The project to modernize the Perfect Dark franchise, which saw three games developed by Rare between 2000 and 2005 on Nintendo 64, Game Boy Color and Xbox 360 as well as a remaster of the first opus in 2010, is clearly not doing well. In any case, this is what emerges from the words of journalist Jeff Grubb, who put his foot in the dish in the middle of the podcast. “ I’m hearing more and more that Perfect Dark is in a complicated, very complicated state. It seems that things are far from taking shape “, he commented. Alex Donaldson, journalist on the VG247 site, echoed these comments. “ I have some crazy stories about the development of this game that I haven’t written out of respect for a team that’s really trying to push a boulder up a hill. But my patience is running out », he explains on https://twitter.com/APZonerunner/status/1787865521251139813. Author for YouTube channel Did You Know Gaming, https://twitter.com/Doctor_Cupcakes/status/1787973283486515599 add a layer. “ From what little I’ve heard about the development of the new Perfect Dark, it sounds like preparation for a future video on the subject. It’s just a big mess that drags on forever. »
As explained by the IGN site investigation in June 2023, Perfect Dark was still languishing in pre-production last summer, the result of recruitment difficulties at The Initiative, a studio with AAA ambitions founded by Microsoft from scratch. First supported by the Certain Affinity studio between 2019 and 2021, Microsoft subsequently called on the Crystal Dynamics studio to not only co-develop the project but even pilot it, The Initiative being, at the latest news, only composed of around thirty people. For its part, Crystal Dynamics was organized into two teams: one on Perfect Dark and the other on the next tomb Raider. All while being tossed around from Square Enix to Embracer and soon from Embracer to a smaller publisher temporarily named Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends.
- Also read | Crystal Dynamics has taken control of Perfect Dark, which is still in pre-production
- Also read | According to Bloomberg and The Verge, Xbox plans new job cuts
