A reboot of Perfect Dark was first unveiled at The Game Awards in 2020 from developer The Initiative. The reveal was accompanied by a CGI trailer that gave us a brief glimpse into the world and setting of the game but according to developers, it’s still years away from release as the studio faces development issues.
A new report from IGN reveals that The Initiative and Crystal Dynamics are apparently only at the beginning phases of Perfect Dark‘s development. The reveal trailer was created by an external CG house and according to one developer, it was “very obviously way far ahead of anywhere the game was at.” Another developer who was working at The Initiative at the time stated, “we hadn’t even figured out any of our core game mechanics. We didn’t even really know what type of game we were making.”
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Multiple sources have claimed that development on the Perfect Dark reboot is still “in the earliest stages of development”, estimating that it’s still roughly 2-3 years off from release. Several more details about Perfect Dark – or at least its lofty ambitions – were revealed in the lengthy report which is worth reading. The game reportedly started development with a clear vision of having a balance of action and espionage elements that would ideally feel like a Mission: Impossible movie.
IGN revealed that while the core ideas remained consistent throughout Perfect Dark’s development, some of its ideas “were pitched, prototyped and then scrapped for something completely different over and over again.” Sources claim that while this isn’t out of the ordinary during the initial stages of game development, the process started to drag on when the team was being faced with the same shifting ideas two or three years into its cycle.
Users replying in the comments believe that there are issues with upper management at Xbox that’s failing to properly handle and manage problems that arise from its first-party studios. A similar issue was presented during Redfall‘s development where some Arkane sources reportedly stated that they had wished Xbox would step in to either cancel or reboot the project as many felt that the game wasn’t meeting the studio’s standards. Xbox boss Phil Spencer later apologised and admitted that Microsoft could’ve been more hands-on with Arkane and Redfall.
The Perfect Dark reboot is currently being co-developed by The Initiative and Crystal Dynamics.
Source: IGN
