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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

 

[Lazyt]

gone for good

 

[XDel]

Wasn't remade once already on the XBOX One or something?

And is this commercial about reality or a video game? Great Reset 100%

 

[CloudStrife190100]

The last one on the 360 was trash so i doubt this will be any different

 

[Chary]

Despite all the studio acquisitions, it seems like a lot of Microsoft games are having their devs drop like flies

 

[The Catboy]

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

 

[FAST6191]

Was not even aware of this happening, much less failing. Oh well. Probably nothing to be upset over anyway. Slow pace of progress is also a curious notion to be uttered by a dev. Don't tend to see that one.

Wasn't remade once already on the XBOX One or something?

The original N64 title got a seriously enhanced version released as XBLA on the 360 (higher res graphics, way better framerate, online multiplayer, few tweaks here and there) back in 2010, and was also included in the Rare Replay collection on the xbone. As far as I am concerned it is still a top game that has things to teach games today -- what peasants we were back then to have 4 player local co-op, 20+ multiplayer maps that were not all streamlined 3 lane nonsense you could customise the setups for massively, mutators, whole bunch of game modes and bots you could do the same to, plus challenges...

There was also a prequel of sorts in Perfect Dark Zero that was a launch/very very early title on the 360 (late 2005) with all that such things entail. It was not the absolute worst thing out there in retrospect (there was certainly far worse released later on the 360) but it is generally regarded by fans of the N64 effort as deviating a lot from story, gameplay styles, themes and whatever else in a bad way. I certainly would not suggest it outside of morbid curiosity if you were/find yourself a fan of the N64/XBLA version. Is also included in Rare replay on the xbone.

There was also a GBC title doing a somewhat prequel story that technically could link to the N64 one. Very few will have particularly fond memories of it today but there might be some.

 

[MikaDubbz]

From what I've seen, this is far from the first time that Perfect Dark reboots and sequels have failed to take off, as I recall reading about a few other cancelled projects for the series. Is anyone really dying for more of this series as it is? I mean I enjoyed the story of the first game back in the day, but it's not something I was begging for more of, and with plenty of other shooters out there, including those in the sci-fi genre like Halo, it's hard for me to understand where Perfect Dark could even fit in that landscape.

 

[Randy Steele]

Kinda weird to reboot a series that only had two mainline titles and only one good one (Unless Zero is a spinoff title being a prequel, I'm not sure). Maybe it isn't weird, I don't know. My point is that maybe they should've tried to make a decent third game before deciding to reboot the entire francise.
I remember even as like a 13 year old I couldn't really get any enjoyment out of Perfect Dark zero and barely played it. It was pretty for the time I guess but I played it on a CRT so the graphics improvement was pretty negligible.

 

[FAST6191]

From what I've seen, this is far from the first time that Perfect Dark reboots and sequels have failed to take off, as I recall reading about a few other cancelled projects for the series. Is anyone really dying for more of this series as it is? I mean I enjoyed the story of the first game back in the day, but it's not something I was begging for more of, and with plenty of other shooters out there, including those in the sci-fi genre like Halo, it's hard for me to understand where Perfect Dark could even fit in that landscape.

Halo is a several hundreds of years into the future military effort, Perfect Dark is a 15 minutes into the future (I know some COD and battlefield efforts that nobody cares about have since gone back there) espionage type effort. Certainly both have sci fi elements (you do have things like AI and aliens involved in most of PD) but I don't know that I would particularly draw a line between them. Not really sure what we have for espionage type things either; Ghost Recon is kind of still a thing, and they will probably do something with Splinter Cell before long, Watch_dogs is maybe something there but still a fairly different property. Skew it back towards the "doesn't take itself too seriously/might as well be classic James Bond" thing but in said 15 minutes into the future setting and that gets far harder.

As far as story wise then I can't say I am gagging to have a continuation of it or anything but it was fun enough that I could stand to revisit it, and done well then most things can drag people back in (people seem very excited about the new Halo despite nobody really caring since 3/ODST or indeed just before 4 disappointed everybody). If they want to give me 4 player local co-op of a similar customisability to the N64/XBLA effort then I am there day 1 -- Halo, COD, battlefield and battle royale do get so very tedious.

 

[Purple_Shyguy]

What a trainwreck.

I had 0 expectations that a PD reboot in 202X would be good anyway. Especially not when they mentioned it would be about "eco terrorism".

