After a long period of silence regarding The Initiative's Perfect Dark, co-development studio Crystal Dynamics provides an encouraging update on the game's development. It's been quite the lengthly road for Perfect Dark, after initially being revealed two years ago at The Game Awards, things have not gone particularly well. Set as the debut title from Microsoft's The Initiative, the studio has since seen high level talent leave, amid reports of less than favorable work conditions and lack of direction.

While leadership has refuted these claims, Microsoft ended up bringing in Crystal Dynamics earlier this year to help co-develop the title. While many fans saw this as a concerning development for Perfect Dark, the move has clearly been a positive move overall based on recent reports and updates from those involved. Back in September, Head of Xbox Studios Matt Booty provided an update that not only was it a logical move, but both sides have benefited from working together on the game.

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While there's still a ton that players don't know about Perfect Dark, updates on its development have been seemingly coming much faster than before. The most recent update came from the Embracer Group's earnings call where Crystal Dynamics and Eidos CEO Phil Rogers indicated that not only is work progressing on Perfect Dark, but the project is "going extremely well." Rogers echoed similar comments made by Matt Booty regarding studio collaborations being more beneficial for large AAA style games.

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Rogers went on to say that it was promising to see how well the Crystal Dynamics team has taken to the opportunity and the new way of working. In fact, things have gone so well in the eyes of leadership that this style of collaborative work could be a major piece to how future development is done, especially with the various studios under the Embracer brand.

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.

While collaboration on a game this size and scale isn't very common at this point, Microsoft has had a long history of co-developing titles with third party studios. Even in just the past few months, Microsoft has worked with Asobo Studio on Flight Simulator, Relic Studios on Age of Empires 4, and Blackbird with Minecraft Legends. Going back even a bit further, the Xbox One console featured Double Helix and Iron Galaxy on Killer Instinct, while Certain Affinity has been a major piece to the development of various Halo titles alongside 343 Industries.

Perfect Dark is in development.

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Source: Embracer