Every reboot of a franchise comes with the same question: should new players play the previous games? Fable is one good example of the question. It's been a long time since the fantasy RPG franchise was in the spotlight, so the Fable reboot's player base will probably include a lot of new fans who aren't familiar with everything that came before. Whether or not fans need to play the first games to appreciate the Fable reboot is a little unclear; public details on the game are few and far between. Another game in a similar situation is Perfect Dark. The Initiative has shared very little about the game so far, and so some Xbox fans might be unsure if they should start there.

In some respects, fans can be sure that The Initiative's take on Perfect Dark will be completely different from previous games. There hasn't been a Perfect Dark game since 2010, so the next-gen technology that The Initiative can work with will make the new Perfect Dark look and handle completely differently from previous games. However, there's still a lot of basic elements that could cross over from the previous games, like stealth and first-person shooting. The question is how much of the original Perfect Dark games The Initiative wants to preserve.

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Questions of Narrative

Perfect Dark

The original two Perfect Dark games had very different narratives. While one of them focused on aliens coming to earth and making deals with human corporations, the other focused on humans fighting over a supernatural artifact. The biggest common thread between the two was Joanna Dark herself, as well as the corporations involved. In that sense, new fans might get something out of playing the old Perfect Dark games before the reboot. They'll give fans some background on Joanna Dark, as well as on dataDyne, the morally dubious corporation that frequently serves as her opponent. Both Joanna and dataDyne look like they're coming back in the Perfect Dark reboot, which franchise veterans might find meaningful.

The core narrative in the Perfect Dark reboot is very different, though. Where the old games focused on forces beyond human limitations, the Perfect Dark reboot looks like it's going to focus very much on human achievement, both good and bad. Its eco sci-fi narrative is seemingly putting power in the hands of humanity and examining how humans treat their world. In that sense, there might be a lot of dissonance between the Perfect Dark reboot's story and the original games, which involved pretty traditional sci-fi. On the whole, there might not be a whole lot of story elements in common between the reboot and Rare's original games.

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Perfect Dark Past and Present

joanna dark perfect dark reboot

Beyond narrative, there's all kinds of core gameplay questions about Perfect Dark that are hard to answer right now. However, there's plenty that can be guessed at. Joanna Dark is a corporate spy at her core, and so it's only logical that the stealth components of Perfect Dark's gameplay will carry over. It's also clear that shooter elements will carry over, but it's hard to say if The Initiative will keep first-person or go for third-person in the reboot. Either way, though, experiencing the previous games will probably give fans an idea of what to expect once the reboot rolls around.

The final conclusion, then, is that it probably is worth it to replay the old games before The Initiative's take on Perfect Dark releases. Even though the reboot is largely a mystery, there's lots of basic traits of the original Perfect Dark games that will almost surely carry over. There's no obligation to play the old games, of course, since it's likely that the franchise is starting over fresh in new hands. Still, there's plenty of Perfect Dark themes and traditions that are worth appreciating ahead of the new game.

Perfect Dark is in development.

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