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At the 2020 Game Awards, it was announced that The Initiative, a new studio founded in 2018, was working on a reboot of the classic Rare property Perfect Dark. The studio is headed by Darrell Gallagher, former head of Square Enix's Crystal Dynamics, and the Perfect Dark reboot was to be directed by Daniel Neuburger, who had helped direct the Tomb Raider reboot in 2013, along with Rise of the Tomb Raider, for Crystal Dynamics. News has been quiet on the game since then, except for an announcement in September that Crystal Dynamics would be assisting the production.

However, in the last week, people have noticed that a large number of staff have left the studio recently. A user on ResetEra noticed that, according to his LinkedIn, Neuburger had left the studio after three years and eight months. Following up on this, VGC investigated the LinkedIn profiles of others associated with the studio, and found that 34 people had quit the studio in the last year, which is about half of the team known to be working on the Perfect Dark reboot. This includes, in addition to the game director, the design director, lead level designer, principal world builder, technical director, tech art director, lead gameplay engineer, lead animator, QA lead, two senior system designers, two senior writers, and more. Many of these departures reportedly align with the announcement of Crystal Dynamics coming on as co-developer.

VGC spoke to several former senior staff members who blamed the departures on a lack of creative freedom and slow progress, and said they believe the project's momentum to be "heavily affected" at this point. Several of VGC's sources agreed that the game has likely had a "soft reboot" and is still several years away from release.

In a statement to VGC, The Initiative head Darrell Gallagher expressed confidence in his team, and pointed to industry-wide staffing issues during the pandemic.

It’s no small task to build a studio and reinvent a beloved franchise. In creating The Initiative, we set out to leverage co-development partnerships to achieve our ambitions, and we’re really excited about all the progress we’re seeing with our relationship with Crystal Dynamics. In this journey, it’s not uncommon for there to be staffing changes, especially during a time of global upheaval over the last two years, and there’s plenty more work in front of us to deliver a fantastic Perfect Dark experience to our players. We wish all our former colleagues the very best, and I’m confident in the team we have in place, the new talent joining, and we can’t wait to share more with the fans.

Source

 

[The Catboy]

I thought CatBoy was even more evil than that

You are correct about my evil but incorrect about me doing this one. Unfortunately, this remake was ruined by Microsoft and Microsoft operates without me. If it was ruined by Linux, then you would know I had some involvement.

 

[64bitmodels]

that sucks, but judging by how the 360 game sucked by most people's admission it's safe to say that not much of value was lost. we need timesplitters back

 

[64bitmodels]

Just get the old rareware devs on it, and it won't be shit.

time to buy out nintendo i guess

 

[FAST6191]

that sucks, but judging by how the 360 game sucked by most people's admission it's safe to say that not much of value was lost.

I don't know that you can draw a line there.

This is a new game, several generations on from last one (it is possible that being a 360 launch title that it was originally for the original xbox as well but got shuffled to have a heavy hitter on launch), new studio in new country.

What, if anything, remains of the prototypes for sequels or whatever from then is almost irrelevant. I would want to see some art, some kind of gameplay vertical or mechanic example, story script, design document and from that try to do some kind of lost potential. Had it been a year or two from the 360 version where chances are it would be a tarted up version of the engine and artwork then different matter entirely.

 

[ChibiMofo]

Seems like Microsoft still doesn’t understand that just throwing money and buying studios isn’t enough to make games happen

So after nearly 50 years of winning in the software industry, MSFT doesn't understand that simple concept. Astonishing how successful they have been in spite of that.
Ok Sony Fanboy.

 

[The Catboy]

So after nearly 50 years of winning in the software industry, MSFT doesn't understand that simple concept. Astonishing how successful they have been in spite of that.
Ok Sony Fanboy.

I am more of a Nintendo fan, I actually don’t care for Sony. Microsoft’s history has just been throwing so much money at something that they suffocated the market. Microsoft’s history is full of anticompetitive practices and throwing money until something succeeds. But this isn’t an example of their practices working and the history of Microsoft ruining Rare and their IPs is nothing new.

 

[Takokeshi]

Wasn't Perfect enough, I suppose.

 

[omgcat]

No, it was a shit prequel, a total bag of wank.

But what do you expect from microshit, they buy out studios so they can appeal to a market, then fuck it up.

Just like the recent studios, only doing it so they can push its digital only service and without their games on board then they'd have fuck all.

Microshit are just doing plan b when they tried to prevent and block gamers selling and buying games, its digital only service hits that nail in the coffin.

No more being able to buy and play pre owned games.

Welcome sheep to our consoles suckers, enjoy trying to sell or trade your console in, you'll get fuck all for it.

you know the series x still has a disc drive and it's games can be picked up at gamestop? on the other hand i converted 3 years of standard gold xbl (gift from a brother who works for MS) to gamepass ultimate for $1 during that deal they ran a while back. it's like 70ish dollars for 1 year of gamepass ultimate which includes the online service and literally more games than i could ever play. on top of that i get a crap load of pc games on top. the current gen consoles i have are series x, powerful pc, and switch (lol current gen), but i plan on getting the ps5 once it's easier to grab.

gamepass is just a good deal, period. buy the games you can't get on it used from gamestop. ezpz

 

[Subtle Demise]

that sucks, but judging by how the 360 game sucked by most people's admission it's safe to say that not much of value was lost. we need timesplitters back

Apparently TS is coming back, but I'm not holding my breath for that either. If you're talking about PDZero, it's not that bad of a game, and the designs of the female characters are really nice. It pales in comparison to the original, of course. I'm pretty sure you don't mean the 360 remake of the original, because that game is perfect (pun intended).

 

[64bitmodels]

Apparently TS is coming back, but I'm not holding my breath for that either. If you're talking about PDZero, it's not that bad of a game, and the designs of the female characters are really nice. It pales in comparison to the original, of course. I'm pretty sure you don't mean the 360 remake of the original, because that game is perfect (pun intended).

epic, hopefully it has the artstyle from the older games and isnt generic and realistic like a lot of remakes are. fingers crossed

 

[LoggerMan]

Couldn't Microsoft get the Call of Duty team to consult on Perfect Dark?

 

[FAST6191]

Couldn't Microsoft get the Call of Duty team to consult on Perfect Dark?

Who let you in from the darker than dark timeline?