Rumor: Perfect Dark Will Be Shown Next Month, Not In Development Hell At All

We now have new rumors about the state of Perfect Dark.

We recently ran a rumor about the upcoming reboot of Perfect Dark from The Initiative and Crystal Dynamics being in a ‘rough state’. While that rumor was originally shared by Jeff Grubb, it was corroborated by other sources. But it seems that this rumor may have taken some wording out of proportion.

Recently, Jeff shared an update on Perfect Dark, calibrating what he meant and what he knows about the status of the game. He stands by his claim that some people called the state of the game ‘rough,’ but also revealed that not everyone working on the game feels that way.

In fact, other people working on the title feel that they have figured out most of the problems with the game, with the expectation that it will eventually come together. Jeff also made it clear that he did not say the game was in development hell.

In his words, “The game is not some special case that it’s falling apart.” It seems that Jeff’s statement refers to a project that simply is in the middle of development. At this stage, it is possible for a game to come undone or to coalesce into something brilliant, but it’s too early to really tell. And, really, it’s unfair to make any assessments when we don’t know yet.

But Jeff is not the only person who’s spoken up. Nate The Hate made this statement in the latest episode of the Spawncast:

“At this point, I fully expect that we will see Perfect Dark next month, and that some of the more recent rumors may have been outdated information, perhaps. Because I’ve been hearing things this week that Perfect Dark is not in that bad of a state.”

When Spawncast host Spawn Wave talked about how he still had trust in Crystal Dynamics, but also felt that nobody in Microsoft Gaming seems safe after the closures of Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks, Nate reiterated:

“I believe we’re going to see Perfect Dark next month.”

It’s certainly interesting to look at the original rumor from last week, and the people who corroborated Jeff Grubb’s original statement. As of this writing, we haven’t seen any follow up responses from Shinobi602, Alex Donaldson, and Liam Robertson on Jeff’s update. This is not to infer anything about their information or their sources, but it does say something about how information is shared by insiders.

But this is why we frequently share the warning that a rumor is not the same as confirmed information. Sometimes it does shed light on things we don’t know behind the scenes. However, if we’re only relying on people who have a contrary take on a situation, or don’t know what the real situation is, those rumors are just misinformation.

We report on rumors not to bolster their credibility, but because it is worthwhile to find out what people are saying behind the scenes. But we should always remember we don’t know these things for sure until when the people or organizations involved really corroborate them.