaved and DmC (2004–2013) After the company was reestablished, it had very limited capital and could only sustain its operations for three months. At the time, the company employed more than 50 people. The team continued to present
Heavenly Sword to various publishers, but their responses were unenthusiastic. Publishers questioned the team's ability to make a technology-intensive game because of its relatively small size. With few options remaining, the team signed a deal with
Sony Computer Entertainment in May 2005. This saved the company from bankruptcy at the cost of IP and technology rights. The title would now become a
PlayStation 3 exclusive. served as the "dramatic director" for
Heavenly Sword, and provided motion capture for both the game and
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. Fueled by the ambition to be "a top studio in the world", Ninja Theory had lofty goals for
Heavenly Sword. The company employed more than 100 people to work on the game, which took four-and-a-half years to develop. Sony actively interfered with the game's development, diminishing the team's creative freedom. It pressured it to produce a game that "fit in more with what a standard action-adventure video game should be". Many features were removed from the game during the final production stages to meet project deadlines. The game received generally positive reviews from critics when it was released in September 2007, and subsequently gained a
cult following. However, sales did not meet expectations, and the title did not break even. Ninja Theory then began working on a sequel, but it had employed so many people to work on the title it did not fit with the "cost-analysis model of AAA production". Once the team engaged in the development of the sequel, it would become its only project; the company could not seek other opportunities. Not wanting to dissolve the entire team to work on the sequel, Ninja Theory decided to leave
Heavenly Sword and all the technologies built for it to Sony and seek external funding from another publisher for its next project. According to Antoniades, it was a "heart-breaking moment". Without its own technology, the team used
Epic Games'
Unreal Engine. Because
Heavenly Sword had been unprofitable, Ninja Theory needed to present the new game to publishers as fast as possible since it did not have much reserve cash. Initially, it signed a deal with Green Screen, which dissolved a month later.
Namco Bandai Games agreed to publish the game. though Garland found the team "friendly". Garland often argued with Antoniades over the inclusion of boss fights, and became involved with the game's design. Andy Serkis returned to do motion capture, and
Nitin Sawhney, composer for
Heavenly Sword, returned to write
Enslaveds music.
Enslaved was positively reviewed by critics when it was released in October 2010. However, like previous Ninja Theory projects, the market responded unenthusiastically, and it was a commercial failure. While Ninja Theory developed a piece of single-player
downloadable content (DLC), titled ''Pigsy's Perfect 10'', the multiplayer DLC that was in development was cancelled after the lukewarm reception. Immediately after the completion of
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, publisher
Capcom chose Ninja Theory to develop the next entry in the
Devil May Cry series, as it was impressed by the company's past work, especially on
Heavenly Sword. Capcom intentionally selected a western developer so that they could "add western flair to a traditionally Japanese-styled game", and granted the company plenty of creative freedom.
Hideaki Itsuno supervised the entire project. The team came up with a new design for series' protagonist
Dante, which generated backlash and some criticism. Some fans sent Ninja Theory
death threats, of which some were sent in the form of comics and
death metal songs. Antoniades responded to fan displeasure over the redesign by saying that "The essence of Devil May Cry is all about 'cool'" and that the design from the PS2 era "isn't cool anymore." Despite being a controversial project,
DmC: Devil May Cry received critical acclaim when it was released in January 2013. It was a commercial success for Ninja Theory. The title reached the top of the United Kingdom, United States, European and Japanese retail software sales charts. For the first time, the team received royalties from a project. According to Antoniades,
Fightback was a learning experience for the studio as it explored the "
games as a service" models, mobile technology, touch screen controls and realised the competitive nature of the mobile games market. The failure of
Razor, Since the game had a small budget, the studio did not promote the game heavily with advertisements instead creating numerous developer diaries for players who were interested in it. The team collaborated with several technology companies like 3Lateral, Cubic Motion and
Xsens to help with motion capture, which allowed the actors to preview their performance while acting. In September 2016, Ninja Theory announced its Senua Studio division, which would work on real-time virtual character technology. As the game explored mental illness and
psychosis, the company consulted professional
neuroscientists and obtained financial backing from the
Wellcome Trust. generating more than $13 million with sales of more than 500,000 units. The game was nominated for nine awards and won five at the
14th British Academy Games Awards. Antoniades considered the critical acclaim validation that the independent AAA business model worked. The company has several titles in development, both traditional and
virtual reality projects. As for the future, Antoniades shared: "We've got other projects on the go, led by different team members who have their own personal slant on what they want to do, and they're not serious subjects, they are much more fun, traditional games if you like." Studio creative director Tameem Antoniades said that it opted for the acquisition as "We want to be free from the AAA machine and make games focused on the experience, not around monetization", and would allow it to continue building smaller, risky games with creative independence. For Microsoft, Ninja Theory was seen as a studio that would produce good content that fits with the
Xbox Game Pass subscription service, according to head of Microsoft Studios Matt Booty. In October 2019, Ninja Theory announced the establishment of a
research and development effort dealing with mental health, dubbed The Insight Project. The Insight Project builds upon and continues the co-operation between Ninja Theory and Paul Fletcher, a
University of Cambridge psychiatrist and professor of health neuroscience who had consulted the studio on
Hellblade. With The Insight Project, Ninja Theory plans to build smaller games to "help people identify and control negative emotions". At
The Game Awards 2019, Ninja Theory announced ''
Senua's Saga: Hellblade II'' for
Xbox Series X. The studio teased a new experimental game,
Project: Mara in January 2020. Antoniades said that it "will be a real-world and grounded representation of true mental terror" and "will be based heavily on research, interviews, and firsthand accounts to recreate the horrors of the mind as accurately and believably as possible." In January 2026,
Project: Mara was reported to have been canceled. In April 2024, Polygon reported that co-founder and chief creative director Tameem Antoniades left Ninja Theory. He subsequently confirmed his departure on social media, expressing his desire to leave the company after the first
Hellblade, but decided to stay for two more years to help with the transition. ==Philosophy==