 

[MasterJ360]

idk maybe the staff got woke and realized shooter games are just too generic these days.

 

[Subtle Demise]

Wasn't remade once already on the XBOX One or something?

And is this commercial about reality or a video game? Great Reset 100%

Yeah the original was for 360 and is backwards compatible with Xbox One. This one was supposed to be a new game in the series, but looks like it will be cancelled or become DNF/2077/Too Human'd

I was kinda hoping they'd go with the character designs of PDZero, but I doubt it in this age lol

 

[CeeDee]

Who needs it anyways the N64 game still reigns supreme in my heart

 

[FAST6191]

What a trainwreck.

I had 0 expectations that a PD reboot in 202X would be good anyway. Especially not when they mentioned it would be about "eco terrorism".

The Rainbox Six franchise managed it reasonably well.

Who needs it anyways the N64 game still reigns supreme in my heart

Do you see the world in 10fps? I put countless hours into it until well after the N64 was old but these days I can't play that version at all. XBLA version, and by extension I guess Rare Replay, all day long though.

 

[eyeliner]

How funny that those who left are principals, leads, seniors and other "I have a meeting coming up".

Let them meet, preferably in the unemployment line.

If they rant about slow progress, who are they blaming? The man? The one who pays the bills and wants a product to sell, or themselves for not being up to the task and keep a decent rate of output?

Maybe we'll get the game after all. But I see it as another Prey. Nothing alike it's predecessor.

@monkeyman4412
For some reason, my phone had this in the autocomplete.

 

[Subtle Demise]

The Rainbox Six franchise managed it reasonably well.

Do you see the world in 10fps? I put countless hours into it until well after the N64 was old but these days I can't play that version at all. XBLA version, and by extension I guess Rare Replay, all day long though.

Yeah the remaster is the definitive version of that game. I do like PDZ a little bit though. Not as horrible as people made it out to be at the time, just seems rushed and unfinished, and pales in comparison to its predecessor. I'm glad I didn't get my hopes up for this new entry

 

[Kioku]

Do you see the world in 10fps? I put countless hours into it until well after the N64 was old but these days I can't play that version at all. XBLA version, and by extension I guess Rare Replay, all day long though.

Been playing it again on the N64, and this is just a gross over-exaggeration as to how it performs. I do agree that the XBLA/Rare Replay version is superior in every aspect. I hope they bring it to PC with KBM support in tow. Played the game on a modified emulator to allow KBM support, where PD and Goldeneye are a lot of fun. A pipe dream, but still hopeful nonetheless.

 

[FAST6191]

How funny that those who left are principals, leads, seniors and other "I have a meeting coming up".

Let them meet, preferably in the unemployment line.

If they rant about slow progress, who are they blaming? The man? The one who pays the bills and wants a product to sell, or themselves for not being up to the task and keep a decent rate of output?

If I am doing the benefit of the doubt thing then it could be overbearing bosses with too many restrictions, too great a set of ambitions, not enough people assigned to the team and whatever else. Can't say I have heard of this happening too much in the general history of Microsoft but this is a new company/sub division based in LA so who knows.
If 90% of the talks, interviews and whatnot given on developing a given game are anything to go by then it seems almost default for people in the games world to work without a concrete specification/plan (be it technologies employed, general plot of the story, character arcs/overviews*, mechanics of the game as well** as a vision for uniting the lot), which is utter heresy in any other field of engineering (can safely say all my biggest failures have been when I did not insist on a spec/desired end result be hammered out). If they are operating under that paradigm with everybody more or less doing their own thing and hoping it will come together in the end then that can very easily grind everything to a halt and force everybody to redo work/scrap work or write some awful code to get things to speak to each other, especially if it is going to be a custom engine you are playing with (doubt Microsoft is going to be buying in Unreal or unity or something for this). In which case +1.

*something like

** https://coppermind.net/wiki/Sanderson's_Laws_of_Magic if I am continuing with me links to fun things, even if it is more fictional magic systems than strictly game mechanics.

 

[krakenx]

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.

Senior staff should consider giving their devs, especially ones that are this talented, some creative freedom. Clearly, trying to force them to make a bad product for business reasons isn't actually costing less when they leave in protest. Who knows, the business side might even end up with a product consumers actually want as a side effect!