There was a lot of hype built up around the new studio under Microsoft’s Xbox division. Years ago, it was revealed that The Initiative had been established and was cooking something up. The problem was that we didn’t know what they were working on for years. But eventually, we found out that the game they would be bringing out as their debut title was a reboot of the Perfect Dark franchise. It was a huge announcement, and fans were ecstatic, but then came the hiatus.
That hiatus took ages to get through before it looked like any real movement was happening. Now we know there was plenty of work being done, including some notable milestones. However, we all know how this story ends. Earlier this year, it was revealed that Microsoft was dialing things back, and with it came a slew of cancellations, including Perfect Dark and the shuttering of The Initiative.
Perfect Dark Actress Says Multiple Milestones Were Hit
We would love to know more about the workings behind this project. Perhaps more information will come out eventually. However, it was recently brought up again during a conversation with The Gamer and Alix Wilton Regan, the actress who was portraying Joanna Dark in this now-cancelled game. During their conversation, Alix noted that she was just as surprised as everyone else. According to the actress, they had been working hard from 2023 to 2024. The team even achieved some milestones. As noted in the publication, these milestones was something the client was happy with.
We were basically recording bits and bobs throughout ’23. We were also doing lots of performance capture for it in ’24, and we were even recording more stuff for it in ’25. To my knowledge, we were pretty far along. I’d done entire chapters of this universe.
What really came as a disappointment to the team, including Alix, was that work was being done to keep the project alive. Talks were underway to keep Perfect Dark going, but that ultimately fell through and prompted the entire project to go down the drain. Of course, just how far into development the team was with this game is still a mystery. Perhaps it was still too far away from a finish line to justify another team coming in to aid in its production.
Initially, when it made it to the press that Perfect Dark was being defunded, a lot of people reached out for comments about it, both in the media, as well as personally, friends, and professionally, colleagues.
I couldn’t say too much about it because I knew The Initiative was in talks to keep Perfect Dark up and running in some shape or form. Possibly a slimmed-down version, possibly something slightly different. But certainly, everyone was working really hard behind the scenes to bring Perfect Dark back. And then one day, I heard from the creative director that the deal hadn’t gone through, and that really everything had fallen apart, and production was fully stopping.
It’s really unfortunate we won’t see Perfect Dark return to the limelight, and, of course, all the job losses that came with the cancellation. As for Alix, she has another role that was being worked on alongside her time with Perfect Dark, and that’s the upcoming Tomb Raider games as the iconic Lara Croft.
