A new report floating around has confirmed Ninja Theory co-founder Tameem Antoniades is no longer at the company – though the time he actually left remains up to debate.

The writer-director of the original Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice and largely the face of the company, Antoniades was absent and not mentioned in recent press previews for their sequel, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II.

After requesting a comment from Microsoft’s Xbox division, a spokesperson confirmed Antoniades is no longer at the studio. It remains unclear when he actually left the company, though he’s been getting lots of traveling in since a bittersweet post made way back in 2020.

“Goodbye-not-goodbye to my new and oldish friends. Live long and prosper”, the ex-writer and director said on his Instagram. Since this post he has seemingly had no public connection to the team and the game.

Originally announced back in 2019, Antoniades reportedly worked on the game in its early stages but Hellblade II still isn’t out yet. The former director did recently share a performance by the folk band Heilung, who are producing the game’s soundtrack.

In his place the long-awaited sequel is led by three creative leads: environment art director Dan Attwell, visual effects director Mark Slater-Tunstill, and audio director David Garcia.

A co-founder of Ninja Theory, Antoniades served as writer-director on the majority of their releases, including: Heavenly Sword, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, DmC: Devil May Cry and the aforementioned first Hellblade game. He founded the British studio back in 2000 with Nina Kristensen and Mike Ball.

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II is set to launch on May 21st, 2024 for Windows PC, Xbox Series X|S, and Game Pass from day one. The game will be a digital-only release.