It's been a longer than expected road for the return of Joanna Dark. After Perfect Dark was surprisingly revealed at the 2020 Game Awards, updates regarding the shooter seemingly dried up. Although The Initiative, Microsoft's first party studio in the heart of Santa Monica, California, managed to attract all sorts of veteran developers from established studios like Respawn, Blizzard, BioWare, Naughty Dog, and more, a substantial amount of talent had been leaving the project entirely.
In fact, high profile departures weren't the only issues going on as recent reports painted an overall dire picture at The Initiative. Perfect Dark's development had seemingly hit a major roadblock as rumors and reports hinted that over half of the game's core team had departed due to various issues including the game's direction and the studios "top down" hierarchy approach. However, leadership, such as studio head Darrell Gallagher, remain committed and confident, while also being bolstered by the arrival of Crystal Dynamics to help work on the project.
While there has been little to no official updates from Microsoft regarding Perfect Dark in quite some time, it seems the addition of Crystal Dynamics has proven to be a major boon to the game's progress. On a recent 'The Xbox Two' podcast episode featuring Jez Corden and Rand al Thor, the duo were ranking each Xbox Game Studios based on how excited they were for the games being worked on. For both individuals, studios such as Obsidian, Bethesda, and Machine Games ranked near the top thanks in large part to upcoming titles like Outer Worlds 2, Starfield, and the upcoming Indiana Jones title.
.
However, the two differed on a number of studios including The Initiative. For Jez, The Initiative was pushed all the way down into the lowest "D" category due to the project's negativity and the amount of people leaving. Interestingly enough, Corden then admitted that after making this list, they were contacted by an individual who indicated that Perfect Dark's development has been coming along really well. When pressed for more details, Corden promptly declined to say anything more.
Without much to go on and while this is still just speculation and nothing official, it would seem that Crystal Dynamic's arrival has proven to be the spark that the project needed to overcome many of its issues. The good news is, Crystal Dynamics appears to be in it for the long haul, even after being sold off by Square Enix earlier this year for $300 million. After being acquired by The Embracer Group, some fans were worried about the state of the project, which was later addressed by The Iniative in a Tweet, who also went on to confirm that "great progress" has been made as both teams continue to work together.
Perfect Dark is in development.