NaturalMotion: Ninja Theory To 'Raise The Bar' News

Having recently celebrated the sale of Heavenly Sword's one millionth copy, eight months after the PlayStation 3 action adventure title shipped, it looks like Ninja Theory won't be returning to the world of Nariko any time soon.

NaturalMotion, the creator of the physics-driven Euphoria middleware (last seen on GTA IV and coming to a galaxy far, far away in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed), has today confirmed that the UK-based studio has licensed another of its toolsets, the animation middleware, Morpheme. Whilst this would be news in itself, NaturalMotion's praise for Ninja Theory's PS3 debut also revealed that the outfit was working on a wholly new IP for its follow up project - and not a sequel to Nariko's original adventure.

Speaking about the move, Andy Payne, NaturalMotion's vice president of sales for Europe and Asia commented that, "With Heavenly Sword, Ninja Theory demonstrated their commitment to moving levels of visual fidelity forward in gaming...We believe morpheme will help them continue to raise the bar for the development of their new IP by giving more power to the animation artists and developers behind their groundbreaking games."

"One of Ninja Theory's genuine goals is to push the technology envelope and create gaming experiences that are immersive and truly next-generation," said Mike Ball, Chief Technology Ninja at Ninja Theory. "Today's games require more than just realistic graphics - character animations need to be smooth, lifelike and convincing in order to really bring gamers into our worlds, and morpheme delivers the level of control required for that aspect of game development."

The specifics of the new brand are so unknown (including whether it'll be platform exclusive), although Ninja Theory is currently looking to expand their staff, with designers, animators, and programmers. Teasing concept art is already available on the studio's official website.