Ninja Theory faces closure; gaming argues over AI ports and costs

UK developer Ninja Theory has started laying off staff, according to reporter Chris Kerr, who cited employee posts saying they were at risk of redundancy, the UK legal process for layoffs. The move follows an announcement from Xbox content chief Matt Booty that two separate agreements to sell the studio had fallen through. Booty wrote that Microsoft would begin consultation on a proposed closure while continuing to explore other paths forward.

The studio was working on Senua, the third Hellblade game, announced at the 2026 Xbox Game Showcase and expected in 2027. Game File reported in June that Microsoft already planned to close or sell the studio when the game was revealed, and that the trailer was meant to attract buyers. Its horror project Project Mara was announced as cancelled in June. Ninja Theory is one of several studios cut in Microsoft's July round of 1,600 job losses: Double Fine and Compulsion went independent, Undead Labs became employee-owned, and Arkane is still in negotiations over its fate. Aftermath's Nicole Carpenter notes that 1,600 more layoffs are expected before the fiscal year ends.

CounterpointMicrosoft's stated position is that it tried to divest the studio and is still looking at alternatives, so the closure is framed as proposed rather than final. Others point out that the independence route has not been painless either, since Double Fine has since laid off 23 people.

Aftermath's Luke Plunkett argues that rising hardware prices and publishers' reliance on old IP could be combined into something more appealing. With a PS6 that could cost over $1,000 and an unknown next Xbox, he says the generational race for better graphics risks pricing out much of the customer base and dragging the Western industry down with it. His alternative is for Sony and Microsoft to re-release the PlayStation 2 or original Xbox as real, new-game-capable machines rather than the novelty mini consoles of a few years ago.

He reasons that older hardware would be cheaper to build, would trade on nostalgia for the machines themselves, and would cap the scope and cost of games, allowing shorter, lower-spec titles from better-paid teams. He points to the Playdate and its store as a model, and to third-party hardware such as the Analogue3D and the $249 SuperStation. Nintendo, he says, worked this out 20 years ago. Plunkett is upfront that the piece is semi-serious, that he does not expect the companies to do it, and that he wrote it mainly so he can link to it in future arguments.

CounterpointPlatform holders, and developers invested in cutting-edge technology, would likely argue that customers and big-budget studios still expect each generation to look better, and that a retro-spec machine would not carry the AAA ecosystem. Plunkett himself concedes the companies will never do it.

DarioSamo, a member of the group behind the unofficial PC version Banjo: Recompiled, posted a Bluesky thread arguing that claims generative AI accelerates recompilation projects are false. His reasoning is that a barebones recompilation was always quick, in his telling achievable in under a day, and that the real work is the polish and long-term maintainability that take far longer. He cited DK64 Rekongpiled, built without genAI by a team who knew the game well, which he says outpaced a rival AI-assisted effort that stalled for lack of that knowledge.

He grants that LLMs can speed up decompilation, but only toward code that compiles to a matching ROM. The purpose of decomps, he says, is documenting and understanding the code, and LLMs tend to produce results that are unreadable to humans, which makes later ports and patches harder. He also criticised a Video Game Esoterica video on an AI-built Banjo-Tooie recompilation for not making clear it was not the Recompiled team's work, and urged people not to promote AI-generated projects. Rock Paper Shotgun's Edwin Evans-Thirlwell adds that the loss of understanding how games were made is the point that stands out to him.

CounterpointSupporters of AI-assisted porting would say it lowers the barrier for people without deep reverse-engineering skills and gets games running that otherwise would not be, and DarioSamo himself accepts that it can speed up decompilation. Video Game Esoterica, the channel he criticised, may also see covering such projects as reporting rather than endorsement.

Previously: Modders objected to Claude-built mashup mods, Jagex answered over AI in a trailer, and Capcom planned an AI-enhanced engine. — Monday October 5 edition.

Polygon's Ford James objects to boss fights where the enemy enters a second phase and regains health during a cutscene while the player does not. His trigger was The Dancer in Control Resonant, an early and not especially hard boss, where he beat an easy first stage only to face a tougher second one and found that having to replay the first stage after each death made him give up for the night. He argues the structure creates an arbitrary barrier, since the phase players most need to learn is the one they can only reach by repeating the first.

He says Souls games are the worst offenders but the least frustrating, because players expect extra phases there. He credits Tears of the Kingdom's Ganondorf fight as an example done well, with a weak first phase and a health bar that extends off-screen in the second. His fixes are a checkpoint between phases, or triggering the second phase at the halfway point so no healing occurs.

CounterpointDefenders of FromSoftware-style design would say a second phase is a deliberate escalation, a final test of everything learned, and that checkpoints between phases would dilute the tension. James himself concedes that players who expect it find it tolerable.

Following reports, drawn from PEGI's rating, that GTA 6 lets players carry and use cocaine at any time, Polygon's Jen Glennon argues Rockstar should go beyond the stat-boost-and-debuff model common in games. She cites Starfield, where overusing stimulants slows oxygen recovery and cuts carry capacity by 20%, and The Outer Worlds 2, where overusing the inhaler can cause a permanent addiction flaw, as minor consequences. Rockstar North's Aaron Garbut told Game Informer that detail, interaction and density are all dialed up in this project.

On that basis she expects deeper effects: strained relationships, with drug use possibly locking players out of the romance route, NPC reactions to public use, unique missions to fund a habit, and locked-out jobs such as bodyguard work. She says she does not want a lecture on substance abuse, only for drugs to matter more in a Grand Theft Auto game than before.

CounterpointThe piece is speculation, since Rockstar has not described such systems. Players who value sandbox freedom, or critics wary of games that moralise, might say heavy penalties would undercut the series' appeal.