Alright, so get this — Xbox Game Studios decides to pull the plug on the new Perfect Dark game. Yeah, the one they announced back in 2020 as their big debut from The Initiative. Who would’ve thought, right? Matt Booty (what a name), who’s like the boss over there, broke the news about shutting down The Initiative in a memo. I heard it from Windows Central, but anyway — back to the chaos at hand.
So Booty’s like, “We’re stopping Perfect Dark, Everwild, and a bunch of secret projects too.” Apparently, they’re also closing down The Initiative. Tough call, huh? But, Booty says it’s all about redirecting energy and focus to, I dunno, align with the crazy gaming industry changes or something. It’s wild considering how much blood, sweat, and tears go into these things.
Flashback to The Game Awards 2020, and Microsoft comes out swinging, parading Perfect Dark like it’s the next big thing. Fast forward a couple years to 2024, and they’re yammering about sci-fi and saving the planet. Seriously, it’s like a rollercoaster, except the track just vanished.
Booty kept going on about a futuristic tech war — think million lives at stake. Joanna Dark, our main gal, was gonna be sneaky, whipping out parkour moves, fiddling with gadgets — the works. Total mash-up of first-person shooting meets stealth-action vibes. Almost sounds awesome, doesn’t it?
And oh, the team? The Initiative with Crystal Dynamics were supposed to work this out for Xbox and PC folks. Release date? Yeah, right. Like that ever existed.
Going down memory lane here, the OG Perfect Dark hit Nintendo 64 in 2000 — feels like another lifetime. It got a facelift for Xbox 360 in 2010. Rare even tried a Game Boy Color spin-off in 2000 and dropped a prequel, Perfect Dark Zero, in 2005. Those were the days, huh?
But now, well, it is what it is. Guess something else’ll pop up to fill the void. Or maybe Joanna Dark just walks into the sunset for now — who knows.
