Ninja Theory

Ninja Theory Limited

Formerly	Just Add Monsters Limited (2000–2004)
Company type	Subsidiary
Industry	Video games
Founded	March 2000; 24 years ago (2000-03)
Founders	Tameem Antoniades Nina Kristensen Mike Ball
Headquarters	Cambridge , England
Key people	Dom Matthews (studio head) Jez San (non-executive director) Nina Kristensen (chief development director)
Number of employees	120[1] (2020)
Parent	Argonaut Games (2000–2004) Xbox Game Studios (2018–present)
Divisions	Senua Studio
Website	ninjatheory.com

Ninja Theory Limited is a first-party British video game developer for Xbox Game Studios based in Cambridge, England. Notable games it has developed include Kung Fu Chaos, Heavenly Sword, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, DmC: Devil May Cry, and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice.

Founded by Tameem Antoniades, Nina Kristensen and Mike Ball in March 2000, the company operated under the name Just Add Monsters. It was acquired by Argonaut Games soon after its founding and released Kung Fu Chaos for the original Xbox console. The company purchased itself from administrators after Argonaut Games was liquidated but suffered from financial troubles. Sony Computer Entertainment saved the team from bankruptcy by funding the development of Heavenly Sword, which was an expensive project. The game's poor sales resulted in Ninja Theory losing all their in-house technologies because of contractual agreements with Sony. The team then moved on to develop Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, an underperforming project in collaboration with writer Alex Garland, and DmC: Devil May Cry, whose design was highly controversial, resulting in the team receiving death threats.

The team began diversifying its portfolio of games and taking on contract work for publishers after finishing the development of DmC. It also entrusted a small team to develop their first self-published title, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. The team developed a business model they called "Independent AAA", where the game would have a small budget while retaining high graphical fidelity. Exploring the theme of psychosis, the game was a commercial and critical success. In June 2018, it was officially announced that Ninja Theory had entered into an agreement to be acquired by Microsoft and became part of Microsoft Studios (now known as Xbox Game Studios). Several new projects, including virtual reality games, are under development.