We have an interesting new rumor about The Initiative’s upcoming reboot of Perfect Dark.
Since it was announced in 2020, Microsoft was eerily quiet about the progress of the project. Rumors swirled that the game was ‘in a very rough state’, right until Microsoft showcased a gameplay trailer for it in last year’s Xbox Developer Direct.
As the first original game in the franchise after 2005’s Perfect Dark Zero, expectations were high, but a lot of fans also expected Microsoft to falter in development. That trailer was such a good showing that it did quiet down a lot of that FUD.
Subsequently, we reported last October that Perfect Dark surprisingly picked up a new creative director in Brian Horton. Brian was previously creative director for Marvel’s Wolverine, until he quit Insomniac. While Insomniac did have people ready to take over the position, with Insomniac founder Ted Price now leaving the studio, that FUD certainly seems to have switched places between the two projects.
As shared on the GamingLeaksAndRumours subreddit by user Jasonvsfreddyvs, The Initiative has a new job listing on their website looking for someone who can:
“Optimize and ensure the scalability of the rendering features to support multiple platforms and quality settings.”
Subsequently, eXtas1s claims that this is evidence that Microsoft plans to publish Perfect Dark on the PlayStation 5 and the Switch 2.
If true, it will be the first time a Perfect Dark game will be coming to a PlayStation console. It will also be a very interesting homecoming for the franchise to its original home with Nintendo. But we don’t know enough about this title to assess if it would be credible that The Initiative and Crystal Dynamics have designed a game that can be scalable in that way.
What we would point out is that it’s possible this listing merely indicates The Initiative needs more hands to bring the games to the platforms it’s already expected to arrive. Xbox Series X|S may not be flexible when it comes to specs, but PC and the cloud are. On top of that, Microsoft is incentivized to make this game in such a way that it can be played on SteamOS, and also on a PC gaming handheld that’s running Windows.
As Phil Spencer has kept clarifying Microsoft’s stance on third party ports, while they no longer have red lines on what games they will bring to other platforms, not every game they shipped will actually make the trip. Even if Phil believes in meeting players where they are, we can see situations where it still isn’t possible to bring over Microsoft’s entire slate to PlayStation or Nintendo, as some fanboy seem convinced is imminent.
We already know Bethesda and GSC Game World are uninterested in bringing Starfield and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl to PlayStation 5, respectively. So while this rumor is certainly interesting, we wouldn’t put weight on it until Microsoft actually confirms it.
