We’ve heard plenty of talk, but seen very little for it when it comes to Xbox and The Initiative’s Perfect Dark reboot title. It was, however, revealed earlier in the year that Tomb Raider, and The Avengers developer, Crystal Dynamics was being brought on board the project to help see it through to completion. Many were concerned by this news, fearing that it meant the game was in a state of turmoil to necessitate the assistance of a studio that was outside of the Xbox Game Studios umbrella. Now the team in question, Crystal Dynamics, fresh from acquisition by the Embracer Group has spoken about the state of the game that they’re in there to help develop, and if you’re a Perfect Dark fan, you should feel pretty buoyed by what they had to say.
Crystal Dynamics and Eidos CEO Phil Rogers today addressed invested parties during Embracer Group’s latest earnings call to address a number of issues, including the response to the recent Legacy Of Kain questionnaire, as well as the state of their work on Perfect Dark. Thanks to the great folk at Video Games Chronicle for transcribing, we now have a new look into the state of the rebooted title. Speaking about the game, Rogers said,
We’re working on the iconic Perfect Dark game and the project is going extremely well.
What’s been so promising internally is seeing how our team took on this opportunity, a new way of working. If we think about the future of how we work, collaboration across studios, across time zones, across geographies, across different companies, will all become more common, so it is great to see the team at The Initiative and our team across Crystal studios working so well together.
The comments from Rogers mirror what Microsoft’s head of Xbox Game Studios, Matt Booty, said of the project during PAX West several months ago where he declared
So, we just did this big partnership with Crystal Dynamics, and I read online, ‘oh, this must mean there’s a problem or something’ – it’s quite the opposite, right?
You’ve got this veteran team at Crystal Dynamics, a big AAA team with over 100 people that becomes available. Of course we want to work with them, particularly if they’ve made a game like that before.
During that same Q&A, Booty made several comparisons to other studios, both internal and external that were partnering together on projects, reflecting on how this model was becoming closer to the industry standard in 2022 and beyond. Either way, it’s great to hear that on both sides of the fence, it’s seeming as though Perfect Dark is in great shape.