Perfect Dark is Now Actually Led by Crystal Dynamics

On March 15, speaking to VGC, a number of The Initiative's employees talked about the wave of departures that they referred to as "fast and furious" and the problems in the development of Perfect Dark reboot. Now, the site's sources have added that the development of the title is now actually led by Crystal Dynamics, which was brought in at the end of 2021.

Senior Editor for Windows Central, Jez Corden, also tried to look into the situation and noted that the players most likely shouldn't be worried about The Initiative and the state of Perfect Dark. According to information from his "trusted sources", the format of the studio became the cause of disagreement about the game's reboot. "They emerged two schools of thought about how to develop Perfect Dark. One of them was: 'we hire the people in", the other school of thought was 'we remain small and build sort of high-quality indie level games'", said Corden.

Corden believes that the players had so many expectations from The Initiative's game that Microsoft itself didn't want to keep the studio small, and instead pushed it to develop AAA (or even AAAA) titles. Meanwhile, The Initiative was originally set to be a more independent studio with a flat organizational structure, over time, it became clear that this approach didn't work and the team didn't produce results.

Studio and Microsoft executives decided that The Initiative needed a new plan, and bringing in Crystal Dynamics was part of it. Corden also shared that, according to his sources, the remaining staff at The Initiative and Microsoft itself prefer this plan. "They're happy with this plan. What they've got now is that they're working towards their common goal for the first time and that the game is actually moving forward," he added.

Although such a move upset those who believed in the original vision of the studio, which invested heavily in its identity, resulting in multiple departures, Corden claims that the current teams have got "a vision in place" and are moving towards their common goal. "Maybe, getting to this point was a bit messy, but it sounds that they are in a good place now," he concluded.

You can learn more about The Initiative and the state of the Perfect Dark reboot by watching Windows Central Gaming's Checkpoint show. Also, don't forget to join our new Reddit page, our new Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram and Twitter, where we are sharing breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.