It has been less leadership changes and more just the work of building a studio. We were doing a lot of of experimenting with remote and hybrid, how we could attract talent, some of it worked, some of it didn't. You don't have the shared history, you don't have the people that have worked together for five and ten years. 'Number two has got to be starting up a new studio. Number two has got to be starting up a new studio,' Booty said, explaining how The Initiative has gone through an employee reboot as of late. “VGC’s sources agreed that they would be surprised if Crystal Dynamics’ introduction, combined with the significant departures of core staff, hadn’t triggered an effective soft reboot of Perfect Dark and that it was likely still years away from release,” the VGC report said.'I think one of the most difficult things of the last few years has been filing a big game on the scale of a Halo or a Battlefield during the conditions that we had. There’s no doubt that the pandemic has made video game development more complicated than ever, and it could be a while before we get any updates about this Perfect Dark reboot from The Initiative. Nearly six months after launch, the game is still missing Campaign co-op and the fan-favorite Forge map editor mode, which are two things most Halo fans were probably taking for granted. Microsoft did beat Sony as the highest-rated publisher of 2021 on Metacritic, but a game like Halo Infinite had a notoriously difficult development cycle with several top management changes and a one-year delay.

Overall, this report is a good illustration of Microsoft’s struggles as a major video game publisher impacted by a global pandemic. Perfect Dark made a failed comeback on the Xbox 360 with the poorly-received Perfect Dark: Zero, and it’s safe to say that The Initiative and Crystal Dynamics both have a lot of pressure on their shoulders to deliver a reboot that is as memorable as the original. For those unfamiliar, Perfect Dark is one of the most iconic franchises from the Nintendo 64 era, being a spiritual successor to Rare’s cult-classic Goldeneye 007 game.

So far, the only thing we’ve seen from this Perfect Dark reboot is the CGI trailer shown at The Game Awards 2020. 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,” the exec said. “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. However, Darrell Gallagher, head of The Initiative tried to dismiss the impact of turnover on the project. While this 50 employees number sounds awfully small for a very ambitious studio, The Initiative actually announced a partnership with Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics back in September to co-develop this Perfect Dark reboot.įormer employees at The Initiative who spoke with VGC blamed constrained creativity, the lack of clear direction, and slow progress as the main reasons for their departures. Analysis suggests it hired around 12 people in the past 12 months,” the VGC report reads. “According to LinkedIn, The Initiative is now less than 50 people and currently has just three roles advertised on its website. In total, approximately 34 employees left the studio last year, including senior writers, the project’s lead level designer and technical director, and more. The Initiative saw a long list of top talent leaving the studio in recent months, including design director Drew Murray and game director Dan Neuburger. The Initiative, the new “AAAA” Microsoft studio working on the new Perfect Dark game is reportedly being affected by high turnover, with almost half of the core development team leaving the company during the last year. The development of Microsoft’s Perfect Dark reboot is apparently not going so well according to a new report from Video Games Chronicle.

Perfect dark reboot