One of the most beloved stealth shooters of the 2000s, Rare’s Perfect Dark is still remembered fondly to this day. For years, we’ve been patiently waiting for its ambitious reboot to arrive – a tumultuous development cycle means it’s been a long time coming. Last year, we finally got to see gameplay of the new Perfect Dark, and it looked absolutely stunning. However, as part of today’s devastating round of layoffs at Microsoft, which impacts several teams under the Xbox Game Studios banner, the project has been canceled. It also means that The Initiative, the internal studio formed by Xbox to create the Perfect Dark reboot, has been shut down completely.
After watching its gameplay reveal during last year’s Xbox showcase, I genuinely believed that the new Perfect Dark could one day end up on our best stealth games list. Even though the 2000 original was a bit before my time, the reboot’s blend of stealth, urban traversal, and immersive sim elements seemed right up my street. The gunplay also looked excellent, and anything with slow motion bullet time gets a thumbs up from me. Sadly, you and I will never get the chance to play it.
As news of the Xbox layoffs spread throughout the day, Perfect Dark was being touted as one of the projects at risk alongside Rare’s Everwild and an unannounced new IP from the creators of The Elder Scrolls Online.
In a statement sent to employees by Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios, these rumors have been confirmed. Not only is Perfect Dark canceled, but The Initiative is also shutting its doors for good.
“We have made the decision to stop development of Perfect Dark and Everwild as well as wind down several unannounced projects across our portfolio,” Booty writes in the statement, which was obtained by Windows Central. “As part of this, we are closing one of our studios, The Initiative. These decisions, along with other changes across our teams, reflect a broader effort to adjust priorities and focus resources to set up our teams for greater success within a changing industry landscape. We did not make these choices lightly, as each project and team represent years of effort, imagination, and commitment.”
The Initiative was spun up in 2018, with Perfect Dark being its first and only project. The studio was also being assisted by Tomb Raider trilogy developer Crystal Dynamics.
Perfect Dark is one of several major upcoming PC games that have been scrapped this year already. Monolith suffered a similar fate to The Initiative, with its Wonder Woman game getting axed and the studio shut down. A co-op Transformers game from the folks at Splash Damage has also been canceled, and so too has promising platformer Earthblade from the studio that made Celeste.
