Project: MARA is the latest project from Hellblade developer Ninja Theory, although it's been quite a few years since we last heard anything new about this experimental horror experience. Designed to combine cutting-edge visuals with a tempered approach to exploring mental health, Project Mara has been envisioned as a new way to explore storytelling in video games.
Naturally, with four years passing without update there's so much we want to know about this upcoming Xbox Series X game. As you can learn in our Hellblade 2 review, Ninja Theory has made incredible strides in recent years, so we're really keen to learn more. While we wait, keep on reading to find all the latest Project Mara news and gameplay details.
What is Project: MARA?
Project: Mara is an in-development experimental game from Ninja Theory with a focus on recreating the terror of mental health issues and it will be "based on real lived experience accounts and in-depth research."
After the success of Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, the studio revealed a research and development effort known as The Insight Project, which is a collaboration between Ninja Theory and a series of experts, psychiatrists, and professors. The project aims to create "self-contained, individualized, and absorbing game experiences" to help people control things like fear and anxiety.
Ninja Theory says that it wants to "deliver a mainstream solution to help treat mental suffering and encourage mental well being." An ambitious endeavour to say the least, and whilst it hasn't been confirmed, it's fair to say Project: Mara is something of an offshoot of this research push.
The focus appears to be recreating "the horrors of the mind as accurately and realistically as possible" to usher in some kind of new approach to storytelling in games. Let's just hope it's respectful of mental health issues and those suffering from them whilst trying to shine a necessary spotlight on something stigmatized. Gamifying something like anxiety or fear is ambitious, but also cause for concern – it has to be done with an as of yet unseen level of tact.
Project Mara release date speculation
Project: MARA was revealed in January of 2020, but there's still no confirmed release date. Considering that developer Ninja Theory was acquired into the Xbox Game Studios lineup in 2018, and that the team only just got Hellblade 2: Senua's Saga out the door in early 2024, it's likely we'll be waiting a while for this Xbox exclusive.
Project Mara trailer
Upon its reveal, the game received a terrifying teaser trailer which appears to feature award-winning Hellblade actor Melina Juergens in the titular role as Mara. The teaser shows off some impeccably rendered slices of what looks like a research facility, soundtracked by heavy breathing and close-ups of documents detailing a study of Mara’s brain function and mental health progress. The trailer tagline is “I can't tell what’s real anymore” and at the end of the trailer, we can see Mara turn to face some sort of antagonistic force in the darkness.
It’s very hard to grasp what the premise of the game is from this disorienting trailer, but it seems to follow a mental health patient struggling with her illness. The game presents the facility in a somewhat antagonistic way but it’s yet to be revealed whether this is the reality of the situation or not.
Project Mara gameplay details
Alongside the first Project: Mara trailer, Ninja Theory released a development diary detailing intended gameplay experience and development path the studio is taking. Ninja Theory is focusing on small-scope development cycles, similar to their approach with Hellblade, which was made by a small team of 20 developers. This is what it's calling the Dreadnought approach, where the company is splitting into a set of small teams to work on upcoming titles – ensuring the studio can mitigate risk and take bigger creative swings.
Former Ninja Theory creative director Tameem Antoniades has spoken about The Insight Project in the past, which seeks to use the environmental control of game design and adapt it into a push towards mental wellbeing for players by allowing users to engage with and overcome their fears. There are a couple of short scenes where we see clips from projects tied to this, including a person in a rowboat with a heart monitor, somebody running on a treadmill whilst being tracked and a VR project where the player interacts with an avatar. Ninja Theory want to explore the "new control interfaces and the psychology of play," which has much to do with the forthcoming Project: Mara.
Antoniades notes that Project: Mara only features one character and one location – an area which has been meticulously recreated from the real-world through new photogrammetry techniques, with Ninja Theory striving for photorealistic presentation. Ninja Theory believes that, if it gets this right, it could usher in a new medium for storytelling in video games.
While you wait for more on Project Mara, check out all the other upcoming horror games we know about.
