Just Add Monsters reborn as Ninja Theory

Kung Fu Chaos developer Just Add Monsters has been rescued from administration by its former directors and reborn as Ninja Theory Ltd., the company announced this week. The small Cambridge-based team will now continue to work on next-generation fighting game Heavenly Sword.

Last month JAM was forced into administration after mother-company Argonaut went under, but since then former directors along with former Argo head honcho Jez San have bought back the business including the next-generation technology and Heavenly Sword intellectual property, and retained existing JAM employees.

Ninja Theory is run by its original founders with no debts and fresh capital, and Jez San has now joined the board as non-executive director.

The developer can now get back to concentrating on Heavenly Sword, which so excited us when we had an exclusive look at the game and spoke to JAM's Tameem Antoniades about it in early September. Antoniades, who takes up the role of "Chief Design Ninja", reckons Heavenly Sword is worth the trouble.

"We made a strategic decision to start very early and craft a gaming experience worthy of the 'next-gen' moniker. We really want to make something pretty damn special rather than same old crap with shiny new graphics," he said this week.

Meanwhile, "Chief Development Ninja" Nina Kristensen spoke of the relief of making it past Argonaut's problems. "We have gone through hell tackling the creative, technological and business challenges of next-gen game development," she commented. "But we've come out of the worst intact and it feels great to be a truly independent company once again."

Although Heavenly Sword wasn't in development for any particular platform the last time we looked, it's aiming to hit the likes of PlayStation 3 and Xbox 2 in years to come. Expect to hear a lot more about it between now and the launch of new hardware.