Kept secret for more than a year, the development of the reboot of the FPS/iconic stealth game Perfect Dark seems to be in terrible chaos.
In addition to the recent departure of its director from The Initiative studio, among other departures, our colleagues at Video Game Chronicles paint a bleak future for the ambitious AAAA project announced by Microsoft at the Game Awards 2020.
An Initiative in absolute darkness?
VGC would thus have received less than rosy echoes from insiders concerning the reboot of Perfect Dark, which should be shown during the year. If several departures from The Initiative studio, founded by Microsoft for the occasion, had been made public, the reality is quite different. In one year, the project would have lost almost half of the development team present at the start, that is to say 34 people, who unofficially signified their departure via their respective LinkedIn profiles.
Among these departures, many vacancies were pivotal for the development of the game, such as those of director, chief level designer or chief gameplay engineer. In addition to these technical aspects, it is also the artistic direction and the narration of the reboot which are in danger, with the departure of senior screenwriters, a chief animator or the artistic director. Because of these departures, again according to VGC: a war of egos between renowned talents in their field and a general frustration as to the direction taken on development.
To compensate for these departures, only three job offers can be found on The Initiative's site, which currently has less than 50 employees. A number that is certainly not enough to carry out a so-called AAAA project of this scale. The precarious situation of The Initiative and the wave of departures within it is otherwise corroborated by the partnership signed by the studio with Crystal Dynamics, which would take an ever greater part in the development of the game, to the detriment of the studio initially opened for this purpose. .
Whatever the future holds for Joanna Dark, the classified case seems far from over...
On the same subject :Perfect Dark: The Initiative loses another important person to the project
