Xbox’s Perfect Dark reboot remains “in the earliest stages” of development and is likely still 2-3 years away from release, it’s been claimed.
That’s according to new accounts of the game’s troubled development cycle provided toIGNby 13 people who have worked on it across three different studios.
Recent plans also reportedly appear to be leaning toward some form of episodic release forPerfect Dark, although this could yet change given how far out the game remains.
Led by Darrell Gallagher, who was formerly head of development atActivisionandSquare Enix, first-partyXboxstudioThe Initiativehas been working on Perfect Dark since its establishment in 2018.
A secret agent thriller set in a near-future world, the game will be the first new instalment in the series sinceRare’s Perfect Dark Zero launched alongside theXbox 360in 2005.
Whilethe project was announced in 2020, nothing has been shown of it since following years of setbacks that have stalled development.
These reportedly include a fraught co-development partnership withCertain Affinity, which worked on the game between 2019 and 2021, and high attrition at The Initiative.
VGC reported in March 2022 that the Xbox studio hadseen a “fast and furious” wave of senior departuresover the previous year.
It was announced in September 2021 that Xbox had partnered withCrystal Dynamicsto co-develop the game, and IGN claims the project was essentially restarted from scratch in Unreal 5 last year.
Its sources describe Perfect Dark as a narrative-focused FPS mixing combat and espionage with spy gadgets and some experimental movement tech. It’s now reportedly moving in the right direction, even if there’s a long way to go yet.
Further reading
Xbox Game Studios bossMatt Booty, who said last year thatthe days of single studios working on large-scale games were “long gone”, told IGN he had a “full review” of Perfect Dark in May.
Following “all the bumps in the road and the hiccups”, he claimed The Initiative and Crystal Dynamics have now “hit their rhythm” on the game.
